making smartbones makes my character vanish in action panel

[synthsin75]

You might try zooming out the timeline, sliding your top level layer as far over as you can in the Sequencer, and using the menu command Animation>Clear Animation>From Layer Before Current Frame.

[Greenlaw]

I finally got to check this. I zoomed out as far as I can go, slipped the top most Sequencer layer and it appears that there are negative keyframes on those items (I'm assuming the thin black line indicates the key frame.) However, when I look for the keys under Channels, there is nothing there. Clearing the layers or the entire document even has no affect on these 'invisible' keyframes. This is what I meant by 'corrupted' vector elements--it's as if keyframes exist for the elements but they are inaccessible and can't be deleted. Even is I cut the elements from their layers and paste them into new layers, the 'invisible' keyframes seem to carry over into the new layer. Very frustrating.

Thanks for the suggestion though--your tip did make it easier to find where the keyframes apparently exist, even if I can't actually see or delete them.

Anyway, I guess it's back to redrawing the rest of these elements from scratch.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Well, what do you know--after a bit of randomly clicking around on layers, the keyframes finally became visible on the timeline and I was able to delete them. Unfortunately, they won't stay deleted--I can delete the keyframes from one layer, and then I move to the next one to delete those keyframes, and when I go back to the first layer the keyframes will have mysteriously reappeared in that layer. Agh!

Madness! This particular scene is out to get me.

G.

[kphgraphics]

You might try zooming out the timeline, sliding your top level layer as far over as you can in the Sequencer, and using the menu command Animation>Clear Animation>From Layer Before Current Frame.

Thanks that fixed my issues, and let me deleted the points.

[Greenlaw]

I think mine is fixed too. It was very strange--the points kept stubbornly returning shortly after deletion, and just when I was about to give up, they finally stayed deleted. I saw this 'zombie keyframe' behavior earlier in the week too and that was in a variation of this same scene file. Hopefully, this bad voodoo magic stays with this scene file.

Anyway, thank you for your help! It looks like I can finally use Actions in this scene normally, and hopefully the 'zombies' are gone for good now.

G.

[synthsin75]

Glad to hear things are sorting out.

[Greenlaw]

Yay! Just about done with this 'problem' scene. Thanks for the help.

A new weird display issue came up during the process. It's not nearly as bad as the completely vanishing vectors problem but it's worth mentioning.

I'm noticing that when I create an Action, click on an Action or try to edit a vector layer, the vectors may lose their outline. It's not all the vectors, just the ones I've been having trouble with. This might only affect vectors in a particular Group--no time to test this right now.

Clicking in the viewport seems to bring the outlines back though, so this is probably just a refresh error. Could be a graphics card or driver issue. The tablet PC I'm using at the moment has built-in ATI graphics--when I get a chance, I'll check if this display error exists on my workstation which has an Nvidia card.

Has anybody seen this behavior before?

This might be happening because I went back to using a Group layer for all the 'head' parts (really had to do it,) as the error appears to only affect the items in the Group. On the other hand, the problems I was having earlier in the week were with these same vector items whether they existed in a group or not, so I really don't know.

Anyway, while this error may be a nuisance, it isn't causing a work stoppage so I can live with it till after we finish this project. When we're done, I'll take another look and post any new info I might have about it.

At one point, an hour or so ago, I had a vector layer that wouldn't allow me to create an Action for it. I could create the Action, enter a name, but the Action itself refuses to appear for that layer and would mysteriously vanish. Weird. I'm beginning to think this scene file is haunted. This is probably unrelated though. After quitting and restarting ASP, was I able to create the Action for that layer, so maybe it was just a temporary glitch.

Ah, well, at least my work on this scene is almost done. Hopefully, I won't run into these issues again. (But I probably will--I seem to have picked up bad computer karma this past month, and not just in ASP but in almost every program I work with. It's gotten better this week though.)

G.

[synthsin75]

First thing I would suspect when not being able to create a new action until restarting AS is that you have had a large project file open for too long. A few of us have noticed that AS can get flaky, especially if you allow your computer to go to sleep, or leave AS minimized for awhile. May or may not be the problem you're seeing.

As far as outlines not appearing, check for negative keyframes for those layers. If there are none, I would try disabling GPU acceleration, as that can cause some display issues. Although, like you say, these shouldn't hinder production.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for the tips! Will keep them in mind.

The outline issue appears to be a screen refresh error--once ASP catches on, the preview looks fine--and ASP renders the frame correctly even when displaying without the outlines. It's a little annoying but I can live with this for now since it looks like ASP can be 'nudged' into fixing it. I still haven't had a chance to check it against another computer--will try to do so tonight.

Since last night, I feel like I've had an epiphany--so much of the program is suddenly making sense to me and I'm really enjoying it.

G.

[synthsin75]

Yeah, once over the hurdle of the learning curve, AS is FUN to animate with.

[kphgraphics]

Since last night, I feel like I've had an epiphany--so much of the program is suddenly making sense to me and I'm really enjoying it.

G.

I am feeling the same way about this program.

[Danimal]

Since last night, I feel like I've had an epiphany--so much of the program is suddenly making sense to me and I'm really enjoying it.

I've certainly been there too. There's a moment when all the frustration turns to "wow, this is great!"

[jahnocli]

I feel like I've had an epiphany

Reminds me of a quote from Banksy, who told his girlfriend he'd had an epiphany, and she said "You should keep away from those pills, they're not good for you".