make bone non keyable

[davoodice2]

Hello
some bone in rig is used for special purposes and we do not want animate theme.It would be great if there was an option to make the bones non keyable(less keys , lighter scene.)

[synthsin75]

A custom script/tool could do that, but I can't think of any use I'd have for it.
Is there any reason hiding those bones won't work?

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, hiding the bones should work--if you don't seem them, they can't be keyframed.

If they are bones you need to reveal from time to time, you can use Shy Bones instead. Shy Bones are useful because their visibility can be toggled without affecting bones that are explicitly set to Hide. In MQC, there is a Show Shy button so I can easily reveal and hide Shy bones with a click of a button. (I use this technique for bones I don't want the animator to be keyframing because it can mess up the rig.)

[davoodice2]

Freeze keys sets key for all shy and hide bones. I must use freeze visible that is not good way.

[synthsin75]

Since it's so indiscriminate, I'm not sure why people would want to use auto-freeze keys regularly.
That's what the other freeze commands are for. Add a shortcut to make it handier.

[SimplSam]

... some bone in rig is used for special purposes and we do not want animate them ...

Does bone Lock not help with this?

[edit] No. Still creates keyframes.

[Víctor Paredes]

Freeze keys sets key for all shy and hide bones. I must use freeze visible that is not good way.

Personally, I modified the shortcuts so Ctrl+F is used for Freeze visible bones only. That way I can use the shortcut freely and hidden bones never get new keys.
Now, for cleaning the timeline, please try this script made by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools
This tool -among many features- has a 'Clean' option that removes every useless keyframe from all the layers in a selected group/bone.

[SimplSam]

... This tool -among many features- has a 'Clean' option that removes every useless keyframe from all the layers in a selected group/bone ...

Which normally equates to about every keyframe in my animations !!!

[davoodice2]

Freeze keys sets key for all shy and hide bones. I must use freeze visible that is not good way.

Personally, I modified the shortcuts so Ctrl+F is used for Freeze visible bones only. That way I can use the shortcut freely and hidden bones never get new keys.
Now, for cleaning the timeline, please try this script made by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools
This tool -among many features- has a 'Clean' option that removes every useless keyframe from all the layers in a selected group/bone.

good tools if some body can combine it with transform bone tool.

[hayasidist]

I'm still not wholly clear why you'd want non-keyable as distinct from "can't be animated" but if the goal is to keep a bone visible and to lock its position, scale and rotation:

all the bones that you don't want to key can be set to be controlled by a hidden, lone "anchor bone": that is, in bone constraints set the "un-keyable" bone to have the "anchor bone" as the control bone for its position, scale and rotation. This alone won't prevent you from grabbing an "un-keyable" bone and making keyframes for it, but it does keep it visible and prevent it from being animated. Also, "freeze pose" will key all the bones but, as has been pointed out, these superfluous keys can be removed by Alexandra's keytools script.

[synthsin75]

good tools if some body can combine it with transform bone tool.

Like I said, "A custom script/tool could do that, but I can't think of any use I'd have for it."

[davoodice2]

Freeze keys sets key for all shy and hide bones. I must use freeze visible that is not good way.

Personally, I modified the shortcuts so Ctrl+F is used for Freeze visible bones only. That way I can use the shortcut freely and hidden bones never get new keys.
Now, for cleaning the timeline, please try this script made by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools
This tool -among many features- has a 'Clean' option that removes every useless keyframe from all the layers in a selected group/bone.

how to report bugs og this script?

[hayasidist]

Now, for cleaning the timeline, please try this script made by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools

how to report bugs og this script?

best to contact the author - A.Evseeva - setting out as clearly as you can what you think is not working properly.

[chucky]

I believe more constraints to prevent unwanted bone keys in various channels are greatly needed.
These constraint additions would prevent keys being laid in bone channels that are unwanted.

Each bone would have all channels active by default and no constraint.

Uncheck the channel ( or all) then no key would be placed at all.
Check a constraint and that could constrain both angle and translations to the entered value.

To me this looks like an easy addition with really advantageous results for animators.