Real-time bone recording

[Jkoseattle]

I'm sure this is simple, I think it comes down to my not knowing SM's terms for things so I don't know what to search on.

How do I record bone movements in real-time? My experienceis in digital audio, where you can insert individual events in the music just like keyframes, but you can also simply hit Record and play something on the keyboard.

My character stands still a lot of the time, but I want his head to move ever-so-subtly just to keep it a bit more natural. It's terribly computer-y to have him utterly still, and inserting bone keyframes for this subtle head movement seems painstaking and will ultimately also look unnatural. Can't I just hit Record or something, then move the bone back and forth gently and naturally and have Moho put in keyframes along the way?

[synthsin75]

You can animate while the timeline is playing.

[Greenlaw]

Technically speaking, you can do that by hitting Play and then animating the bones as it plays. Moho will create a keyframe every time you move a bone. Personally speaking, it's probably going to look terrible though.

IMO, you'd be better off creating a rest cycle that you can reuse as needed. You can save the cycle as an Action and simply insert it in the timeline wherever you need it.

[Greenlaw]

If you really want to 'puppet' a character in realtime, you might consider playing with Adobe's Character Animator program instead. It comes as a part of AE.

Moho is better suited for hand keyframed animation.

[Jkoseattle]

See, I knew it would be easy!

I tried it and it didn't turn out too bad. I just zoomed way way in so that my coarse mouse movements ended up moving the bone very small amounts. I'll try the rest cycle technique next.

[Jkoseattle]

Tried rest cycle, works better. You know what also works better? hand-crafting individual keyframes instead of run-timing it. Go figure.

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, especially when the animation needs to be subtle. Some the 'smallest' animations I've done needed the most fussing to look right.

Glad you got something working for you.