Animating in Daz3D - first keyframe doesn't fully store figure pose?

EternalWinds

Hello

Basically, i'm getting more into Daz3D animation, and there's a problem I frequently have when it comes to the initial pose of a figure.

I make the initial pose no problem, but I find as I make changes further down the timeline they also apply to the first, initial pose. I'd assumed creating a keyframe to start with would save everything as-is, but it doesn't seem to store any bone/joint that's default.

It's usually a problem when I get into the finer details like eyeballs, fingers, that sort of thing; they "override" the initial pose and require going back to the earlier keyframes to "restore" it... is there any way to "set" the pose from the first frame? I assume saving as a pose preset might work? Then I might be able to pose however I want in the following keyframes, and re-apply the pose to the initial keyframe?

Hmm... hope any of this made sense, wasn't quite sure how to word it :)

Richard Haseltine

Did you have all bones selected when you created the keyframe at frame 0?

WendyLuvsCatz

memorise figure then restore

and yes I get thrown of by D|S lack of a starting keyframe on everything in every parameter including cameras myself.

kitakoredaz

It may happen not only about first frame. when you pose or change shape, and hope to store as key,

1. select root of figure

2  select all child nodes

3 click "insert key icon" of DAZ timeline on to the frame. not rely on daz auto key insert system. 

 

 

EternalWinds

Thanks for the input,

Rich, I tried selecting all bones as you suggested and, along with ToeJam and kitakoredaz's tips, helped fix the issue. It seems that making keyframes with only the figure selected (rather than every bone / node) only saved parts that weren't at zero, and if you changed one of the zero'd values to something else later in the timeline it would retroactively apply the same value to the start.

We're back in business now, though! Ta :)

mindsong

Quick related note:

While I can see the value of only keying non-zero value as DS does by default (does nothing you didn't explcitly tell it to?), I've also been haunted by that same behavior, which seemed *really* odd when I didn't understand what was causing it!

The inverse, to unset all zero'd keys is useful in aniblock editing! If you don't, sometimes the blocks will interact badly with surrounding blocks (overriding, etc.), and using the 'effect only' checkboxes don't always do what I'd like, so,...

Say I want to have some expression aniblocks that only affect eyebrows and leave everything else alone... The big idea is to clear the zero'd elements in the first frame of the block, leaving only the eyebrow changes behind. Assuming your edits only effect the eybrows:

When editing such an aniblock,  I will frequently start with a temporary keyframe in the first frame of the block, even if all or most of the block is zero'd on that frame, then edit the block as I wish, then go back to that first frame of the block, and click the little key icon with the '1' on the icon, then immediately click the key icon with the '0' on it. By doing this, the first keyframe of the block is functionally non-existent and the block then merges with the preceding block in a way that might be less 'invasive' to the existing track state (from the preceding block). Note that those two buttons don't seem to do anything until there's something else registered (keyed) elsewhere in the aniblock being edited first. Also note that any aniblocks that are created with this technique will suffer exactly the effect you were wanting to fix in your original post. Again, it depends on your need, but both effects can be leveraged to good-effect if you know why it's happening!

I hope this is clear, because this effect isn't always what I want, and not all of my aniblocks are built this way, but it does allow me to really isolate some of the things in blocks that were affecting/overriding  my tracks in a bad way. I can use this to just have eyebrow blocks that now leave other expression elements alone, which is critical to how I think about and use aniblocks.

I would suppose that the little key block with the '1' on it will set all of the values (zero or otherwise) in the aniblock frame (per this original topic), but I'm not certain that that's the effect.

cheers,

--ms