Imported character with smart dial got "unatached"

[NealF2]

Hi.

I've imported a character into a new file. It came in with the smart bone dials for head turns and up down.

The smart bone no longer moves the head. When I go into the action and move the play head, the head acts like it's supposed to.
Just doesn't work when I get back to the main timeline.

I'm pretty sure it worked on another occasion on another file.

Any ideas?

[Greenlaw]

I'm not sure what happened in your case, but I recommend creating a root bone with everything branching from it. Having a root bone helps preserve the hierarchy. Try this and see if it helps when importing.

A common Root bone also makes it easier to move everything without using the Transform Layer tool. (Sometimes moving a single bone is preferable to moving the layer).

Also, the importer likes to break a project down into Groups, and it may give you options for which Group to import. To ensure everything gets imported, try placing everything in a single 'master' Group. (This is another thing I almost always do.)

[Greenlaw]

The smart bone no longer moves the head. When I go into the action and move the play head, the head acts like it's supposed to.
Just doesn't work when I get back to the main timeline.

This usually means the Smart Bone Dial has been reparented, which can break the dial's rotation values if the new parent's rotation is different. Check the actual rotation values...are they what they're supposed to be? If not, just delete the keys and rekey them. Don't bother fixing the bad keys by adjusting the values; it's easier to just delete and rekey them, and you can be sure they will work.

Preserving the hierarchy as described in my previous post should prevent such breakage.

[NealF2]

Thanks. I'll try that tomorrow.

Actions still seem buggy to me. For instance, after creating an action with a smart bone that works fine, anytime I go back into the action to tweak it, the screen is blank. But if I just save the file, the character then shows up.

A confusing thing, but at least I've got it working.

And one other thing that just happened might be something that's connected to your answer.
I created a 2 way smart dial. Then created an action where I rotate the smart dial one way and the head tilts down. The other way and it tilts up.
Worked fine. But now when I rotate the dial to make the head go up, it doesn't see the action it's connected to. So it only goes from down to straight.

And when I go into the action, if I move the play head where the head should go up, it does, but the dial is stuck solid.
So I'm thinking your explanation might be the cause of this, too.

[Greenlaw]

You know, now that I think about it, your problem sounds similar to an issue I had been dealing with earlier. Did you copy and paste or otherwise duplicate some bones that are used in the Smart Bone Action?

In my case, I kept deleting some keys in the Smart Bone Actions from the duplicated bones, and after I closed and reopened the files, the keys had returned(!) I tried a number of different ways to get rid or or replace the keys, and they kept coming back. It was making me nuts!

In the end, I just recreated the bones, deleted the old ones, renamed the new bones to the old bones' names, and made sure not to key the new bones. When I saved and reopened this file, the keys did not return. (I would be VERY surprised if they did. )

It kinda appeared as though the copy/pasted bones behaved like 'instances' of the original bones, and they kept inheriting the keyframes from the original every time I reopened the file. It was really weird. And this happened with multiple bones in different parts of the rig. Rebuilding the bones from scratch seemed to be the only way to prevent the zombie frames from coming back.

I haven't reported this issue yet, because I wasn't sure of the cause. Many Vitruvian Bones, which are operated by Smart Bones, are heavily involved in my setup, so that's another possibility. I'll revisit the old file with the error over the weekend and see if I can narrow down the cause.

Anyway, let me know if any of the above info helps.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, another thing to check: If you're using a dual direction Smart Bone, and keyframing frame 1 for the Smart Bone, make sure you're not copy/pasting its frame 0 to frame 1. This technique was something I did all the time prior to Moho 14.x because it allowed me to use a different Interpolation Mode on the Mainline from what I used in the Smart Bone Action (e.g., Linear for frames 1+ in the Action, and Smooth for frame 0 and the Mainline). However, something changed in Moho 14 that caused a conflict when frame 1 was identical, and the Smart Bone would get confused. (Note: I'm only talking about the Smart Bone's keys, not the keys for the items it's animating inside the Action.)

The solution was to keyframe the last key for the Smart Bone first, and then double-click on frame 1 to create a slightly offset key. When this is repeated for the Smart Bone's 2nd Action, a slightly offset key is created in the opposite direction, avoiding the conflict.

I explained how this works in a tutorial last year. I can point you to it later, if you'd like to watch it.

[NealF2]

Lots to think about and try.

Thanks for taking the time to help me. This program is great, but there are so many quirks that are driving me nuts.

Luckily, I'm resolving a lot of them and getting more fluent on the program. But I'm so rushed that I usually just find another way or change my scene/shot to another way.

I'm trying to finish a 2 hour animated musical before I turn 80 (seriously. I'm 78 now) . Started 2 years ago with just a little knowledge of Moho, but little by little I'm getting better results.

Thanks, again for all your help.

[Greenlaw]

Best of luck with the musical, Neal! I've enjoyed some of your past music videos, and I will look forward to this one.

[NealF2]

Thanks, D. R.

[NealF2]

Got one thing figured out.

This has happened several times. Don't know why, but at least I know where to look.

As mentioned above, dragging the play head inside the action timeline moves the head correctly. But when I go back to the main timeline, the smart bone dial was frozen solid.
This time I noticed that it might not have been frozen. It seems that the bone layer inside the actions timeline keeps switching to Step keyframes.
As soon as I make them linear, all works again.

That's a relief, but I have no idea why those keyframes switch by them selves.

At least I can get on with the work.