I Don't Understand What's Happening. Can Someone with v13 Please Help

[Jeetman]

Hello everyone,

 

 

I want to do the Exercise 2: (Chorus Line) cancan with an interesting twist but it's not going well. I'm hoping others (who may have run into this problem) can possibly explain what is happening and can also tell me a way to get this to work.

 

My idea is a 30 second to 1 minute short of the "cancan" dance that has gone wrong.

 

My idea is nothing long or laborious (I think). It's just a quick simple chain of events that is bestowed on the unsuspecting characters hehe.

 

In general, what I want it to be is shaggy's foot slips out from under him and he falls (quite hard) on the stage breaking through the floor which a loose board then shoots Knight into the air and he lands on Rabbit.

 

Seems relatively simple.

 

The problem is, my action for Shaggy is behaving oddly in the choreography.

 

Here's what's happening:

 

I created my action of Shaggy slipping and losing his balance and falling through the floor. I import it into the choreography and positioned it in the place where I want the action to happen (after the 3rd repetition of the cancan cycle where he's in the last knee up position).

 

The animation adds to the underlying animation with no problem except it's not playing out properly. The way the added action is suppose to play out is shaggy's foot slips forward as his body is propelled slightly upwards and backwards and he lands on his backside so hard, that the floor breaks.

 

In the action window, it looks good but in the choreography, he get's hung up in the air and his feet hang down all contorted. It looks like the model bone is limiting the motion. I could animate the model bone movement to place him but the action it's self isn't displaying correctly.

 

It's easier to show you rather than explain so I attached a zip of the project and action so you can see my intended action and what I'm getting in the choreography.

 

You will need v13 beta to view it though.

 

I would really appreciate any help I can get with this.

 

Thanks,

Jeetman

cancanfall.zip

[KenH]

It's weird. Everytime I delete the ChorAction1 under shaggy and move the timeline to see just the fall action, the chorAction1 comes back. It seems like certain bones are being changed at a certain time in the chor.

I don't know exactly why though. I think it's to do with the hip null.

 

This might be one for AM:Reports.

 

Edit: OK, I think it's to do with the balance pose you're using in the cancan fall action.

[KenH]

I got it fixed. Deleted the Balance and Balance Ridgid poses in the Cancan fall action. Not sure why they were messing it up.

 

Here's the fixed project.

New_Cancan.zip

[Rodney]

It might be interesting to see the difference between Ken and my project files.

I'm not really sure what the problem was.

I deleted the action out of the Chor (under the Shaggy shortcut)

Saved

Then reapplied the CanCanFall action.

This was after I had seen that the action was playing fine in the main Action but not in the Chor Action.

 

All appears to be right with the world.

 

Ah... I see in my case I failed to locate the cancan action.

Makes much more sense to me now.

Ken's a genius. He diagnosed that one quickly

 

Attachment Updated (Should match Ken's pretty closely)

cancanfallValidated.zip

[Jeetman]

I got it fixed. Deleted the Balance and Balance Ridgid poses in the Cancan fall action. Not sure why they were messing it up.

 

Here's the fixed project.

 

 

This is awesome Ken. Thanks so much. When I created the original action, I moved the Rigid balance and balance sliders to zero. When I opend the "fixed" project, I noticed they were back to the default with no keys created.

 

So because of moving the balance sliders, I created the keys. So in the future if I turn off the animate button before moving the slider to 0 balance (for both slider) this should prevent the keys from being created? I ask this because it's much easier (as I'm sure you know) to create an action with the balance set to zero in some cases (such as this IMHO).

 

So it's the balance keys that are causing the action to not display properly in the choreography then?

 

Jeetman

[Rodney]

So it's the balance keys that are causing the action to not display properly in the choreography then?

 

Balance/Balance Rigid has caused enough problems that some refuse to use them.

They serve a purpose (to automatically keep the character upright etc) but when you attempt to unbalance a character (which you perfectly do!) it runs afowl of the constraints.

 

There are some discussions on Balance/Balance Rigid in these TAoA:M threads.

As I recall the concensus was that most people should just turn them off.

 

If you are still having problems getting both actions to work as you expect them two I would recommend opening two instances of A:M. Open Ken's project file on the left and yours on the right. Then check the settings one by one in the Shaggy Actions in the Chor. Anything that is different may provide you with the information you need to resolved any issues.

[Jeetman]

So it's the balance keys that are causing the action to not display properly in the choreography then?

 

Balance/Balance Rigid has caused enough problems that some refuse to use them.

They serve a purpose (to automatically keep the character upright etc) but when you attempt to unbalance a character (which you perfectly do!) it runs afowl of the constraints.

 

There are some discussions on Balance/Balance Rigid in these TAoA:M threads.

As I recall the concensus was that most people should just turn them off.

 

If you are still having problems getting both actions to work as you expect them two I would recommend opening two instances of A:M. Open Ken's project file on the left and yours on the right. Then check the settings one by one in the Shaggy Actions in the Chor. Anything that is different may provide you with the information you need to resolved any issues.

 

RODNEY!!!!!

 

It's a pleasure to actual converse directly. I hope you checked out my first Exercise 1: mov/jpg I submitted (hint hint for certificate hehe).

 

Awesome job on the fix as well. I thank you and Ken for this help. Once I understand what is happening I can plan ahead so as not to have to deal with it in future animations.

 

Ken's fix was was so great!!! The only issue was the feet were a bit contorted (the foot nulls were basically crunching the feet and the body swayed side to side) but yours didn't.

 

After getting Ken's fix, I went back (to completely understand what was happening) and took my original action I created and did exactly what Ken had said to do (delete the balance and rigid balance keys). When I did that, my action matched Ken's fix (feet crunch with side to side body sway and all) but at least it's not floating in air anymore and I understand what is happening.

 

However, when I loaded your's the feet were perfect. It matches my first intended action. What did you do different?

 

 

Very Much thanks to both of you,

Jeetman