AniMate2 Problems - baking to AniBlocks omits properties, changes actor position

mwasielewski1990

Hello everyone,

I purchased AniMate2 on sale a while ago and I'm fooling around with it.

I noticed something I can't get rid of. Every time I create either a static pose, or an animation and then turn it into an aniblock, upon clicking the "Create AniBlock from studio keyframes", the characters position get moved/skewed by a very small amount on both X and Z axis.

I'm doing this on a clean scene, with a completely blank Genesis 8 character, on a completely fresh content library containing just the Starter Essentials and Default Resources.

Here is a video of me doing it (dont worry I applied the DEV materials :) )

Also, the windows default recording app didn't record the right click -> "Create AniBlock from studio keyframes", but you're gonna see when I do it based on the position of the two characters.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E7hvZ1pPE0gk7-ttwmgSQ1zDpNxOddBu/view

 

Essentially I want to create static pose AniBlocks so that I could later on add animated details to the poses (like the character jiggling their toes, rotating the head/neck and use the Layers in Aniblock editor).

Any ideas why this happens? The characters are zeroed before creating the poses, also the scale is 100%, it happens on all characters - both the base model and custom ones.

mwasielewski1990

Sorry for bumping this thread but I really nead an answer...

I found more problems (I'm on DAZ 4.22 if this helps).

I also noticed that "Create AniBlock from studio keyframes" for some reason omits certain posing properties like "Neck-Head Bend", "NeckHead Side-Side", "Hand Grasp" and so on. Is there a reason to it? All the keyframes are in place, I double-checked and the animation in the "Studio Keyframes" (on the regular timeline) plays as I designed it. However, after baking it to aniblock (doesn't matter which baking options I choose, whether it be "Direct Copy" or "Objects' POV") the said properties are not animated.

To makes things interesting, certain other pose properties like "Toes Curl" animate correctly.

Any idea what's going on?

mwasielewski1990

Maybe I should explain better my workflow.

1. I started by creating a regular static pose and put a keyframe on it. Then, I converted it into a 30-second static AniBlock.

2. I start with a fresh scene, load the character, and load the 30-second static pose AniBlock.

3. Then, I added Layers as shown in the pic below and started manually placing keyframes inside of AniMate separately for Left Leg, Right Leg, Left Arm, etc... So that every limb movement is separated and I can fine-tune the timing of each limb animation (but also toe curls, blinking, etc)

This is how it looks like now:

 

4. Now I want to MERGE all the aniblocks into one so I have a one-click preset. So I go Right Clikck -> Bake to Studio Keyframes.

5. I go to the regular Timeline and check the animation. Everything plays as expected.

 

6. OK, so now I go back to AniMate, delete all the previous AniBlocks, insert a blank Base layer and Right Click - "Create An Aniblock from Studio Keyframes"

7. The problem begins. The animation is OK in general, but Head-Neck movement properties and Hand properties (like grasp, spread etc) are not being recorded/baked into the AniBlock

 

Can anyone explain where I'm making the mistake?

Also, here are the videos of the animation:

BEFORE "merging":

https://i.imgur.com/Q3WTTVV.mp4

 

AFTER "merging":

https://i.imgur.com/OdMk5GO.mp4

Richard Haseltine

Pose controls are being ignored, at least for you. Use Edit>Figure>Bake to Transforms to turn those into actual local bends on the bones, which  should be picked up (but check you are not missing a setting in the bake fuction to include them as-is).

mwasielewski1990

Richard Haseltine said:

Pose controls are being ignored, at least for you. Use Edit>Figure>Bake to Transforms to turn those into actual local bends on the bones, which  should be picked up (but check you are not missing a setting in the bake fuction to include them as-is).

Thanks for answering Richard.

What do you mean "at least for you"? Are they supposed to be transfered? During the AniBlock baking from studio keyframes there is a pop-up window with checkboxes. I always check all 4 (Translation, rotation, scale, and morphs/properties).

Also, feet pose controls are transferred correctly (toe spread, toe curl etc)

 

EDIT: I tried to bake the transforms. I have over 900 frames in this animation, and the baker freezes DAZ when I try to select and bake all keyframes in the classic timeline so i had to kill it from the task manager. Baking the transforms in animate only bakes one frame at a time.

Any workarounds? Or do i have to manually convert every keyframe in AniMate...?

Richard Haseltine

I meant I wasn't sure if it shouild be that way or not. Is DS actually freezing (as in not doing anything) or is it just busy? The disctinction may not help, but you could try saving out the animation in chunks of keys and then bake them befoe reapplying them to a single sequence for  turning into an AniBlock - it isn't soemthing I have ever done as more than a quick and very simple test.

mwasielewski1990

 

Unfortunately I'm not able to produce any solution. There seems to be a bug in AniMate that incorrectly transforms certain body part movements even if they are baked using Edit->Figure->Bake to transforms.

The problem is always the same: After merging the aniblocks into the regular timeline using "Bake to studio keyframes", the animation plays as intended. Now, in timeline, I can Bake to transforms and the animation plays fine. 

After that, when I click "Create aniblock from studio keyframe" always something's wrong - bends of certain bones are incorrect.

Shame though as the layered system in AniMate looks great and that's why I bought it in the first place. Good thing I got it on sale as this is useless in it's current state.

Melamkish

Probably the best source of information on using Animate2 is Dartanbeck.

This, quoted from the forum post that follows, may help you. The post has lots of information, including U-Tube videos, as well as links to his in-store product guides. I have learned a lot using this information, and refer to it often, when I restart animating.

Subtracks are what allow us to stack motions over one another. Some of the features of this tool are not supported on generations newer than Genesis 2, so for that to work smoothly, we'll need to make our own Partial aniBlocks. You'll see what I mean.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/659141/animate-2-fun-things-you-may-not-have-known

mwasielewski1990

Melamkish said:

Probably the best source of information on using Animate2 is Dartanbeck.

This, quoted from the forum post that follows, may help you. The post has lots of information, including U-Tube videos, as well as links to his in-store product guides. I have learned a lot using this information, and refer to it often, when I restart animating.

Subtracks are what allow us to stack motions over one another. Some of the features of this tool are not supported on generations newer than Genesis 2, so for that to work smoothly, we'll need to make our own Partial aniBlocks. You'll see what I mean.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/659141/animate-2-fun-things-you-may-not-have-known

Thanks Mel, but I'm already using subtracks for partial aniblocks I created myself, I have an opposite problem: how to merge them so that pose controls are correctly baked to bone rotations.

As you mentioned, perhaps it's because AniMate was meant for Genesis2 and I'm trying this on Gen 8 and 9.

I think I may give up on animating in DAZ and just learn Blender instead. Shame though the DAZ team won't invest more $$$ in native animation tools (maybe purchase the license from the original plugin author and re-write the AniMate plugin to natively support G8 and G9 correctly)?

I already know how to export to Blender using diffeomorphic plugin but just working in one application would me so much easier.