Carrara Keyframe Animation Confusion [resolved]
Mythmaker
Posts: 606
Confused with Sequencer workflow. Currently practicing soft body phyiscs on Genesis. Started making some keyframe animation.
First, the figures load with DEEP hierarchies: Genesis>Genesis>Actor+Hip. Or Dress>Dress>Model+Hip. Don't understand the reason for first level. Much deeper than most apps I've used. But nevermind.
The real confusions start in how these hierarchies interact with the sequencer. Noted that every single hierarchy has some items that are keyframe-able. Everyone has a corresponding track.
To keep things simple and neat, I keyframe animate my actor on the highest level. Turns out that, to redo animation or delete keyframes, it is not enough to just delete it from the higher level Genesis or Actor track where I recorded from. For every mistake I make I need to go click click click through their sub bones to hunt for keyframes that mysteriously get recorded but won't show on their higher level.
To make life simpler, I just pick a few bones, rotate. Then load some canned poses. Problem is, sometimes these actions produce keyframe on that track, as they should, sometimes the animation obviously recorded but no sign of keyframe, or the keyframes are buried deep in lower bone level.
To make things more confusing, next keyframe hotkey is useless for hunting down "invisible" or buried keyframes.
And do people actually expand their tracks and manually select drag-select ALL the keyframes over the whole 36 tracks? That doesn't feel right...
It's crazy hunting down the mystery keyframes that refused to be deleted! Expanding all the sub tracks til my whole 27"screen filled up with the sequencer. This can't be the workflow, right? Am I missing something obvious, or is this an exotic thing? Perhaps I should just stick to NLA and use its "mini-keyframe" feature?
Does Carrara have a "remove all animation in this track" option that I can't find?
I took to DS Timeline or Animate2 or IClone Timelines with ease. This one stumbles me...
EDIT 24/3: change title to resolved.
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Comments
So you can left click and drag to create a box so you can mass select/delete/move keyframes. That might help a little bit.
As for hidden keyframes...I don't know about that. I don't encounter those. Everything is usually on some branch of the hierarchy. If you move one knuckle of the finger, that gets its own keyframe, if you blink one eye, that gets its own keyframe. That's the way it is with all animation programs.
Carrara or any DAZ product is not really going to be great for manual animation. For that you'd really want to look more at Maya, Blender, etc. Spots where you have little handles to puppet the characters around.
Carrara and DAZ work best with motion capture and then fine tuning the final animation within the NLA clip.
I'd suggest just getting Poser Pro and knocking out your animations in there and then tossing them into Carrara via pz2 files. You'll be much happier animating in Poser. Carrara for animation is pretty laborious. We have to do it sometimes, but it's best to work with minor motions, focusing on the minutia, after you've already imported your baked animation.
Good luck.
The hierarchy is the bone structure. When you use a V4 and I assume a Genesis, the hierarchy structure will start at the hip and tree from there. So off the hip you'll have the trees for the legs and the torso, From the torso, you'll have trees for the arms and the neck. The hands will have five trees, for each of the digits. I'm not sure how the IK is set up for Genesis by default, but for the mil-4 and earlier figures, the IK terminator for the legs is the hip. For the arms, it is my experience that it is also the hip, because if I select the hand, and move it with the manipulator it can twist and bend the entire torso as well.
If you select the foot and move it with the selector, causing the knee to bend and the thigh to move, it will generate keyframes for each of those joints. If this is not what you are experiencing or it isn't what you mean, then try taking a screen shot to illustrate the problem or to help us visualize the question a bit better.
Thanks for the big picture. At least now I know what to expect... I shall get into Carrara NLAs and clips making soon.
Thanks for responding EP.
I get that. I just thought
There is an option
-- to delete all keyframes generated on a selected track. Say all keyframes on Right Hand only.
-- to delete all keyframes generated on a selected track and its children.
-- to delete all keyframes generated on a selected "master null". Say the Object Null (Actor, Model, Genesis, Dress Item) level.
Perhaps there are such obvious options but I didn't know it?
Well, it looks as though Genesis adds another layer compared to a V4 or M4 or earlier. What I see with a V4 for example is V4 with Model directly beneath and then the Hip followed by the rest of the rig.
So, if you're using stringing together poses, each and every bone that has a change in position, from one pose to the next along the timeline, will have a keyframe recorded. Some of these poses could also use morphs, which may not show up in the bone hierarchy. It's just a theory, but perhaps that could be the missing keyframes?
As to having to expand the hierarchy to delete keyframes, I'll use the chest as an example. If you were to collapse the second triangle, then the keyframes should show up at the top level of the chest bone. Deleting the top level keyframe on the chest, would delete everything for the chest. Most of the time it may be what you want to do, but if you've keyramed a morph and accidentally introduced a movement, you can expand the chest and delete the translation keyframes while while retaining the morph keyframes.
To delete the whole schmear and start from scratch, one of the easiest ways is to create an NLA clip. For a Genesis figure, I'm assuming you would select the level of the figure with the NLA track, then at the top right of your screen, you should see the NLA tab. Select Create Master Clip. A window will open with options for creating your clip. You can probably leave everything as-is, but make sure the option to delete the keyframes is selected, and click okay. The entire figure is now cleared of all keyframes. If you do not want to save the clip, go to Edit--> Remove Unused Masters--> Remove Unused Clips.
Note that my screen shots are for a custom character so if it's visible, the hierarchy will look different. Also, any bone that has keyframes will be automagically selected with a check mark in the NLA options window. I haven't tested it, but if you deselect any of them, there is a possibility it may leave the keyframes for that tree in place.
I know the sequencer looks complicated and it can be, but I think with Genesis, that is more on DAZ than Carrara. Also, if you're coming at this from a DAZ Studio perspective, the timeline in Studio is vastly simplified. This is not a knock on Studio, it was designed as DAZ 3D's gateway drug to 3D, so it had to be simplified to produce the most consistent results across the broadest level of skills.
Carrara on the other hand was bought by DAZ, and it was designed as a replacement for Rarydream and Amapi, both preceded Studio, and were designed with a much more (for the time) professional set of animation tools, such as editable tweeners, graph editor, etc. Plus, almost anything can be keyframed in Carrara, including shaders, the metaball modeler and spline modeler.
Indeed. That's why I mentioned Genesis's extra hierarchy in the OP. I suspect a lot of the "atypical" timeline/keyframe behavior is due to Genesis integration being a work in progress. I don't blame Carrarists for sticking to Gen4 after spending too much time working out which bits of Genesis works/or not in Carrara.
Your chest example: I load the simplest scene, load Genesis, use U tool to rotate a few limbs and torso bones, go to another frame, do the same. Then go to Chest track, expanded, showing all Chest children's (Collar/ Shoulder...) keyframes. I expect delete keydrame on Chest will delete all Chest children keyframes. No such thing.
The issue is not that by default, Carrara assumes deleting IK chain parent won't delete children keys.
The issue is having to click repetitously to expand all children tracks and drag select all keyframes across multiple tracks just to? Perform a basic basic task. The fact that bones just auto-expand randomly (probably another Genesis thing) add to the 900% needless clicks.
I agree DS Timeline is a joke. That's why I have Animate2 and Keymate. I actually like some complexity in timeline management. My reference for timeline is iClone, a balance between functional complexity and form/ usability. Carrara Sequencer is not suffering from advanced functions but missing BASIC functions:
Remove All Keyframes in Selected Track (Children optional)
And for all other motions generated, be it from Gen 4/5 pose preset, NLA, pose control, morphs, puppetteering....
Remove All Animations in Selected Track (Children optional)
Ideally, Remove All Keyframe Animations in Selected option is a right click context in Scene Manager, or Sequencer Items, or right click on object in Viewport Scene. Better still all of the above.
Thanks for the NLA basics. Sounds like a better way to animate in Carrara anyway. Lots more to learn and discover about Carrara.
Okay. I've finally made my custom "virgin" walk cycle NLA clip using a series of poses I made in DS. Nothing earth shattering, but hey it's a handmade animation! :) (Also happy that my custom DS pose presets translate into Carrara with no weirdness!)
I bumped into Darten and 3DAGE's "using NLA to remove all keyframes" trick in older forum posts. Then I recall vaguely you said something similar. Didn't compute at that point but now yes.
Now I just make clip, then either save them, or delete them from clips tab immediately by hitting delete. I haven't done it yet, but makes sense that this trick can be used to erase keyframes on per 'scene range', per object track. A very useful workaround definitely...
Getting the hang of making NLA poses and NLA clips. My problem for the OP is solved, so thank you and others.
I like the NLA clip/pose Parameter: bone hierarchy selection/ invert select feature too. Just not sure if it makes more sense saving the whole set then in the future, un/select hands/ arms when loading. Need to compute overwrite/additive too.
Also is there a way to make custom pic thumbnails for saved-to-browser NLA clips?
Here's a jerky 1fps render of Genesis doing a very bouncy groovy virgin walkcyle. Stop laughing!
Nice animation.
You can also exclude trees in your figure hierarchy, such as arms, or hands. Just uncheck the little check boxes for them when you create your clip. In many, if not most cases, using the root bone for the offset is best if it is supposed to be a looping animation. In a DAZ/Poser style figure that would be the hip.
Some things can override an NLA clip. For example, in the following video, the A3 figure is using a looping walk cycle. In the clip, I had both arms doing essentially the same movement- both arms down at the side and doing a light swing and shoulder roll through the walk. I wanted to see if I could place the right hand on the hip, but rather than trying to edit the clip, I parented a Target Helper Object (null) to the hip (slightly offset from the hip) and had the right hand use the IK Tracking Modifier, with the Target Helper being the object that was tracked. You can still see there is some shoulder roll and arm swing, but the hand tracking the Helper keeps it on the hip, and the additional movement from the clip gives it a more natural look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkWBRuJlQhA
You can also add additional tracks to a figure by selecting that option under the Animation Menu. This can help with layering effects. For instance, you could create a general walk and exclude an arm, and create another couple clips with different arm movements, and use them in the second track to mix up the character's actions. Another great use for a second track is facial movements, such as eyeblinks or even making your figure talk.
Hey, that's a pretty good walk cycle, Mythmaker, good work :)
Evil, bookmarking this thread, as I need to start using IK, seems like it would be very useful for animating. Also the A3 walk cycle is easy on the eyes.
I've used P3dO Explorer pro to add/change thumbnails for carrara objects I've saved. Haven't ever done it for clips, but can't think of a reason it wouldn't work like it does for other carrara files to add thumbnails.
You can also use it to teach Vicky how to ride a bike!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5mq9Sdpwc
Thanks guys for the encouragement. EP I saw your V4 on a bike vid when googling for "target helper" thingy, sporty!
I revisited my earlier "confusions" and I think I can clear another one: why the extra null of Genesis>Genesis>yada or Dress>Dress>yada.
I think it's the "Animation Group" thing... I just learned that to NLA typical vertex objects you need to Animation Group it. Perhaps Genesis or DS figures are treated as mere objects by Carrara. Like, not as much a family member as Poser imports, just mere ETs. lol