Using Timeline for array of stills?

motoglyphs

I'm trying to use the timeline to progress through a series of stills.  The tweening is a major pain in the butt for this.

When I need a new render between two existing frames every single item is midway.  In other applications I'm

able to reliably copy and paste the earler or the following frame, to mix.  In Daz it invites me to copy and paste,

but nothinng happens.

 

How best to have two scenes in the timeline that I don't want altered, and not suffer from tweening when

I add a scene between them?  

 

My project is stalled because I will need to correct several hundred problems caused by tweening, and the

inability to copy/paste.

Design Anvil - Razor42

I'm not sure you are using the timeline for what it is designed to do. The tweening act to give a character animation a more natural movement flow.

It's not really meant to be used as a batch render setup or scene collector from your description is what your using it for.

You would be better off using separate scene save files in my opinion for each frame and giving them some kind of order in naming SceneHouseFrame01 for example. You can merge an a seperate scene into a new one if that is the main reason your doing it this way.

DraagonStorm

Can you give a visual example of what is happening, compared to what you want it to do?

Tobor

Ah, you sound like a Poser user, where using the animation timeline is how you can provide a series of stills using a one set of assets. Sadly, D|S is not designed the same way, and unfortunately, most non-Poser users don't understand the benefit of this important feature.

There is an animation add-on, Animate2, that *might* help. It costs extra, and it may not have all the features you need, depending on your approach. However, it's worth looking into. 

You might be able to use the timeline in a linear fashion for creating individual stills if you add new keyframes at every frame. Be sure to select all the objects in the scene when you make the keyframe. You might also find it's useful to "double-up" the keyframes -- make one, then a second, and use the second to build your new poses. Remember to not use the Views (e.g. Perspective View) for your camera. Always use a created camera. 

Finally, you might look around at some of the freebie scripts to see if there are any aids that might help. For example, there are some pose copying scripts here that might be useful (there are 6 pages worth, so don't stop on just the first one): https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/

motoglyphs

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

I'm not sure you are using the timeline for what it is designed to do. The tweening act to give a character animation a more natural movement flow.

It's not really meant to be used as a batch render setup or scene collector from your description is what your using it for.

You would be better off using separate scene save files in my opinion for each frame and giving them some kind of order in naming SceneHouseFrame01 for example. You can merge an a seperate scene into a new one if that is the main reason your doing it this way.

Fair assessment, not what timeline is designed for.  But I've got a complicated set of scenes with a lot of common elements like actors, environment, lighting, cameras, morphs.  Keeping continuity between separate files would be a nightmare.  So timeline is a great way to keep these elements together, and make incremental changes.   I shouldn't have made it sound like it is a bug, I'm just wondering if anyone else has found a way to make this use of the timeline work.  

I'm looking for a way to turn the tweening off, or better, be able to copy the state of frame 0 to frame 3, when I've already got a scene set up in frame 5, without messing everything else up.

motoglyphs

Tobor said:

Ah, you sound like a Poser user, where using the animation timeline is how you can provide a series of stills using a one set of assets. Sadly, D|S is not designed the same way, and unfortunately, most non-Poser users don't understand the benefit of this important feature.

There is an animation add-on, Animate2, that *might* help. It costs extra, and it may not have all the features you need, depending on your approach. However, it's worth looking into. 

You might be able to use the timeline in a linear fashion for creating individual stills if you add new keyframes at every frame. Be sure to select all the objects in the scene when you make the keyframe. You might also find it's useful to "double-up" the keyframes -- make one, then a second, and use the second to build your new poses. Remember to not use the Views (e.g. Perspective View) for your camera. Always use a created camera. 

Finally, you might look around at some of the freebie scripts to see if there are any aids that might help. For example, there are some pose copying scripts here that might be useful (there are 6 pages worth, so don't stop on just the first one): https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/

I have tried some of this, maybe you can spot what went wrong.

It's a story, where I began with the most important frame, in frame 0.  I got an idea for a similar shot that should precede it.  So I created keyframes in frame 5, and manually adjusted things in frame 0 to get my preceding scene.  So far so good.  Now I have a scene I'd like to put between these two.  I just want to take the state of frame 0 and put it in frame 3 for example, so I'm not dealing with every single change tweened half way.  I select everything, create a keyframe for them all in frame 3, move to frame 0, ctrl-C while in the parameters pane, move the timeline to frame 3, ctrl-V, and nothing. 

This actually worked for me once, but I don't know exactly what I did that was different.  I know timeline was not meant for this, but it is so close to working, and would be a huge boost to the process.

Thanks for those resources, I will look into them.  I'll pay for a solution if it might work!

motoglyphs

Here's a more concrete question:

What can I copy from one frame to another?  I was able to copy the pose of one figure to another successfully, but it was in the same frame of the timeline I think.

Ruphuss

this is one of many useful scripts for animators by mcasual

 

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts4/mcjrepeataction

motoglyphs

Thanks all, your responses helped me find the solution!  The KeyMate plugin has me back to work, allowing me to copy and paste to any frame in the timeline.