Crreating Actions/copy & paste

[SuperSGL]

I've done this before with my characters I start to animate to see how it's working and I come up with a nice smooth action, so now I copy and paste in New Actions (pink) but to paste the keyframes I need a keyframe to paste into. This works but now the first frame of the action when I insert it into the timeline the first frame is the default pose (which is simple enough to delete the keyframe) but I was wondering how to do this the right way...apart from creating the animation in the action from the start.

[synthsin75]

I'm not sure I follow. I can paste keys into a completely empty action. If you're coping frame zero with the keyframes, you can always paste them into frame zero of the action.

[Greenlaw]

The action's animation should start at frame 1, and you should be able to paste into that frame without keyframing frame 0. When you paste the animation at frame 1, a keyframe will appear at frame 0 automatically.

I'm wondering if you're copying all the keyframes from the Mainline including frame 0. Because you're on frame 1 in the action, this will duplicate your setup frame at frame 1, which is not what you normally want. To do this correctly, select the keyframes from 1 onward in the Mainline and paste that into frame 1 of the action. (This is easier if you make a keyframe at frame 1 in the Mainline, which is good practice most of the time.)

BTW, if this is for a Smart Bone Action, I also suggest making the action keyframes Linear, and leaving frame 0 Smooth or whichever mode you prefer to animate with.

Personally, I prefer to animate my Smart Bone Action keyframes inside the Action itself rather than copying and pasting keyframes from the Mainline. That seems like an unnecessary step.

Hope this helps.

[SuperSGL]

Still can't paste ?? Maybe I've gone about it wrong: Say I have a stick man (literally a match stick character ) Starting at 24 I animate a jump with anticipation through frm 96 say 4 key frames in-between. I copy those key frames from 24 to 96 by selecting in the timeline, right clicking 'copy' . Click on New actions icon give it a name and I have the pink timeline whether I'm at frame 0 or frm 1 I can't even right click no menu appears. Under edit the paste command is greyed out.
btw to your point greenlaw I would love to just start animating this in the actions timeline but every now and then I just start playing around with the character and it works out and then I think Oouu I should make this an Action

While I'm here Happy Thanksgiving to you both and everyone at the forum!!!! speaking of copy and paste I could find Synthsin75 and Greenlaw's replies and answers thru out this forum and create a manual of How to's 900 pages long a wealth of knowledge thank you both!

[SuperSGL]

OK, I tried it again but I still have to select the main bone with the Manipulate bone at frame 0 then I can right click on the keyframe and paste. Because the first time I tried this, anytime I copied or referenced the action in the main timeline I got the default pose then the action. So I tried again in the actions timeline copy and paste from frame 1 to frame 0 (which doesn't actually work) I still had the default pose but this time I copied action to the main timeline and it worked! I'm not sure now my exact steps maybe the first time I selected all the bones with the manipulate bone and started with that at frame 0. I got it to work the way it should anyway.

[synthsin75]

I was just selecting the keyframes in the mainline, hitting ctrl+C, opening the action, and hitting ctrl+V.

[Greenlaw]

Same here, just Ctrl-C/V for keyframe copy/paste.

I haven't tried the R-click commands. Maybe something is wrong with this version of the commands? (Sorry, not able to check this here ATM.)

[SuperSGL]

Needed to have focus on the timeline before I could paste. After I create a New Action and give it a name and click OK I can't just Ctrl-V I have to click in the timeline or it won't paste. This is where it seems different from what your telling me but If I paste in frame 1 and go back to the main timeline and copy or ref the action I was getting frame 0 which was the default pose then the action starting next frame??? (the action was including frm 0 )
now when I add the action to the main timeline I see a keyframe before the action but it works fine not sure what I did wrong the first time or Right! the second time. I did have all the bones in the work area selected before maybe it had something to do with that.
Either way I'm really gonna try to remember to start the animation in the actions timeline first