Action transitions

[flashawd]

Hello - I have never really created actions before and used them in animations and I am running into a problem. I created a character and a walking action. I then created a new chor dropped in the character - created a path and put the character on it - and dropped the walk cycle on the character. All that works great, the character walks for 10 seconds and ends at the end of the path. When I go to move the character's bones around from the final walk pose to a standing position it screws up different parts the 10 second walk - depending on what bone I adjusted after the walk. When I set it to "hold last frame "0ff" on the walking cycle, it shoots from the final walk pose to character straight out arm position. How do I manually get it from the final walk pose to a standing position - or really any animating pose to any manually positioned pose? I hope I am explaing myself to where it makes a little sense. Thanks - Eric

[Rodney]

Eric,

This won't satisfy your need but might be a decent introduction towards your solution.

At the very bottom of Hash Inc's video tutorials page there is a video called "Path Ease - Walk then Wave".

As I say... its an introduction.

 

http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm

 

I believe here in the Newbies forum is a link to another video, this one by Robert Holmen, that goes in depth even more. I'll try to wrangle that one up or perhaps Robert knows which one I refer to.

 

One way of gaining the experience you need is to experiment with two different actions in the Chor (just as you are now doing).

Note however that you generally do not want to be in the same Action when you are editing.

Note that little Green tick mark in the Project Work Space (find it!). That tells you which Action you are in and editing.

 

One thing to consider as well is that you might occasionally want to leave a gap between the two Actions. This isn't always desireable of course... some might say never... but if you leave a gap inbetween the Actions A:M will make the transitions for you.

 

If you go into Dopesheet mode in the Timeline, thats the view with the bars versus the view with the splines, you might see the blends/transitions better.

 

I hope to find a little time this weekend to play in A:M and I'll try my best to post some examples of basic workflow.

 

Robert... you out there?

[flashawd]

Hi Rodney - thanks for your reply. I was playing around with two different actions and transitioning between both and have that down. My problem is simply how do I move my character into a position after the walk cycle. When I key a "left foot target" for example at the end of the walk it screws up the walk becuase I keyed it. I tried to key it before the walk and had the same problem. My idea was to key it before the walk then after the walk and then skip a few frames and the move the "left foot target" but I am not getting that far becuase when I key it before or after it is screwing up the walk. I know it is something simple, just not sure what I am doing wrong. Thanks again for your reply.

[Rodney]

Purists will probably suggest getting away from paths entirely but thats the example I'll work with here.

Attached is a piddly little project file that you can pick apart.

Not sure it is worth looking at but... have to start somewhere.

I'll call it "Walk and Salute".

 

It should be noted here that in this example I'm not specifically keying keyframes. A:M is doing all the work for me here.

Exception: I did jump into the timeline at the very end of the action and adjust the spline curve to get a better snap in the salute.

I switched to Channel View/spline view to adjust that (see below).

 

Sidenote: If you were to keyframe... in order for keyframes to stick you must activate the bones that you plan to key first.

This is often done on frame zero by moving the bone and putting it back in its original place.

 

Notice here that the first action (Resolute Walk) has its Ease set to 100% on the frame where I want Thom to come to a halt.

With the second action "Salute" I played with the Ease to find the basic salute within the action that I wanted.

I then pushed the salute a little further by editing a third action (the Chor Action) which automatically blended my edit with the underlying actions. Not Pixar stuff by any stretch of the imagination.

 

See that Green Tick Mark on the Chor Action?

If I wanted to add or adjust either the Walk or the Salute actions instead I would have to select one of those actions.

 

Hope at least a little of this makes sense.

I really have no idea what I'm doing.

 

Added: To add a little life to the shot I also constrained the Camera to Thom's head via an 'Aim At' Constraint.

 

Robert Holmen definitely has videos linked here in the forum that discuss keyframing.

Mandatory reading ...eer... watching.

WalkNSalute.prj

[flashawd]

Hi Rodney - thanks for the file. You mentioned "Purists will probably suggest getting away from paths" - you talking about moving the character forward by it's root bone during the walk instead of using a path?

 

Thanks for all your help,

Eric

[flashawd]

I have figured out exactly what the problem is. I manually placed a charcter in the chor - he is standing there w/ his arms out. I drop a "walk" action on him and move it over to begin at 1 second. This work fine, right at one second he starts walking. If I do anything manually before the walk like rotate a right bicep down - this makes an issue w/ the "walk" action like walking with no "right bicep" motion because I moved that bone before the walk. What am I doing wrong? Thank

[robcat2075]

I thought I posted here last night but I dont' see it. try again...

 

to add animation after an Action you need to right-click on your character in the PWS and add new>Choreography Action to hold the new keyframes

 

sample:

 

SecondChorAction.zip

 

notice where the "red bars" have been adjusted to start and end. Also notice that I had to make ease setting s onthe path constraint to keep it from self-adjusting to the length of the chor.

 

And most important , I had to force keyframes on the bones i wanted to animate at the very start of that 2nd action. Before I moved them anywhere.

[flashawd]

Thank you Robert - I'll download it when I get back it. I appreciate your help, this is beginning to drive me crazy

[flashawd]

Hi Robert - just wanted to thank you again - I was able to go in there and see exactly how to do it. Have a great weekend - Eric