Digital Art Zone

I have attached some images of a figure I am creating poses for. Right now the figure is rotating to far in the scene. I want more control in rotating him so that he stays more in one place in the scene, while doing a complete flip in one place. I am sure this is very simple. I can do it in Modo but with Daz I cant figure out how to use the rotation tool to achieve this.

Can anyone please help?

Can we get a Snap of your Scene Tab. It does not look like you have the Root of the figure selected.

Yes. Here is a more full view

I agree with Jaderail,. it looks like you’re rotating the whole figure group, and not the hip.
It also looks like you have a really long animation time-line, with only a few key-frames for an acrobatic flip .
3000 frames at 30fps is 100 seconds.

I could be wrong and you have a much more complex animation before the flip,. but,... the way that DS “tweens” is (I think) bezier, by default, and that can lead to extended curving between key-frames which are separated with a large distance like this.

Have you tried using something like Puppeteer, to create a fake motion capture,.. instead of hand animating the figure, you;d make a series of Poses,. then roll the mouse over the pose dots, and record the action as key-frames.

I have not tried Puppeteer, is this a part of Daz studio or is it a separate software?

Okay just found the puppeteer tab and docked it. Do you know of any good tutorials on how to use it? I have never used this plug-in before.

Puppeteer is built into Daz Studio
Windows / Tabs / Puppeteer.

you can dock the panel wherever you like. (see pic)

Puppeteer is a Grid, where you can Save the current Pose by clicking in the grid to create a “Pose Dot”
once you create several pose dot’s , you can switch to Preview mode,.. then roll your mouse over the dots to animate the change from one to the next.

you can record this , and convert it to key-frames on the timeline.

but you need to animate the figure bones, such as the Hip, to create the rotation,. and not the entire figure group.

Hope it helps

there should be some Video tutorials on You tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZRYJC9RV8

Thank you so much. This helps a great deal. Things are rolling now!

Do you know how to switch off the timeline when creating puppeteer poses? It keeps creating key frames whenever I try work on the pose dots in the edit mode in puppeteer.

Hi village_residuum

You should be able to work on frame 0 of the animation time-line without creating any key-frames,. so make sure your time-line slider is back at the start of your animation,.

If the time-line is advanced forward, and you move /pose a figure,.. then it’ll create a key-frame.

You should be able to select the figure and Clear all the animation (see pic)
(this won’t change you puppeteer pose dots)
you can also save and reload the Puppeteer poses you’re making as a Puppeteer preset.

Hope it helps

Thank you! This helps a great deal for me to understand the workings of these features and plugins. Also, where would I load different puppeteer presets? Can I just load them into the timeline when I am ready to create new key frames?

Can I use existing pose presets in the puppeteer grid?