Digital Art Zone

I built my scene. I animated my camera through the landscape. But when watching the movie I see an object floating above the water when it was supposed to be sitting in the water. It is stationary, not to be animated. When I tried to move it, auto-key created keyframe animation. Undo. Turn auto-key off. Move object. Hit play. Object reposition didn’t take, still hovers.

How do I get Bryce to let me reposition/change an object, terrain, or anything without affecting the animation or creating keyframes?

I searched the manual but all I could find was how to move objects to create animation, not how to fix a mistake. Must I trash my camera path and reanimate after revising the landscape? Not a good solution.

Help!

rlamb1 - 29 June 2012 11:57 AM

I built my scene. I animated my camera through the landscape. But when watching the movie I see an object floating above the water when it was supposed to be sitting in the water. It is stationary, not to be animated. When I tried to move it, auto-key created keyframe animation. Undo. Turn auto-key off. Move object. Hit play. Object reposition didn’t take, still hovers.

How do I get Bryce to let me reposition/change an object, terrain, or anything without affecting the animation or creating keyframes?

First, let me commend you for your detailed report. I do a lot of Bryce animation and try to help with other people’s probs with it and I’m constantly asking questions of the reporter because they’ve left out a number of crucial details.

You’ve done everything fine EXCEPT reset the initial value of the object, and no - you won’t find this in the manual. Also, keyframes are one element Bryce CANNOT undo: If you are on Auto-key and you change an object, a keyframe will be created at that time-point. If you Undo, the object will return to its previous position BUT THE KEYFRAME STAYS until you manually delete it (key-minus button, or in the AML).

Short answer: You don’t need to turn Auto-key off, but you can if you want. Scrub the time back to the beginning of the animation. Select the object in question. Position the object where you want it. Shift-click the key-minus button: That will remove all keyframes from the selected object.

Long answer: Auto-key’s sole task is to create keyframes when it detects any change in the scene. It doesn’t delete keyframes, and Undo is a completely foreign concept to keyframes in general: keyframe creation cannot be Undone, but they can be deleted simply enough.

The first frame of any Bryce animation contains the initial values of all object’s created in the scene, even if you create an object midway through your scene’s creation – An object has to start somewhere! If you accidentally move an object in Auto-key mode, a keyframe is created. If it’s the first keyframe created that will change the initial value. What you did was turn Auto-key off (which is fine), but didn’t set the initial value – Ideally you should click the key-plus button once you’ve repositioned it, then shift-click the key-minus button to get rid of any and all keyframes for that object.

Hope this helps,

-Oro

Thank you so much Oro. You filled in the missing bits of information I needed. I now understand that any adjustments to things not animated must be done in the first frame with Auto-Key on. Where I was tripping up was that I could only see the object in a later frame as the camera moved along its trajectory. The solution is to adjust the object using any other view but the animated camera if it’s not visible in the first frame. It would be easier if the Director camera wouldn’t overcompensate when using the trackball to move around. But that’s just a user performance learning curve.

Thanks again,
Rob

rlamb1 - 30 June 2012 12:51 PM

Thank you so much Oro. You filled in the missing bits of information I needed. I now understand that any adjustments to things not animated must be done in the first frame with Auto-Key on.

Uh… While this is a ‘best practice’ approach, it’s not the only one. If you’ve scrubbed halfway through your animation, and you intend to remove all keyframes from an object, there’s not reason why you can’t position the object at that time point, Auto-key On or Off, and then shift-click the key-minus button. Again, objects have to start somewhere, and Bryce will use the position you’ve move the object to as the default.

An additional aid to working with Auto-Key is to lock objects you don’t want to accidentally select. Edit Attributes… > Locked. To select them after they’ve been locked, you can use the object select tools toggled at the bottom of the interface, or Cntl-click the object and select it from the contextual menu.

I just tried your recommendation. Works just the way I prefer to work. Saves a couple of steps in the process.

Thank you again, Oro!

Rob

No wukkas.

For additional vids on working with Bryce, click the link at the bottom of my posts. I know it looks like a broken link to a picture, but really it’s a link to a group of YouTube vids.

I just subscribed to your YouTube channel. I definitely want to look at your tutorials.

Thanks,
Rob