Model Substitution in the Middle of a Chor

[Geophizz]

I'm working on a choreography, and I made a lot of mistakes moving the model around. Now the character is far away from the model bone, and I need to animate a long straight ahead walk (no walk cycles). I'm finding it difficult to get the character to walk smoothly.

 

I'd like to replace the model with a new instance at the exact same point in the chor. I guess it would be like a stunt double. My current approach is to move the model bone of the original character out of the range of my camera with a hold interpolation, so the original model instantly dissapears, and replace it with the new model at the same location in the same pose with a hold interpolation. I'm planning a change is shot at the same time to try to hide the switch.

 

I'm not sure if my method is the best. Has anyone tried this, and if so, what method did you use?

 

Thanks

Mark Stoughton

[Rodney]

There are several ways to get this done depending on the time you have to devote and your interest.

The easiest way to change out a model is to redirect the shortcut from one model to another in the Project Workspace.

Just make sure your other model is loaded and swap them out. (The bone being in the wrong place might mess you up)

 

If this isn't what you are after here are a few more options:

Probably the quickest method would be to place the models at the same location and just Activate/Deactivate them at the appropriate time.

 

If you are looking at more of a transitional effect, as opposed to just cutting from one to another, you could just increase the transparency to fade one in and the other out.

 

My favorite method of the moment would be to do it all in post (but all still right there in A:M).

This is the most flexible way and you can do such things as morphing, scene creation, reuse and retiming of animation... really incredible stuff.

 

Assuming you are just looking for the final solution in rendering a walk cycle I'd suggest rendering out and animating in post.

I hope to post a tutorial soon on the image animating methodology.

[rusty]

That's the way I did it for many years, however, an easier way is to switch the model from/to 'active' in the properties. Now, having said that, the last time I tried that, a long time ago, in an older version of AM (sounds like an into to Star Wars huh), it seemed to do what I wanted until I rendered it and then, I discovered that the 'active' switch had a problem at that time and didn't work at all when actually rendered. I'm sure that problem has long since been fixed but render to file to be sure.

 

Rusty

[Bruce Del Porte]

Keying one active and another instance inactive works just fine. If you add a active/inactive key by mistake you have to delete it in the PWS. Otherwise place the second instance in the same location and with the same pose at the frame you want to switch (while they are both on they should look like they occupy the same space), and start from there. Be mindful that if you are in mid action, you may have to adjust your curve angles coming off the first key to make the action look smooth.