Independent X, Y, Z Motion Graph Controls

[Seifo]

I suggested this feature in the "Help Shape the Future of Anime Studio" thread, but I thought maybe I should first put the problem to y'all to see if there's already a solution.

I've found myself using bezier keyframes a lot in the motion graph. I think it's great how much control they give you over your animation. But I've had one gripe: I can't place, for instance, only a Y keyframe (green) without also placing a X keyframe (red) on the same frame. Although I've been able to make it work so far, what I wanted to do in this example is to put the second-from-left keyframe on only Y (green) and not X (red). That way I could have more easily gotten the curve I wanted on X.

[hayasidist]

...I thought maybe I should first put the problem to y'all to see if there's already a solution.

Interesting question! I think the short answer, sadly, is no.

The long answer is that there are different types of animation channels - some are just single values, others are multiple values (xy, xyz, rgba...) - and what you have here is a 3d vector [if you want to dig deeper, take a look at Channel Types in the MOHO / constants section of the scripting help files] ... So to do what you want would mean changing the vector channel to be 3 scalar channels and/or changing interpolation types to be per sub-channel rather than the same for all sub-channels as well as changing parts of AS that process multi-value channel types (such as 3d coordinates). That's not to say it's impossible, it's just a lot of hard work ... so unlikely to be a high priority on the enhancements list.

What you could maybe do is script a solution to calculate values for intermediate keys, but you'd still need to have them?

[slowtiger]

For camera movements, I sometimes use that old device of nested groups, of which each group only moves in one direction. I guess the motion graphs ofthese would be independent of each other as well.

[Seifo]

Interesting question! I think the short answer, sadly, is no.

The long answer is that there are different types of animation channels - some are just single values, others are multiple values (xy, xyz, rgba...) - and what you have here is a 3d vector [if you want to dig deeper, take a look at Channel Types in the MOHO / constants section of the scripting help files] ... So to do what you want would mean changing the vector channel to be 3 scalar channels and/or changing interpolation types to be per sub-channel rather than the same for all sub-channels as well as changing parts of AS that process multi-value channel types (such as 3d coordinates). That's not to say it's impossible, it's just a lot of hard work ... so unlikely to be a high priority on the enhancements list.

What you could maybe do is script a solution to calculate values for intermediate keys, but you'd still need to have them?

Okay, I see. That makes sense. It's a relatively minor issue anyway -- I mean, as I said, I've been able to make it work, but it just takes a little more time. Thanks for the explanation.

For camera movements, I sometimes use that old device of nested groups, of which each group only moves in one direction. I guess the motion graphs of these would be independent of each other as well.

Hey, that's a really good idea for a workaround. I'll keep that in mind.