Moho Animation Forum

If that thread title was complicated, hopefully the question isn't.

I"m finally doing some animating (just for a character demo), and I'm coming across what seems like it'll be a common problem down the road.

Say you insert an action you plan to cycle, like walking. So your character's walking, and now you want him to stop. If you simply insert a key into the bone angle channel, with the character stopped, it "steps" to that key from your walk cycle. One frame he's in the middle of the cycle, the next, he's stopped----no interpolation.

What's the way around this? I tried creating a key from a certain point in the cycle (without changing the pose at all), and then another point later, with the character standing still, hoping it would smoothly interpolate between the two, but now the character stops "walking" at the first inserted key (where I didn't actually change the pose, just made a keyframe), and "slides" to the standing position and pose.

I could understand how to do this if, instead of cycling the walk action, I just kept copying and pasting the correct keys into the timeline to extend the action past its initial endpoint, but that seems tedious. Isn't there an easier way?

Hmm....

Not sure I see the problem. Or maybe you do actions differently than I do.

If I insert an action and want it to "stop" smoothly, I just put keys a few frames after the action (reference or copy). The action blends smoothly to the new "keys".

This also works before an action. Although sometimes I get an extra key inserted on the frame right before an action. If I delete that extra key it works fine.

-vern

Okay I see the problem now. It has to do with using the cycle key frame.

I don't know if this will work for you but it seems to help.

Let's say you have an action reference in your main time line set to cycle for a bunch of frames. Let's then assume you want the cycle to stop anywhere during that repeating cycle and transition smoothly to a new key frame.

You first decide where you want the cycle to stop and then insert a "copy" of the same action.

If the stopping doesn't "line up" with the cycle obviously you will get that "jump" when it hits that spot. What you need to do now is find the "matching" key frame further up the time line on the newly inserted copy of the action. Insert a key frame at that point.

Now take note of where that action started (the point where the cycled action stops). Delete the keys up to the newly inserted keys of the copy of the action, select all the keys of the inserted copy of the action and slide it down to where the cycle stops. Now the transition matches where the cycle stops. You can use the end of the inserted action to transition to another key frame.

It only takes a few seconds to do this. If this is not clear I can try to explain better or maybe do some screen grabs and a simple tutorial.

-vern

It probably makes sense. I'll have to read it a few more times and then try it.

PS, I haven't been using references for the actions, I've been "inserting copies." I don't know if this affects the methodology of the whole thing. It just seemed like inserting actual key frames would make editing easier in the timeline if I so desired.

Inserting copies would actually make it easier in my opinion. You can more easily copy and paste frames from the inserted copies than from a reference.

-vern