Smart Bone Dial Weirdness

[Jkoseattle]

When I create a bone, then I make it a Smart Bone Dial, I'm taken to the first Smart Bone Action. Then often (usually), as soon as I try to move to a point in the action's timeline, my bone jumps to some random place on the screen and rotates some random amount. I'll simply drag it back where it was, but I have learned that when that happens, my smart bone isn't going to work properly. So I delete it and create a new one. Then I cross my fingers the bone won't jump when I am in the action timeline, and sometimes it doesn't, in which case I can create my smart bone action normally. What's going on here?

Semi-related question: If I screw up and get the smart bone dial actions backward (i.e. move the bone up to move the eyes down), how can I swap the actions that go with the SBD?

[Greenlaw]

...Then often (usually), as soon as I try to move to a point in the action's timeline, my bone jumps to some random place on the screen and rotates some random amount. I'll simply drag it back where it was, but I have learned that when that happens, my smart bone isn't going to work properly. So I delete it and create a new one. Then I cross my fingers the bone won't jump when I am in the action timeline, and sometimes it doesn't, in which case I can create my smart bone action normally. What's going on here?

This doesn't sound normal at all and it's not my experience when creating Smart Bones in Moho.

I'm wondering, when you create an SBD do you make sure the strength of the bone is set to zero? If it's not that, maybe the action you're creating is in conflict with another action you created earlier that controls the same item and/or property. There are a few other possibilities I can think of but I'm just guessing because I haven't seen what you're working with.

If you can post an example project that demonstrates this behavior, maybe a user here can figure out what's going on.

[Jkoseattle]

Thanks, it wasn't any of those things. I can reliably reproduce it, following the exact steps every time. The first time it goes crazy, I delete the bone, and the second time (usually) it works ok.

But there are other strange things going on here, so maybe someone can look at it.

Try out the bones "Eyes L/R" and "Eyes U/D". The eyeballs do not move when manipulating the bone in Mainline, but when I drill into the Smart Bone Actions, they do. Huh???

Also, might just try creating a new Smart Bone Dial. Set Strength to 0. Angles -45 and 45, frames 100, separate actions for each direction. When you get to the point where you are taken to the first Action, go into the timeline and click anywhere beyond frame 0, and SOMETIMES the bone jumps and rotates randomly. You can move it back but notice the bone doesn't rotate properly now, and both actions move it the same direction. Try it again and it works just fine.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[EricTheFish]

Try out the bones "Eyes L/R" and "Eyes U/D". The eyeballs do not move when manipulating the bone in Mainline, but when I drill into the Smart Bone Actions, they do. Huh???

I downloaded your file, the eyes don't move ONLY when on mainline frame zero, if you move to any other timeline frame, the eyes then move as expected with the SBD. Frame 0 is a setup frame and stuff can sometimes appear to misbehave here but work perfectly on animation frames.

I don't know why it happens, but I also get this "Frame 0" ignoring actions occasionally when rigs start to get busy or points are controlled by multiple actions. I noticed the eyelid points are controlled by two SBDs, "Eyebrows U/D" and "Eyes U/D". Might have something to do with it.

Hope this helps.

[Jkoseattle]

Yeah, I see that. Thanks, I can work around that I guess.. The randomly jumping bones is still a mystery though...

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, I wouldn't bother testing a rig on frame 0. You'll also see problems testing bone targets on frame 0. These are not bugs because frame 0 is meant to be the setup frame, and not for animation posing/testing.

What I like to do is use Design mode (Shift Control D). This toggles between the setup frame 0 and my current animation frame, so I can easily switch between rigging and testing/posing. (I typically use frame 24 for testing and then clear the keys there when I'm done, but you can use any frame after 0.)

[Jkoseattle]

Oh that's a nice trick, thanks!

OK, HERE is the bone jumping bug demonstrated. Everything I mentioned above can be seen here:
Bone jumping and rotating
Change to number of frames in Action (from 100 to 20)
Both Actions move the bone the same direction

(Note: At one point I move the bone back to its original position, but I wasn't on Frame 0 when I did so so keyframes were created. I caught my mistake and fixed it which you can see in the video, just ignore those few seconds)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XrRYJK ... sp=sharing

HELP!!!

[Greenlaw]

I haven't see that problem here but I have a couple of comments:

1. Make sure you don't have another bone selected when you create a Smart bone unless you really intend for the Smart Bone to be a child of the selected bone. Based on the bit I saw, I wonder if the rotation of the selected bone is affecting the position child bone you created.

2. I personally never use the 'Make Smart Bone Dial...' command. I find it easy and quick enough to create a Smart Bone Dial manually with exactly the settings I want, and I never run into a problem with that. I think the automated command works okay, it's just that it defaults to settings I don't use and I feel it's easier to set everything to exactly what I need manually.

I only watched part of the video because I need to go out for a bit but will look at the whole thing later this afternoon.