Workflow Question

[My Fault]

As a user of another program whose name I shall not speak (LOL) there are certain work flows I have grown used to and am curious if I can do something similar with Hash. One involves the use of groups for keying animation.

 

As an example, many times I will key in the body and the face separate, so easy peasy, I would just make two groups, one that contains all the body animation controls and one containing all the facial animation controls. This helps to keep a clean time line and makes it easier if say, want to re-time the body animation without effecting lip sync. I've watched Robcat's uber helpful keying tutorials, but so far haven't figured out a way to do this in hash. I thought about using actions, but that seemed less useful as you would then be animating each group separately.

 

Are there any tricks or work flow ideas hash users use for instances like this? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this

[John Bigboote]

Are you asking about grouping poses...CPs... or actions...?

[largento]

You can create folders in the PWS and separate them that way.

[robcat2075]

There may be a way to imitate "selection sets" in A:M, I think that's what you are wanting, I'm pretty sure of it and it would be related to the autokeying that happens in seamless IK/FK switching that was introduced for David Simmons' "Squetch" rig for TWO.

 

Major detective work will be needed to sort that idea out.

 

You can create folders in the PWS and separate them that way.

Unfortunately it's not possible to segregate bones within a character by folders.

 

 

Some alternative ideas...

 

1) with "Key Bone" filter on you can CTRL-select multiple bones in the window or the PWS for simultaneous keying. If your rig is named so that all the "Face..." or "Finger..." bones lie together this is quite handy. A good reason not to start bone names with "Right" or "Left"

 

CTRL-selecting bones goes a bit faster if the display subdiv level is not set to the maximum

 

2) Use multiple choreography actions. Don't put all your keys in the default chor action that you get when you drag the character into the chor.

 

on the model name>New>Choreography Action

 

You could use one for Face, another for Hands, another for Body...

 

This would work as long as you don't want overlapping sets.

 

However, it would be exceedingly easy to key a bone in the unintended chor action and not realize it until later.

 

I'd avoid this idea without previous practice.

 

 

3) Selection Filters. LMB on the downward triangle at the top of the PWS (right triangle in V13) and you can define a filter like "finger" that will display everything that has "finger" in its name. You can Shift-select the top and bottom of that list to quickly select them all.

 

Again, this presumes your rig has an intelligent naming convention

 

Complex AND or OR selections don't seem to be possible.

 

In V15 you have to check "save with project" close then reopen the PRJ before they appear. V15 seems to have introduced several bugs in this feature.

[Rodney]

Somewhere in the forum Bob Croucher discusses the Pros and Cons of two methods of Key Groups.

I've lost it for the present but its there.

 

I did find this Tech Talk that may be of interest:

 

http://www.hash.com/ftp/pub/movies/techtal...ps%20Poses.html

 

Warning: Large file (but its streaming)

[largento]

Sorry, I wasn't more specific. I was talking about doing what Robert suggests in his 2nd option:

 

 

In the video tutorials I used to learn to animate, it was suggested to split up the choreography actions into three different categories. One for moving the model bone in choreography mode, one for moving bones in skeletal mode, and one for pose sliders. The key was just to remember to select the correct choreography action before animating. It's a little easier to keep those three separate, though.

 

Still, if you are used to keying different groups independently, it shouldn't be too hard to remain disciplined.

[robcat2075]

Somewhere in the forum Bob Croucher discusses the Pros and Cons of two methods of Key Groups.

 

 

Hold that keyframe!

 

That may be IT:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=153203

 

testin' it now....

 

 

Edit:

 

Yes this does seem to be it. This is "selection sets" and it's been there for three years. Doh! (actually it's "selection and force a key sets". Nearly the same.

 

 

How to set up a new group. slightly annotated

 

0. Add a Key Groups Null somewhere in your model

 

1. Make a new ON/OFF pose

2. Select a control bone (he means the bone you want to be in your set)

3. If the bone can only be rotated add a “orient like” constraint and constrain to “key Groups Null” then set the enforcement to 0%

4. If the bone can be translated also. add a “translate to” constraint the same way.

5. Rename the pose and in the properties panel drag pose into [your previously made] Key Groups folder.

 

remember to resave your character after you make these Key Group Poses

 

to force the Keys , toggle the pose ON or OFF

 

I'm not sure if this can be extended to include setting keys on pose sliders.

[My Fault]

Wow, so many great ideas. Gonna grab some coffee and give them all a try. I really like the idea of filtering and the Key Groups discussion looks especially promising. Thanks gang!