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How to create a smooth looping animation?

mikekmikek Posts: 195
edited October 2016 in New Users

I would like to create a short animation which loops. I have a keyframe at the start and end where the figure has the same pose and the animation is in between these two. But in the end result the movement of the figure is only smooth in the middle of the scene while the transition from end to start has a noticable stop. From my understanding Daz uses some smoothing between keyframes so the positioning is not linear and thats why the animation looks smooth in the middle of the scene but Daz doesn't do this at the start & end. Is it possible to adjust Daz to do the same for the start & end or what is the best approach to create a smooth loop?

Post edited by mikek on

Comments

  • Thomas WindarThomas Windar Posts: 272

    This is actually an easy fix and not a fault of DAZ Studio.

    You know how you Created the same frame at the start and end? Well, that means you have 2 identical frames in the animation. The short stop comes from that.

    Just change the frame right before the last one into a key frame. Delete the last frame and shorten the Total frames by 1. It should now play properly.

  • mikekmikek Posts: 195
    edited October 2016

    Its a bit better but didn't solve it. From what I figured out the following seems to be the issue. The first image is how the animation is done by Daz and the second one has two red lines to show how it should be for a proper loop:

    Daz doesn't know what after the last keyframe will be so it smoothes the animation like anything after the keyframe is like the keyframe. The same for the first keyframe and before it. This behaviour makes sense for normal animations but for a loop its different. Is there a way to get the animation to behave like the red lines?

    Post edited by mikek on
  • Thomas WindarThomas Windar Posts: 272

    Duh, seeing that curve explains it. No wonder DAZ Studio has no clue, you basically set it up wrong from the beginning. 

     

    In order for the animation to look properly you need to start from a high point, have it reach the end point and come back on the last frame to the high point again. What you did was set up the motion so it splits in the wrong point, causing this effect.

    To fix this:

    Just make the animation longer so you have another high point. Afterwards setup keys in the two high points and cut the beginning. It should then look fine. 

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