Can anyone familiar with Graphmate help me to do a simple animation edit?
Toobis
Posts: 990
I am trying to learn to use graphmate but it doesn't seem to come with simple tutorials. I am just trying to work on something simple to start with so I can get a general feel of how it works. Here I have about a 2 second animation of V4 walking and I just want to her her head to the right about midway. Quite simply; how can I do this? I am confused as to what's what and isn't the animation line which I have it clicked on supposed to have a long jagged line with little boxes on or something? lol
(don't worry about keymate at this moment I am just trying to learn Graphmate and there isn't really much in the way of simple tutorials online)
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Comments
I see a lot of people have problems with DAZ Animation. This could be an interesting topic to write a guide about...
Anyway - in order to sucessfuly use both KeyMate and GraphMate you will have to understand a few core concepts of 3D animation.
This should tell you the basics quickly.
First fo all - set a Frame rate. I would suggest 24 frames per second for a start. It will be enough.
There is a lot more when it comes to animation, but let's get to your question.
How to use GraphMate:
First - you have to create the KeyFrames for your main poses. So you want the character to have her head move left to right
You would first create a Pose of her looking to the left on Frame 0. Then you have her look on Frame 11 forward. Then Right at Frame 23. (That is 24 frames in total).
You now have an animation of her moving her head.
Now, make sure your GraphMate, Parameter and Scene Tab are open.
In the Scene Tab - select the body part that moves. In this case - her head.
Go to your Parameter tab and just move your mouse over a parameter, like Bend or Twist. Don't click anything. The "Bend" or "Twist" line should appear in Graph Mate. You can now move its KeyFrames there on the Graph.
You can hold CTRL to move the keyframes there which will affect the motion.
Moving the KeyFrame left or right will change its position on the timeline, affecting how fast or slow the head motion is.
Moving the KeyFrame up or down will change its value - as if you changed it in the Parameter settings.
This is a quick overview.
Anything specific you wish to know about GraphMate?
K I think it get it but how do you record what you want done? (vid shown as an example of her head turning right but as soon as I play the animation it appears to go back to the default animation)
That is not a Graphmate problem.
Can you describe your process? What did you do from start to finish?
Normally your process should look something like this:
1. Load the figure into the scene.
2. On the Timeline (not Animate2) set the FPS (usually 24 is enough) and the range of your animation. (Usually, your Range / FPS = animation clip time in seconds. So a 48 frame animation at 24 FPS will take 2 seconds.)
3. Create a Keyframe for Frame 0.Make your starting pose there.
4. If you wish to have a looping animation - your last frame should be the exact frame as Frame 0. Copy your keyframe there.
5. You now have two Keyframes.
6. Make a third keyframe somewhere in the middle of the animation (for starters - do it on Frame 11 if you have a 24 frame range. Do it on Frame 23 if you have 48 frames, etc.)
7. On the third Keyframe - change the pose.
8. You can now play your animation.
Remember to select the correct frame on the timeline before you change the pose.
Animation is more complex than what I described above - but it should work for a simple one if you just wish to practice the tools themselves.
Also - I would STRONGLY urge you to do your animations on a ball primitive first. That way you can learn basics without the complexity introduced by a figure.
I am really sorry lol it should be simple but I am just not grasping this. Is there a chance if you have time you could do a quick video for me as an example of this exact procedure from scratch? it would had been better if I asked this at the start actually. Sorry to be a pain but its just I learn a million times better by example :(
You given up Thomas Windar? :(
Oh sorry.
I must've somehow missed your answer. x.X I thought you never replied to that.
I'll see if I can make a video about this.
Toobis, not sure but it seems that the bit you are missing is that you have to render all the frames of the animation and then put them together to create the animation.
Wait, is it?
I thought Toobis was asking about the use of GraphMate...
Toobis, can you confirm what is the problem? Are you trying to RENDER AN ANIMATION or just set it up BEFORE the rendering process?
Hmmm ... I do not have much experience with aniMate and it's components yet, but I think the problem you are having with switching back to the default positions is on the animate tab itself. when you place the aniblock on there you need to 'burn' it to the timeline to make changes. I seem to recall doing this by right clicking on the animate tab (maybe another place ?) ... burn to timeline should be an option that pops up - then you can make changes that will stick - after that, remember to actually save your animation under a new name as an aniblock, not just as a duf file so you can use it in other renders.
I have played around a bit with the animation timeline and the process I used was the same as what Thomas Windar described, just setting up keyframes and letting Daz handle the inbetween frames, then render out the whole animation as either a single movie file or a batch of stills (which I think is what Granville was referring to). It's pretty much the way Adobe After Effects works (on the most basic level); set up your keyframes and let the software create the interpolated motion inbetween. Based on the product descriptions, I'm figuring that GraphMate and KeyMate let you have more control and finesse over the "tween" frames, like adding acceleration/decceleration to the movements and manipulating groups of frames. And I'm guessing that aniblocks are "canned" animations that eliminate the difficulty of replicating common and/or complex movements like walk/run cycles, etc. though I haven't experimented with mixing aniblocks with basic timeline keyframe animations.