Strange NLA Track problem
ThomasSc
Posts: 125
Hi,
I'm using Konrad for Genesis here. When I use clips (NLA Track), the eyes won't close entirely. It's only for Konrad. The standard Genesis figure works.
Any idea how to solve this error?
Best wishes,
Thomas
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i've noticed a few characters come with a closed eyes fix. mebbe he has one too?
So... you mean you're trying to use an NLA clip that you've already made for another character, and now it's not working correctly for Konrad, or do you mean that you've made an NLA clip for Konrad closing his eyes, but they won't go all the way closed?
If it's the first one, just go to the NLA tab of Konrad and use "Load Data from Clip" and edit the morphs where they need to be edited, then Create a New Clip for Konrad.
If it's the second one, and it's a blink motion, check your tweener that's being used before making the clip. For things like Blink, I find that Linear tweener works better than Bezier for many characters. Genesis might not matter. Generation 4 would allow the morph to go far beyond a normal stopping point, so I'd see some really nasty behaviors with Bezier tweeners on some motions using facial morphs.
Hope this helps... hope you get it working properly!
Hi,
Thanks for your answer. It's the second one.
I create an NLA clip with only one keyframe for Konrad. The eyes won't close properly. As there is only one keyframe, I don't need a tweener setting.
If I use the same slider (Eyes Closed) without/outside of the NLA track, eyes are closing correctly.
Best wishes,
Thomas
Thomas,.
I'm a lillte bit confused by " I create a clip with only one keyframe for Konrad"
One keyframe doesn't do anything,. for an animation you need at least two,. and the eyes Blinking should have 3 keys (eyes open, eyes closed,. eyes open)
If you can use the Slider control to animate the eyes,. then it's probably not being included in the NLA parameters for that clip
EG: try adjusting the figures arms or legs,. (if it's controlled by the clip,. it shouldn't allow you to move those parts of the figure)
Have a look at the parameters for that clip (NLA tab) ,. the parameters determine what parts of the figure are controlled by the NLA clip
It may be that the parameter for the "eyes closed" isn't being controlled by the NLA clip.
You should be a able to create an NLA clip of ONLY the eyes blinking,. then you can add another NLA track, and use that blink , in it;s own track, as many times as you want
Hi,
Thank you, but please see my initial post. Your answer does not make really much sense.
I never use 3 keyframes for my blinks. It's only one.
Best wishes,
Thomas
All what 3DAge said has a great sense but I have two questions:
- Is your keyframe at the frame "0"?
- The normal keyframe (outside the NLA) isn't deleted?
I suggest one thing: drag your clip on the right side and redo a "Zero pose" at the frame zero and then, replace your clip at 0.
It's just to be shure that you start in a good condition.
Hi,
Thanks. Once again: Standard Genesis Figure works perfectly. It WORKS! REALLY! BUT -> with the Konrad morph, it doesn't work. It does not matter where I place the keyframe.
--> Just found out that all my 3d universe (Jasmin, Kimberly, Jason, Konrad) morphs have the same problem. Non 3d universe Genesis characters seem to work fine.
Best wishes,
Thomas
Right. For an NLA "Clip", we always need more than one keyframe. Any less than two means there is no animation, and we'd want to make an NLA Master Pose instead - again, we can select which parts of the figure are affected, in this case we'd want to find the Head Morphs.
My blink NLA clips are all as 3DAGE says... three keyframes. First one with the eyes open. Second one with them closed. Third one opens them again.
Blinks for some people are so immediate that I could almost see how a Discreet tweener might work, but I use Linear. But a Bezier tweener may help for holding the eyes closed a bit longer. Personally, I'd use another 'closed' keyframe shortly after the second one if I want to have a longer closed eyelid, and maintain using Linear.
Basically, no tweeners = no animation = no real need for an NLA Clip.
I almost always create my clips using animation range instead of scene range, and create them from the 1 second mark through to the end of the animation, simple to hold my default pose at frame zero. That way when I allow my clip-creation process to delete my keyframes upon creation, my figure is ready for the next one - I usually create several clips in one session, and this makes life easier.
However, it should be known that "Load Data from Clip" will load the keyframes along the timeline where they were when the clip is created so, in my example above, my animation would get loaded starting at the 1 second mark, which I also like. I do like to protect my default pose, since my figure is defaulted at a custom scale and with a non-zeroed default pose. So my blink starts and ends with her eyes in her default open, which is slightly squinted and not fully open.
=========================================================
Either way, even if your NLA is not actually an animation, I still don't understand why it's not closing the eyes all the way. Try "Load Data from Clip" on the figure, and see if the clip has his eyes set to closed = 1
Hi,
I only use one keyframe for the blink and will blend the NLA clip with the blending option (custom start, custom end). Why would I need 3 keyframes for that?
Best wishes,
Thomas
That's a static position,. not an animation,. what you're creating is an NLA pose,. but inside an NLA clip
Normally you would create keyframe animation, over time,. then save that as an NLA "Clip"
If you only want carrara to Blend between Poses,. you'd pose uyour figure on frame 0 ,..then save as as NLA "Pose"
you can drag the posee from the NLA clips panel into the NLA track,. you can stretch or shorten the block to adjust blending between poses.
Hope that makes sense :)
Hi,
Well, I never said that it's an animation. I said that's how I'm doing my blinks.
Usually I use it that way because it's faster for me. I move the slider and the correct parameter is saved. When creating an NLA pose, I need to manually disable/enable the parameters I (don't) want. However, in this case, it really works. Using an NLA pose, the blinking works now. So thanks for pointing me to it :)
Best wishes,
Thomas
Hmm, that was too early. Now, it gives me really strange results at other bones. I'll keep trying...
Best wishes,
Thomas
OK, you are an experimenter... I understand now!
If you were an animator (transition between two "NLA poses*" is an animation), you would've never use this process!
There are other easier (and far faster) way to do that!
If it's your choice, it's nice, I also have some strange process to do some things and I comfortable with that.
Hi,
Oh, in fact, I do quite a lot of animations :)
But please feel free to tell me a better way to do it. 3 keyframes is out of the question :)
Best wishes,
Thomas
This Konrad morph seems to be for DAZ Studio users only. I just wanted to create an Alembic file via Octane for a cloth simulation in Houdini. Big FAIL! Throws me an error right away. All other Genesis figures are working like a charm! If you use Carrara, don't buy 3d universe stuff
I'll keep trying!
Ok, finally found a way by using an ERC slider to control the blinks. Not working like a charm but ok :) / Really don't know why all the 3d universe morphs are giving me these errors :/
Animation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/580g15wrclcghm4/scene-blink.mp4
When it comes to exporting the figure via Octane as ABC file. There seems to be a problem with the IK Targets and inverse kinematics. Deleting inverse kinematics solves the issue. To convert IK motion into non-IK motion, I use the Python plugin for Carrara. If anyone knows of another methode, I'd be happy to know :)
Best wishes,
Thomas
3D Universe and Stonemason have both stated ( a few years ago) that they do not intend to support carara with their products.
consequently,. I no longer purchase from those creators.
I also just realised you're Thomas from over on the octane forums, :) . so,.. it's nice to see you over here too.
On cloth sims,. there's a new-ish plugin for Carrara,. "Virtual World Dynamics / Cloth and Hair" (originally developed for use with poser) there's a Carrara version available over at rendo.
there's a thread in this forum about it
it could save you some work and time.
:)
Wow... I never knew that.
I never really expected these vendors to 'support' Carrara, since their products are meant for DS and/or Poser anyways. To me, it's always up to the Carrara user to understand that this content is actually intended for something else, and that we're fortunate to have the abilities to work with such files.
Still, both vendor seem to have dropped Poser support as well.
Stonemason has been including OBJ in his products, so stuff can be imported into B & C
Hi,
Ok, that makes sense then. Perhaps they will support Carrara in the future again
Thanks for the VWD hint. I own a copy. The usability is, well, not very good. I use Carrara mainly for its really strong usability, and VWD is quite the opposite. I gave up using it. When I used it some time ago, I always had to start all over again when I realized that the settings have not been correctly set up. Even if Houdini's cloth simulation aren't that strong, it's better and easier to set up than VWD. If VWD had a better usability, it could surely be better than Houdini, perhaps even better than Maya nCloth.
Happy rendering in Octane
Best wishes,
Thomas Schwenke
In a way, that is adding support to all major 3d apps, Carrara included (even though it's not considered 'major' by most)
I'll never stop being a fan and customer of Stephan! Love his work. He's always known when to make the call between lower-res modeling, relying on maps, etc., to make for nice, efficient scenes filled with stunning detail.
His gifting us all his "After the War" scene around Christmas time has shown to me that his DUF scenes work beautifully in Carrara, even though Carrara doesn't bring in Normal Maps on its own, we have to plug those in ourselves... but I always go for the shader first, when it comes to any purchased content.
This was my first run through setting it up in Carrara - going for a dingy, foggy/smokey feeling
Wow... Houdini, eh?
What all do you use it for in your workflow?
Thanks Thomas! You too!
Hi,
I use Houdini for visual effects like fire and smoke as well as for particles (incl. fluids) and soft bodies. Then, I import them with Octane Render (the best render software ever created by humans) via CSV and VDB. These two tools make Carrara to a competitive tool.
Best wishes,
Thomas
Thanks for the input. Very cool.
I was coming up with some really different ways of using Carrara to create my own particles effects for use in compositing, when I was introduced to Fusion and HitFilm. Now I've completely switched gears and am no longer furthering those practices, but the studies have worked so well in now helping my when I wish to work with them directly in the main scene - which I only do if I really have to... otherwise I only do that stuff using visual effects techniques, which is really fun - a whole new study for me.
Houdini, eh? I'll be looking into that too now.
Funny. The more I learn to do other things outside of Carrara, the more valuable Carrara becomes to me for what I really bought it for in the first place! ;)
Again, Thomas, Thanks for the valuable input.
I still don't understand single keyframe animation though! :)
CSV and VDB?
Hi,
Well, there are times I need a blink and times I need a longer blink. If I pack 3 keyframes in an NLA clip, I'd need 2 NLA clips. If I place one keyframe in, I can use this for a wide range of things: sleeping, blinking, sighing... That being said, it's easy to apply this to other expressions or mouth movement (for talking) too. I can also edit an NLA clip. Can you do it with an NLA pose? And as I said, an NLA pose takes longer to set up than an NLA clip. Or is an NLA pose faster for you? What are the advantages over an NLA clip when it comes to an NLA pose for you?
There are times when you will need particles in the 3d app there are times you won't. When it comes to shadows, it's hard to set it all up in a compositing app. An image like this is hard to do with generating particles in post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qm786sp2dbrxmve/daz-dragon.jpg
You can use CSV files to bring particles or other instances into Octane. E.g. Phantom scatter (http://scatter.phantomtechnology.nl/) makes use of it. VDB is a container. More info here: http://www.openvdb.org/
Best wishes,
Thomas
Awesome image/particles/composition!!! Fantastic!!!
Ahhh... I don't have Octane.
I get what you're doing now. So it's like a pose file stored in a clip. Cool.
I use clips mostly, but I also use master poses for static poses and for transferring morph data as well - like when I want to transfer a long-time used custom figure shape over to a fresh loading of the base figure, I can store a Master Pose of the custom shaped figure, load in the new base figure and "Load Data from Clip" to apply that set of morphs and pose to the new figure - as long as it has the needed morphs applied to it.
I often animate the head and all of its morphs manually without using a clip at all. The most common exception for me being blinks, which I use a three frame clip for. Gives her the perfect blink every time. Well... I have one for him too. She often blinks twice in a row, so I just run the clip twice.
So I make separate clips from the Hip down through the feet, then separate clips for the torso and (or without) the arms and hands, and might even include the neck, but leave the head alone for me to work with manually. I'm always needing to customize the head movements. If not, it's still really easy for me to add in the usual motion that would have been in the clip. I do a lot of manual animating. Quick... but manual. Since I've quit using IK for making animations, I've been getting faster and faster at it. Less fixing in between.
Wow... that image of yours really has me tweaked!!! Is there a place I can see more of your art?
Wow that's an awesome image!
I agree... there will always be time when we just need or want to run stuff directly in Carrara, which is a big part of why I love Carrara so much... it has so many of these awesome tools to use! Damn, that's a nice picture!
Hi,
Thanks.. and get Octane, it's worth every penny :)
It makes sense to store morphs in NLA poses, I understand that. But I'll do my blinks with an NLA clip and only one key frame :)
Hmm, it's hard to do animations for me without IK :)
I'm more a technical animator. I've got a channel, but it's not big art: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjDn0r-Jxfmh-HR4id885yw
BTW: What does Dartanbeck mean?
Best wishes,
Thomas
That's cool. I understand now how you're using that one key clip - I like it. Stretch it for longer, scrunch it for quick... very cool... I'm going to try it soon.
I'm also going to try animating with IK in Carrara. The IK animation experience I didn't like was in Poser. I'm glad I'm not using that anymore. I've checked out the little test IK file from the browser and really like how it works. I'll try it... but it has to be when I'm trying to test it... otherwise I just keep doing what I always do! LOL
It's a nickname that came from my Wife always calling me "d'Artagnan", her Musketeer Hero, and my last name being Beck, and my super wonderful musician Nephew's creative, quick-witted, musical way of playing with words suddenly calling me: DartanBeck, all in one word. It sounded so cool from that kid's voice that it stuck with everyone I know. Instead of spelling it d'Artagn Beck, I just sounded it out to Dartanbeck, and liked the way it looked on paper.
After seeing my silly test render movie, my Singer just calls me: 3DB
Wow! Fantastic stuff! What a great channel... I'm so glad I asked! That Nephew I just mentioned... he's going to Love this channel, so is his Dad - my Brother!
I just watched the Turbo-Charged Engine video. Fantastic animations and explanations!