So basically I got this rig from makehuman. I’m trying to animate this rig to make a storyboard out of it. It’s definitely a complicated way of doing a storyboard, but I’m doing it so I could learn a little about rigging and animation. I’m currently in the middle of blocking this rig in the scene that it’s in without doing any poses. On to my questions:
A) What do you call those quides thingymajigys on the left? I keep calling them armature until I realize armature are the bones, not those thingymajigys on the left that moves the bones through constraints.
B) When I first started blocking the quide thingymajigys, I would switch back and forth from object mode (the green quide thingymajigy) to pose mode (the multicolored quide thingymajigys) when keying the characters location. Whenever I do this, I would mess up the keys somehow and find myself rekeying the positions of the characters. Now I understand that “to key” means to put a keyframe in a particular channel. If it’s object mode, it would key the pos/rot/scale of the object (the green quide thingymajigy). If it’s pose mode, it would key the pos/rot/scale of the multicolored quide thingymajigys “within the object (the green quide thingymajigy)” that would drive the bones (I hope I’m understanding this right). My confusion is this: I would understand if I lose a pose if I switch back and forth keying the object v keying the multicolored quide thingymajigys (if I key the object and not the multicolored quide thingymajigys, then I would definitely lose the pose), but since I’m only blocking the characters location, why would I lose keys if I switch back and forth between the two modes? As a workaround, I stop switching back and forth between the two modes and had just been keying in pose mode, but I wonder if this is the best way of doing this.
C) Can I use auto keyframe when I really start posing the characters with the multicolored quide thingymajigys? Or does autokeyframe only work when translating the bones?
D) Can somebody slap me because I used the word thingymajigy too much? Seriously I sound like an idiot.
Anyways, noob out. Thanks for any answers you guys can provide me.
The “thingymajiggies” are bones with custom objects assigned. I haven’t used makehuman for anything other than to try it out. But that’s what they appear to be.
They’re often called control bones or control widgets. Or just widgets.
The only instance I can think of right now for the keys to vanish, is because they weren’t actually being recorded. Were they visible in the timeline or dope sheet?
You can use auto key framing for rotations, scaling and translations. Just make sure to choose the right option for the active keying set. I usually just leave it set to LocRotScaling. That will pick up on anything I do in the scene with the given bone.
A lot of people prefer to manually insert keys with a keying set of their own choosing. Such as location or Rotation. Which probably just helps them keep tight control over whatever bones they’re working on.
personally the only keying set I use (you can check in the 3DView header) is “available”, which means if autokey is enabled, it’ll key any transform you make (loc, rot, scale, custom property) if and only if it’s already keyed somewhere on the timeline. That’s what “available” means, as in “there’s already a curve there and I’ll insert keys on it for you anytime you change something” - it mimics the way Maya works (I’m most used to Maya). Otherwise you can use “locrotscale” for instance but every time you move the object it’ll also key the rotation and scale values anyway. Pretty lame behaviour I think so I stick with “available”.
You should only animate in pose mode. Unless you’re animating an empty for other purposes, but if you’re working with a rig - made of bones - then stay in pose mode, that’s what it’s made for.
Actually that’s a good point about using the “available” keying set. Sounds more flexible than using “Only insert available” from the editing section of the user preferences.
I never quite understood what that was for. I know one should stay away from “only insert needed” because that prevents from adding a keyframe between two other existing keyframes, either from the graph editor or from the viewport.
Thanks for the help guys. The funny thing about this particular project is that I was busy this past weekend trying to get this “animation/storyboard” renders going when I realized that my old renders of this project would work better than what I was currently trying to do. I was over complicating things for no reason. At least I learned about autokeying though, which I didn’t know existed until I tried to redo this project.
From my own experience the “less is more” approach works as well with key-framing as it does with modeling.
More often than not you can accomplish more with fewer keys and adjusting the curves. Instead of making micro adjustments with a lot of tightly packed key frames. Which is something I’ve done myself in the past. It usually ended up being counter productive.
Although it doesn’t affect me as much as it might others, hadriscus’s suggestion about using “available” should help keep out clutter. There’s no need to have scale values for example, if the animation doesn’t call for it.
@macser, wow you are right. I never thought about taking the keys out of scale.
Another question about autokeying: Is autokeying one of those indispensable screwdrivers tools that gets used often, or is it just a handy wrench used every now and then?
Well. It’s better not to put them in the first place.
I leave them in most of the time, as I just leave on LocRotScale for the keying set. They don’t bother me and I don’t bother them. Those curves don’t have to be visible while you edit of course.
I guess autokey is something you use depending on how you like to work. As long as the animation looks the way you intended it to, that’s the real goal. I know people use it in much the same way I do. And there’s those who prefer to insert their keys manually to maintain fine control and cut down on clutter.
For me it’s simply a case of what ever works, and gets the job done. Auto keying does what I want it to. Most of what I’m doing at the moment is animating low poly characters. I find leaving it on and working away at it is quick and easy. Just put some thought into what you’re doing and have some reference to hand. Work out the main points of your animations and refine from there.
Edgarej, you do what seems best to you. Personally, it’s always on : one less thing to think about when animating, so I can focus on moving things around and not hitting i all the time. Your call though ! Practice is the best school ! Trust your judgement ! Happy animating.
I myself tended to only insert keys manually until I actually started using autokey, I regret not using it earlier on. It makes it so much more fun to animate for some reason.
