Stepped Keys in tS?

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DesignDevil
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Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by DesignDevil »

Hi together, long time ago since my last post.

Today i would ask if there is a option in tS play a animation as a "stop motion" so that a played animation jumps from one key to the next key (or from pose to pose) without any interpolation. In MAYA this mode is called "Stepped Keys" and in other animation bundles there is also such a option.

I do animation with tS a long time and never found this and i always forgot to ask, so maybe there is a hidden option or maybe a plugin which can do this?

Thanks in advice...DD
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by froo »

On Model side, I'd have to check - I think you can change the interpolation mode to fit your needs DD.
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by DesignDevil »

Wll, i try'd this...but this is not what i need.

It is not a question of interpolation because you can just switch between linear and curved. What i want is to play the animation WITHOUT any interpolation between the keyframes.

For example you have animated a cube sliding on the floor. Keyframe 0 is the start position, keyframe 40 is the end position. Whatever interpolation is active the cube will slide on the floor if you press play because it plays Frame 0,1,2,3,4,5,6...38,39,40.

What i need is a method that the cube will "jump" from the start to the end position because there are only 2 Keyframes. In other words that tS just play the Keyframes 0 and 40 (for this example).

Well, that sounds stupid and for this case it is but if you animate characters with the pose to pose method it is very useful.
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Emmanuel
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by Emmanuel »

I have been in this situation before : there was a machine to animate (a conveyor, part of a car assembly plant), and some parts were moving in stop motion.

In your case of a cube moving at frame 40, my solution was to create 3 keyframes : the start key at 0, the end key at 40, and an other key at 39 where the object is at the exact same position as at frame 0.

Of course, I had to manually set a sharp edge (Continuity -1) in the Keyframe Properties of the KFE, for EACH of my keyframes. Because, unfortunately, Modeler's KFE does not allow to select all keyframes and set a given edge setting for all at once.

...a tsx idea, maybe ;)
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by trueBlue »

You could use these commands hooked up to a Timer:
tSBridge.SuggestTSStateByAlias("NextKeyFrameButton")
tSBridge.SuggestTSStateByAlias("PrevKeyFrameButton")
Also the Bridge needs to be ON.
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by DesignDevil »

@Emmanuel - that is not what i need because you simply change the interpolation mode from curved to linear. But if you now press PLAY the cube moves. What i want is a playmode where the animation jumps from one KF to the next as if you click on the "advance to next key frame" or "reverse to previous key frame" buttons.

I think a plugin could be a solution as trueBlue said - but just for tS 6.6 ;)

The idea for a plugin to modify more than one KF at the same time is also a good idea and i have on my neverending ToDo list such a point. A complete new KFE would be cool but this is a very hard job...
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by froo »

Ok how about this:

Example:

cube at time 0: x = 0
cube at time 39: x = 0
cube at time 40; x = 1

Or, what you could do is:

render frame 0 40 times (frames 0 thru 39)
render frame 40 (this is the next keyframe) 40 times
repeat

seems like a plugin could do that: read each keyframe and render that keyframe multiple times, each time generating
a new filename for the bitmap images.
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by DesignDevil »

Thanks froo but we mistunderstand...

...i need this functionality if i create a animation not for rendering !!! That means a mode for the preview of a animation while creating it.

The background is a method called "pose to pose" animation where you define the extreme poses of your character along the animation. If you finished with posing you move these key poses to get a correct timing. After that you create the inbetween poses by defining more keyframes for the computed interpolation.

A good example could be facial animation (speaking):

Let's say you have a wave file and your character should say that. Step one would be to create a handful of extreme poses to show the spoken letters "A", "O", "I" etc.

Now you setup the correct timing for these poses in comparisation to the pose and the wave file (or the spoken word). That means you copy and paste your extremeposes onto the right positions on the timeline. Ok, now you have to check if the timing is correct and for a better view (without interpolation !!!! ) you need a play mode called "stepped keys". That means your playtime is normal (i.e. 24fps) but your preview just shows the extreme poses without any interpolation between the keyframes !!!

If you now sure all things are correct you can define the inbetweens to get a cool looking result for final rendering. For this you switch back to the normal interpolation mode spline or linear - whatever your animation needs.

I hope that this will bring light into this case.

Another example is the layout version of my animation "magic". Well this is rendered - you have to imagine that i want to see exactly this in tS while press the "play" button.

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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by Draise »

In worspace side (might make things different) you can select all keyframes in the FCurve animation editor that you wish to interpolate into poses, change the interpolation to "Constant Start Value" and you will get your poses where there are keyframes. You can also change it to Constant End Values, depending on how you want the keyframes to influence the past or future.

Image

1. Select all curve keyframes of all the attributes you want. (you may have to change the view to positive and negative frame values to select them all)
2. Right click on them to bring the menu.
3. Select Interpolation -> Constant End Values or vice versa

The result will look like the below, thus giving you keyframed poses due to constant curve values

Image

When you press play, you will get your poses.

Animation is simple and powerful on the workspace side. The only thing lacking in it is a good retiming ripple/ripple function, but you can easily use clips to retime and ripple. It is also simplified, so you can focus on the animation over anything else, annnnd... but it is simplified. The bones is buggy, but I am working on finding the bugs to create some guidelines to make it maneagable, because it can work.

Hope that helps!
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Re: Stepped Keys in tS?

Post by Draise »

Also, I recommend Papagayo Lipsyncer to do your lipsyncing.

Website

Image

It is very easy, reads the sound file and does it for you after you write the text, then you can modify it to desire. Once you are done, you can export a spreasheet with the words all set, and then in the workspace, you can throw in shape clips to where you need to put it.

To play audio on the workspace side when you hit play to test the lipsync, you can follow this thread.
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