NLA Best Practices

Mosk the Scribe

Looking for a good approach to the following - 

When adding poses to the timeline/sequencer, these can serve as a good starting point / timesaver for walk cycle or whatever motion you'd like to create.

But adjustments / additional in between poses often have to be made.

If I simply did this in the regular sequencer without involving NLA clips, that would be easy enough to do - and then I could save the final sequence out as a master clip.  But then I'd lose the ability to easliy slide poses around / re-time things while building teh motion.

If I try to build things within the NLA Track, I'm not sure how to do the adjustments.  

If I add a new Editable Clip, the figure goes into a different pose than what's sitting in the timeline.  

If I try to translate the hip upward, the whole figure rotates instead of just mving up. (Daz Tortoise)

Thanks for any pointers.

 

Diomede

Suggested a SciFi tutorial here. 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2739286/#Comment_2739286

 

Hope someone else who is more familar with NLAs can be more specific

Mosk the Scribe

Thanks - just replied on other thread-  and will see if anyone gives some more detailed suggestions.

mindsong

@Philw has a great set of tutorials in the store here, his most recent covering Carrara Animation. It's a great series and recommended:

 https://www.daz3d.com/animation-in-carrara-video-tutorials

It's intended to be Carrara-user specific (which buttons do what), but also covers general animation techniques in there too.

--ms

3DAGE

NLA is the same as Keyframe's in the timeline. it's just a different way to save the keyframes which allows you to create an NLA clip which can be moved around in the timeline as needed,.

You can "Load clip data" to load the keyframes from the NLA clip,. into the timeline,. and you're back to keyframe animation editing in the timeline.

when you're happy,...

Make that keyframe animation into an NLA master clip.

 

DO NOT Start by making an Empty NLA CLip and then trying to animate "inside" that limited area.

that's as creative and natural as locking yourself in a small box..

Create your animation "normally" in the timeline ,.  as you create, you may want to extend or reduce the lenght on time you're working in.

Once you're happy ,.. Make that animation into an NLA clip which can be saved to your Browser,. used repeatedly in different scenes,.. on different figures, ..edited (normally in the timeline) ,..or as NLA clip.

Hope it helps

 

Mosk the Scribe

That sounds like a good process.

Not sure how to load the clip data, however.

Right now I have 6 Master Poses in the sequencer on an NLA Track, creating a rough animation.

How do I capture and load that clip data into keyframes?

(I've tried selecting the figure, going to NLA tab, and hitting 'Load Clip Data'.  That brings up a window with all of my Master Clips.  But selecting one and hitting ok doesn't seem to do anything to my timeline (I don't see any keyframes pop up).

Also, is there a way to capture all 6 Master Poses into one Master Clip - and then transfer all of those keys to timeline in one shot?

Thanks

 

3DAGE

You could use Puppeteer,. to capture poses from the current figure,. and apply them to the selected figure.

If you scroll through your timeline,. and click in the "Controllers" Puppeteer grid, to "Capture" the current pose,. as a little red dot in the grid.

Now delete the NLA poses from your figure's timeline,.

Now you can scroll through the timline and then "apply" each of the saved pose dots wherever you need them.

you should now have a set of keyframes along the timeline,.

If you select your figure,. go to NLA, click create Master Clip,.

go to your "scene clips panel,. and you should have your new master clip , which you can drag into the timeline,. or save to the browser.

I'm not sure why you're not seeing any animation loading back into the timeline if you select "load clip data",. unless it's a single Pose,. the timeline should be populated with the keyframe data from the NLA clip.

Make sure your Timeline for the figure is Empty,. then to to NLA / load clip data.

clip data is loaded in from frame 0

.if it's an NLA Pose,. then there's no animation,. just a single pose,. and that will apply to the figure at frame 0,. in which case you wouldn't notice any "new" keys being added

since there would be keys on frame 0,. only the values would change,. but you should see a change in the figure pose.

 

Ideally when you're creating a walk cycle,. you'd be creating a series of poses / keyframes along the timeline,. then (when you're happy) save that animation as an NLA Clip.

that will save all the poses , and tweeners,. along the timeline as a single animation clip.

you can save that clip to your browser and use it in other scenes,. or load it into a scene and load the clip data to edit it / add to it / etc... then save as a new master clip.