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Animating controller dials?

Mary WilliamsMary Williams Posts: 108
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Could someone please point me toward a tutorial to animate controller dials in DAZ Studio?  Such as to trigger one morph when the controller is set to 1, a different morph when the controller is set to 2, and so on?

Thanks for any assistance!

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,863

    Are you wanting it to act like a toggle - moprh 1 at 100%, then morph 2 at 100%, then moprh 3 at 100% etc.? Or just for morph 1 to slide in between 0 and 100%, morph 2 between 100% and 200% and so on?

  • Mary WilliamsMary Williams Posts: 108

    The latter, and a straight-up toggle would work, but if it'd offer clean blend shapes between them that'd be the bees knees!  I'm looking for the equivalent of being able to "teach" a set of commands to a Master Parameter dial: Activating only morph1 at a controller value of 1, and then clearing out morph1 and activating morph2 at a controller value of 2, and so on.  I've been able to rig up a bunch of different morphs to a single controller, but not how to key different morph dials to activate at different controller values.  Not sure if I'm making sense.  I may need another cup of tea yet.  It's been a crazy morning.
    Thank you for any help!!!   I always appreciate it so much!!!

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,863

    Daz Studio does have keyed ERC (via the Timeline), though I got in a mess the last tiem I tried to explain it.

  • Mary WilliamsMary Williams Posts: 108

    Aha!  I'll tinker with the timeline.  Honestly, any breadcrumbs help at this point; I usually only ask something after I've beaten my head against the wall and thoroughly frustrated myself first.   I've got a couple more potential questions... but first I must tinker!   Thank you!!

  • macleanmaclean Posts: 2,438
    edited February 2019

    Off the top of my head, the process goes something like this.

    Set up the timeline with the morphs activated at the correct frames.

    Go to Parameters> Edit Mode> ERC Freeze. In the dialog that opens, create a new property, name it and hit Accept.

    In the 1st dialog, use the "Keyed (Extract from Play Range)" option.

    You should see the morphs you used appear in the list below that option.

    Once you accept that, the new property will appear - usually in the root node, although you can move it (in Edit Mode)

    Edit - Here are some notes I made on the peculiarities of the timeline. (Courtesy of Josh Darling at DAZ)

    Every property has a key at frame 0 automatically
    You automatically key a property when you change its value on any frame
    When animating you should never use "alt+click" to reset a property back to the default value because it resets the values on all keys back to default, not just the current frame
    The range of the timeline equates to the range of the property you are going to ERC Freeze to. Doesn't matter if your range is 0-500 or 0-30, the first frame will be your min value and the last frame will be your max value.
    Your first frame is your min value. That means when you create a new property you want to make sure to set your min value to 0 unless you want the slider to animate in both directions (positive and negative)

    The notes below relate to something I was doing - a bottle with morphing liquid in 15 steps. But they probably appply to anything with multiple morphs.

    Dial up the 1st morph to 100% then dial the 2nd morph to any value and then put it back at 0%. This is necessary for creating a 0% keyframe
    Increment to frame 2 and repeat the previous step - morph 2 dialed to 100%, morph 3 to a value and back down to 0%
    Repeat this with every morph until they are all animated
    at frame 15 - dial up morph 15, then 0%
    at frame 30 - morph 15 100%
    then ERC Freeze using Keyed (Extract from Play Range)

    Post edited by maclean on
  • Mary WilliamsMary Williams Posts: 108

    YAY!!!   THANKS YOU GUYS!!

    I'm so glad you posted how to use the Timeline itself, because I was horribly breaking that trying to figure it out on my own.  I also found this thread which tells you how to do it by hand and bypass the Timeline entirely.  (I totally couldn't find it without Googling for timeline tutorials though, go figure.)
    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/189306/how-do-you-save-2-morphs-on-1-slider

    I was going a bit insane.  Both methods are a little more work intensive than I banked on but I can definitely make it work for keyframing controller sliders, which is what I had my heart set on.  Thank you guys so, so, so much!!!!!!!!   If I break things too much I will be back with more questions! HEE!!!!!!

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,863

    Thank you for providing the details, maclean.

  • his xhis x Posts: 866
    maclean said:

    Off the top of my head, the process goes something like this.

    Set up the timeline with the morphs activated at the correct frames.

    Go to Parameters> Edit Mode> ERC Freeze. In the dialog that opens, create a new property, name it and hit Accept.

    In the 1st dialog, use the "Keyed (Extract from Play Range)" option.

    You should see the morphs you used appear in the list below that option.

    Once you accept that, the new property will appear - usually in the root node, although you can move it (in Edit Mode)

    Edit - Here are some notes I made on the peculiarities of the timeline. (Courtesy of Josh Darling at DAZ)

    Every property has a key at frame 0 automatically
    You automatically key a property when you change its value on any frame
    When animating you should never use "alt+click" to reset a property back to the default value because it resets the values on all keys back to default, not just the current frame
    The range of the timeline equates to the range of the property you are going to ERC Freeze to. Doesn't matter if your range is 0-500 or 0-30, the first frame will be your min value and the last frame will be your max value.
    Your first frame is your min value. That means when you create a new property you want to make sure to set your min value to 0 unless you want the slider to animate in both directions (positive and negative)

    The notes below relate to something I was doing - a bottle with morphing liquid in 15 steps. But they probably appply to anything with multiple morphs.

    Dial up the 1st morph to 100% then dial the 2nd morph to any value and then put it back at 0%. This is necessary for creating a 0% keyframe
    Increment to frame 2 and repeat the previous step - morph 2 dialed to 100%, morph 3 to a value and back down to 0%
    Repeat this with every morph until they are all animated
    at frame 15 - dial up morph 15, then 0%
    at frame 30 - morph 15 100%
    then ERC Freeze using Keyed (Extract from Play Range)

    Man, this is valuable stuff. I stumbled across it while struggling with interpolation definitions. This is great. I hope I get it to work. :-) Thanks.

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