Auto Keyframe

[def_shteph]

Is there a way to use tradigiTools with auto keyframe turned on?

When I'm animating, very often I find myself "flipping" my keys (jumping from prev key to next key in the timeline using shortcuts) when I want to check my poses and do some tweaking. Currently when I adjust a control, I have to set a tradigiTool key, then check against previous pose, adjust again, set tradigiTool key again, etc. This extra step of having to hit an extra button to set a key each time I make a small change can really start to slow down the workflow after some time.

If I turn on auto keyframe to avoid having to repeatedly press the "key" button, Maya sets a normal key and tradigiTools functions break. The plugin no longer recognizes these keys as "red" or "green" and functionality such as the favoring buttons and slider, animblast frame # color coding, and timing all stop working.

Perhaps my workflow is wrong, but is there any other way around this other than using auto keyframe?

[Dimos]

Thank for the post "def_shteph" (I'll just call ya Def for short)

AutoKey is a user choice kind of thing.  TradigiTOOLS can be SLIGHTLY set up to take advantage of the AutoKey (or keying individual controls on separate frames) but it is not primarily designed to do so.  The dependency on autokeying can and will cause issues especially in the timing aspect of the tool and the efficient workflow that traditional methods bring to the table.

The tool itself is primarily designed and based a traditional animation workflow which is a "KEY ALL" or "POSE to Pose" approach to animating.  In essence the KEY frame becomes a "drawing" if you will.  Autokey can still be used but it is HIGHLY recommended to select the entire characters controls and Key them on any given KEY frame or BREAKDOWN.

Autokey is a dangerous tool too use in my opinion and I urge all my students (and animators that work or will work for me) to stay away from.  I used to LOVE it and no one could tear me from it.....That is until I personally learned of the possible horrors it could cause  (too many too list).  I flip back and forth all the time as well to see how my poses are flowing and the Keys are animating, that is a good practice but as I mention I usually KEY ALL controls.

To make tradigiTOOLS work more or less "favourably" with AutoKeying and a partial key frame approach go to the OPTIONS menu at the top.  GO to BreakDowns and you'll notice the default setting is set to "Ignore All".  This means that if ANY controls or their attributes are missing KEYS on a "drawing", tradigiTOOLS will ignore the setting of new keys and through out an error message in the Script editor.  If you wish to alter those settings feel free to, just know the tool's default settings and method it promotes it is the BEST way to use the tools and altering the settings and trying to use a hybrid of workflows can cause other issues.  If you choose "ignore object" then only the object with missing keys on attributes will be ignored.  Furthermore, if you select "Ignore Attribute" then ONLY attributes with missing Keys will be ignored.

I hope that helps.  Please feel free to keep posting your issues, concerns and needs.  I'll see what I can offer in terms of guidance.  Please note a manual and more demo videos are being discussed and worked on.

Cheers!
-Dimos

[def_shteph]

Thanks for the response. The breakdown options did help make it work, although I still don't quite understand what the difference between "ignore object" and "ignore attribute" is. I just tried one or the other until it worked.

On the workflow side of things, I understand the pose to pose approach, and that is what I use, but what I was talking about was more along the lines of adjustments to existing poses. For example, if I had a ball traveling left to right and I had set 2 keys (one screen left, one screen right), and then a breakdown between those two poses, if I wanted to adjust the favoring of the ball I could just move the breakdown slider and it would adjust the ball's position while setting a new breakdown -green key- that would replace the previous one (assuming overwrite mode is on). That particular workflow makes sense to me. Anytime you want to adjust that breakdown, you can just flip to that "drawing", adjust the slider, and thats it, no extra buttons pressed.

Compare this to the next example where that same ball now has an antenna sticking straight up from it that drags as the ball travels left to right. On the first key pose, the antenna is straight. On the last pose, it's dragging just a little bit. Now on the breakdown, naturally the antenna is dragging the most (leaning way back to the left). Suppose I don't like the breakdown and I want to adjust the amount of drag on the antenna. Like in the example above, I would just go to the breakdown slider and try moving it. But now that doesn't work, since the "pose" of the antenna is not between the first and last keys (it's more of an extreme if you will), tradigiTools cannot blend between the two and all you can do is reduce the drag, not increase it. To solve that, I would just manually move the antenna, select all my objects and controls, and then key them all using the key/breakdown button to save the whole "pose". Then if after flipping I still didn't like pose, I'd have to deselect everything, select just the antenna, move it again, reselect everything, hit the key/breakdown button again, then check the pose. Alternatively, I could just adjust the antenna, set a key on just that, flip my poses, adjust again, and set a key again.

Now as you can see, thats either a lot of deselecting and reselecting or a lot of pressing the key/breakdown buttons just to adjust one object/attribute. That is where I thought autokey was ideal. However, I was never a traditional animator and I'm still not the most experienced CG animator either, so perhaps I'm approaching this the wrong way. I hope all of this made sense, I'm just trying to understand the best way to use the tradigiTools, so that I can spend more time animating rather than pushing buttons and sliders around.


p.s. I am looking forward to the new demo videos, I think they will help myself and others to understand better workflows.

[Dimos]

Thanks Def,

Well yes!  That all makes sense and really there is no way around that kind of thing.  Sometimes (if not MANY) it is still important to take control of the posing and manually adjust poses and controls.  TradigiTOOLS is an aid to the method and can only do so much.  It is the animator that creates and breathes life into the motion and tradigiTOOLS allows the animator to concentrate more on the process of animating and less on the technical aspect of it all.  It just speeds up the flow and helps to get through the process more intuitively.

What I would do here is what you suggested.  I would go between the two poses, favour the breakdown one way or the other (depending on what is needed) then manually adjust other parts to help break the action up.  Sometimes I can just select the desired parts I wanted to adjust and use tradigiTOOLS to favour the parts of that pose differently then the rest of the character/objects, OR I would just wove those parts regularly like and use tradigiTOOLS to set the BREAKDOWN Key (Green Tick).  Now ALL attributes of EVERY control on that gven character has a key recorded on that key frame of breakdown frame.  Does that makes sense.  Basically I try to assure that ALL keys are KEYED appropriately.

To answer your question about the difference between Attributes and Controls..........

Controls are set of attributes or channels in an object.  So All translates, rotates and scale, plus any additional channels added to that control are all part of a control.  Selecting the "Ignore Object" will ignore setting a KEY on those object (via the favour buttons or slider) on ALL the attributes in the object that are missing "information" on the surrounding frames.  Now if you select "Ignore Attributes" this will KEY or Breakdown ALL selected controls and attributes except for those attributes that are missing "information".  That's the simplest way I can put it for now.  I use the default setting all the time and I try to ensure that my keys and breakdowns are always keyed on ALL attributes of every control.  That the intended flow the tool was designed for.

That's all I got for now.  I do enjoy this however.  I really want to get these demo videos and manuals out and all but my current schedule is hectic and I wont be able to get to them soon enough.  We are working on simpler more basic demos for basic operations in addition to the ones we already have but I myself will personally produce a training video (DVD) that will showcase my method in a traditional hand drawn project and in a CG project.  I will show how I use the traditional workflow to animate in CG and I will also showcase tradigiTOOLS. to id in making CG more intuitive as in traditional ways.  It is a big project and needs to be done right so people get a better understand of how to animate more efficiently.  Of course this will be based on my personal experiences and workflow developments that stems from my interpretation of the animation process the great animators of the past have developed.  The animation process has been developed already nd perfect in my opinion.  CG is just a tool and I firmly beleive the tools should cater to the artists and not the other way around.  Ok, now I'm rambling.  I'll stop!

Thanks for listening. 

-Dimos