The Animation Plugin is now available for Moray 3.2.  You can download
it from:

   http://pages.hotbot.com/arts/are/index.html

There have been numerous changes from the earlier version.  Report any
problems or requests either here or directly to me.  The earlier version
of the plugin will not be supported (which means if you use a version of
Moray before 3.2 you are SOL).

Xander

Post a reply to this message

Alexander Enzmann <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:3875F59E.71CCE9F7@mitre.org...
> The Animation Plugin is now available for Moray 3.2.  You can download
> it from:
>
>    http://pages.hotbot.com/arts/are/index.html
>
> There have been numerous changes from the earlier version.  Report any
> problems or requests either here or directly to me.  The earlier version
> of the plugin will not be supported (which means if you use a version of
> Moray before 3.2 you are SOL).
>
> Xander

hello Xander,

I installed the Moray 3.2 public beta, and got a message that none of my
current plugins would work anymore. Then I installed the new animation
plugin and got a message saying it had been installed successfully. Now,
when I open moray, under the render menu animation is greyed out and is not
useable. the Moray plugins menu says empty. I am using an Intel pIII 450
MHz. w/128 megs ram running Win 98, I did not uninstall any of my old files
or remove any of the old plugins before installing the upgrades. Should I
have? Any help would be greatly appreciated

Steven

Post a reply to this message

Steven Durham wrote:

>
> I installed the Moray 3.2 public beta, and got a message that none of my
> current plugins would work anymore. Then I installed the new animation
> plugin and got a message saying it had been installed successfully. Now,
> when I open moray, under the render menu animation is greyed out and is not
> useable. the Moray plugins menu says empty. I am using an Intel pIII 450
> MHz. w/128 megs ram running Win 98, I did not uninstall any of my old files
> or remove any of the old plugins before installing the upgrades. Should I
> have? Any help would be greatly appreciated
>
> Steven

You may have the same problem as I had. Check your pvengine.ini and make sure
the line starting with
ExtDll29=.... reads

ExtDll29=C:\MORAY_DIR\Plugins\AnimGuiExt.dll

where MORAY_DIR is the directory where Moray is installed. For me, the line
missed the AnimGuiExt.dll filename. (Check AnimPlugin.wri for more info, it
should be located in your Moray\Plugins dir.)

The anim plugin works great for me! This is really a step forward! :)
(To the Moray people: Count on getting another registered user soon! =) )

- Mikael


----------------------------------------------------
Mikael Carneholm
Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration
UCB (University College of Borås) Sweden

Personal homepage:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
E-mail:
sa9### [at] idautbhbse

Post a reply to this message

thanks Mikael for pointing me to the docs. I couldn't find them. It seems
that once again I didn't understand nearly as much as I thought I did. After
reading the documentation I was able to quickly animate a simple rotating
and scaling cube. Now on to bigger and better things

Steven

Mikael Carneholm <sa9### [at] idautbhbse_NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:387B5FA1.470A3CD8@ida.utb.hb.se_NOSPAM...
> Steven Durham wrote:
>
> >
> > I installed the Moray 3.2 public beta, and got a message that none of my
> > current plugins would work anymore. Then I installed the new animation
> > plugin and got a message saying it had been installed successfully. Now,
> > when I open moray, under the render menu animation is greyed out and is
not
> > useable. the Moray plugins menu says empty. I am using an Intel pIII 450
> > MHz. w/128 megs ram running Win 98, I did not uninstall any of my old
files
> > or remove any of the old plugins before installing the upgrades. Should
I
> > have? Any help would be greatly appreciated
> >
> > Steven
>
> You may have the same problem as I had. Check your pvengine.ini and make
sure
> the line starting with
> ExtDll29=.... reads
>
> ExtDll29=C:\MORAY_DIR\Plugins\AnimGuiExt.dll
>
> where MORAY_DIR is the directory where Moray is installed. For me, the
line
> missed the AnimGuiExt.dll filename. (Check AnimPlugin.wri for more info,
it
> should be located in your Moray\Plugins dir.)
>
> The anim plugin works great for me! This is really a step forward! :)
> (To the Moray people: Count on getting another registered user soon! =) )
>
> - Mikael
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Mikael Carneholm
> Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration
> UCB (University College of Borås) Sweden
>
> Personal homepage:
> http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
> E-mail:
> sa9### [at] idautbhbse
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Steven Durham wrote:

> thanks Mikael for pointing me to the docs. I couldn't find them. It seems
>

I did not know they existed either until looking in the Plugins dir - a nice
feature in the installer would be if a shourtcut to the .wri file was added in
the Moray program folder!

----------------------------------------------------
Mikael Carneholm
Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration
UCB (University College of Borås) Sweden

Personal homepage:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
E-mail:
sa9### [at] idautbhbse

Post a reply to this message

Mikael Carneholm wrote:
> 
> Steven Durham wrote:
> 
> > thanks Mikael for pointing me to the docs. I couldn't find them. It seems
> >
> 
> I did not know they existed either until looking in the Plugins dir - a nice
> feature in the installer would be if a shourtcut to the .wri file was added in
> the Moray program folder!

I'll ask Lutz if that's ok - remember that the anim plugin is a separate
product.  Also, I'm just starting to learn the whole install thing.  I'm
trying to make it as easy to get going as possible.

Ideally, you can install and do simple animations without having to do a
lot of reading of docs.  However, there's enough things associated with
making an animation that the docs become necessary. (I'm like a lot of
coders and don't spend nearly enough time writing them.)

Xander

P.S. Did the GUI extension really not get written into the .ini file? 
Anyone that sees this happen, please let me know OS and directory
specifics.  The plugin looks in the registry to find the location of the
.ini file and add the extension.  I need to see if it's a plugin
problem, a POV-Ray problem, a registry problem, ...

Post a reply to this message

Hi again,
there was no real problem with my installation, just a mistake on my part. I
was expecting the interface to be the same as the beta .9. Finding the docs
cleared my missunderstanding up and the plugin seems to work great for what
little I have done with it. thanks for all your hard work Xander.

Steven
Alexander Enzmann <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:387BF121.F769FF38@mitre.org...
>
>
> Mikael Carneholm wrote:
> >
> > Steven Durham wrote:
> >
> > > thanks Mikael for pointing me to the docs. I couldn't find them. It
seems
> > >
> >
> > I did not know they existed either until looking in the Plugins dir - a
nice
> > feature in the installer would be if a shourtcut to the .wri file was
added in
> > the Moray program folder!
>
> I'll ask Lutz if that's ok - remember that the anim plugin is a separate
> product.  Also, I'm just starting to learn the whole install thing.  I'm
> trying to make it as easy to get going as possible.
>
> Ideally, you can install and do simple animations without having to do a
> lot of reading of docs.  However, there's enough things associated with
> making an animation that the docs become necessary. (I'm like a lot of
> coders and don't spend nearly enough time writing them.)
>
> Xander
>
> P.S. Did the GUI extension really not get written into the .ini file?
> Anyone that sees this happen, please let me know OS and directory
> specifics.  The plugin looks in the registry to find the location of the
> .ini file and add the extension.  I need to see if it's a plugin
> problem, a POV-Ray problem, a registry problem, ...

Post a reply to this message

Alexander Enzmann wrote:
> 
> P.S. Did the GUI extension really not get written into the .ini file?
> Anyone that sees this happen, please let me know OS and directory
> specifics.  The plugin looks in the registry to find the location of the
> .ini file and add the extension.  I need to see if it's a plugin
> problem, a POV-Ray problem, a registry problem, ...

hi xander,
i installed your plugin (version: beta 18) on my friends computer and
later on my computer.
both times the gui-extension wasn't written into the .ini file.
looking into the file, i found a line:
ExtDll29=C:\programme\MORAYforWindows3.1\Plugins
the path is right but i needed to add the DLLs name
\AnimGuiExt.dll
by hand. after doing this, all worked perfekt!

here's a little idea for oncoming versions:
when doing animations with povray itself, you have the possibility to
set a flag (+kc) for cyclic animation. for i'm a real friend of cyclic
animtions, i miss this flag in your plugin very much...

Post a reply to this message

Alex Wolff wrote:
> 
> ...
> hi xander,
> i installed your plugin (version: beta 18) on my friends computer and
> later on my computer.
> both times the gui-extension wasn't written into the .ini file.
> looking into the file, i found a line:
> ExtDll29=C:\programme\MORAYforWindows3.1\Plugins
> the path is right but i needed to add the DLLs name
> \AnimGuiExt.dll
> by hand. after doing this, all worked perfekt!

I'm really going to have to see why this happens....

> 
> here's a little idea for oncoming versions:
> when doing animations with povray itself, you have the possibility to
> set a flag (+kc) for cyclic animation. for i'm a real friend of cyclic
> animtions, i miss this flag in your plugin very much...


What is cyclic?  You can always copy the first key to the end of the
animation.  In the long run I'd like to do the MAX thing where you can
define out of range functions that allow a couple of different types of
cycling.

Xander

Post a reply to this message

Alexander Enzmann wrote:
> What is cyclic?  You can always copy the first key to the end of the
> animation.

cyclic animation means an animation which can be looped. if the first
and the last frame are the same, the loop isn't perfect; there is always
a little stop because you got one frame more than you need for a smooth
loop.
alex

Post a reply to this message

Alexander Enzmann wrote:

> What is cyclic?  You can always copy the first key to the end of the
> animation.  In the long run I'd like to do the MAX thing where you can
> define out of range functions that allow a couple of different types of
> cycling.
> 
> Xander

From the POV-Ray docs -

Cyclic Animation

Cyclic_Animation=bool	Turn cyclic animation on/off
+KC	Turn cyclic animation on
-KC	Turn cyclic animation off

Many computer animation sequences are designed to be run in a continuous
loop. Suppose you have an object that rotates exactly 360 degrees over the
course of your animation and you did rotate 360*clock*y to do so. Both the
first and last frames would be identical. Upon playback there would be a
brief one frame jerkiness. To eliminate this problem you need to adjust the
clock so that the last frame does not match the first. For example a ten
frame cyclic animation should not use clock 0.0 to 1.0. It should run from
0.0 to 0.9 in 0.1 increments. However if you change to 20 frames it should
run from 0.0 to 0.95 in 0.05 increments. This complicates things because
you would have to change the final clock value every time you changed
Final_Frame. Setting Cyclic_Animation=on or using +KC will cause POV-Ray
to automatically adjust the final clock value for cyclic animation
regardless of how many total frames. The default value for this setting
is off.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

Post a reply to this message

So you set the stop time for the animation to be one frame before the
last key.  It's really pretty easy.

Steps to follow:
   - Copy first key(s) to end point of animation.
   - Open animation dialog
   - Set time display to frames
   - Look at frame number of last frame
   - Set end time (in animation limits) to one less than last frame
   - Render

That's really all that is done by having "cyclic" as described by you
and Ken.  Of course there is always the option of rendering all the
frames as individual images and deleting the last one (or the first
one)...

Xander

Alex Wolff wrote:
> 
> Alexander Enzmann wrote:
> > What is cyclic?  You can always copy the first key to the end of the
> > animation.
> 
> cyclic animation means an animation which can be looped. if the first
> and the last frame are the same, the loop isn't perfect; there is always
> a little stop because you got one frame more than you need for a smooth
> loop.
> alex

Post a reply to this message

hi xander!
both ways you described are working, BUT:
-deleting the last rendered picture is not so easy when you want to
produce an AVI directly with the animation-plugin.
-if you want to scale the animation-time AFTER you set the last frame to
one less, the loop is no longer smooth!
Please, please, please, gimme that little "cyclic animation"-checkbox !)

alex

Alexander Enzmann wrote:

> So you set the stop time for the animation to be one frame before the
> last key.  It's really pretty easy.
>
> Steps to follow:
>    - Copy first key(s) to end point of animation.
>    - Open animation dialog
>    - Set time display to frames
>    - Look at frame number of last frame
>    - Set end time (in animation limits) to one less than last frame
>    - Render
>
> That's really all that is done by having "cyclic" as described by you
> and Ken.  Of course there is always the option of rendering all the
> frames as individual images and deleting the last one (or the first
> one)...
>
> Xander

Post a reply to this message

"Alex Wolff" <ale### [at] gmxde> wrote in message
news:389E0B71.CCA62674@gmx.de...
> hi xander!
> both ways you described are working, BUT:
> -deleting the last rendered picture is not so easy when you want to
> produce an AVI directly with the animation-plugin.
> -if you want to scale the animation-time AFTER you set the last frame to
> one less, the loop is no longer smooth!
> Please, please, please, gimme that little "cyclic animation"-checkbox !)

i dont think its going to get any better for the short term at least, if the
methods proposed by xander do not give you the result you are after, maybe
you'd be better doing it in regular pov script.

anyhow!, enougth piddly little looping animations!!, its time to start
making mini movies.

Rick

Post a reply to this message

Rick [Kitty5] wrote:

> i dont think its going to get any better for the short term at least,
> if the
> methods proposed by xander do not give you the result you are after,
> maybe
> you'd be better doing it in regular pov script.
>
> anyhow!, enougth piddly little looping animations!!, its time to start
>
> making mini movies.

my looping animations aren't piddly little and (as i wrote before) the
methods proposed by xander don't work when you scale the animation-time
AFTER setting the keys.
when you understood what i meant with the problem of "quantized
animation-time"(in RE:wishes for the animation plugin), you will
understand my longing for a "cyclic animation"-checkbox.

alex

Post a reply to this message

I get it - doing trial runs with one FPS and then rendering with
another, you end up with problems getting exactly one less than the
desired number of frames.  I suppose a "drop the last frame" checkbox
would be pretty easy to do (and much easier for the program than for
you).

Xander

Alex Wolff wrote:
> 
> hi xander!
> both ways you described are working, BUT:
> -deleting the last rendered picture is not so easy when you want to
> produce an AVI directly with the animation-plugin.
> -if you want to scale the animation-time AFTER you set the last frame to
> one less, the loop is no longer smooth!
> Please, please, please, gimme that little "cyclic animation"-checkbox !)

Post a reply to this message

Same happened here, the DLL itself doesn't show up in the Pvengine.ini file,
only the Moray path does.  I have the POV-Ray 3.02 and 3.1g for Windows both
installed if that might make a difference in it.

Bob

"Alex Wolff" <las### [at] hrz1hrztu-darmstadtde> wrote in message
news:388### [at] hrz1hrztu-darmstadtde...
| Alexander Enzmann wrote:
| >
| > P.S. Did the GUI extension really not get written into the .ini file?
| > Anyone that sees this happen, please let me know OS and directory
| > specifics.  The plugin looks in the registry to find the location of the
| > .ini file and add the extension.  I need to see if it's a plugin
| > problem, a POV-Ray problem, a registry problem, ...
|
| hi xander,
| i installed your plugin (version: beta 18) on my friends computer and
| later on my computer.
| both times the gui-extension wasn't written into the .ini file.
| looking into the file, i found a line:
| ExtDll29=C:\programme\MORAYforWindows3.1\Plugins
| the path is right but i needed to add the DLLs name
| \AnimGuiExt.dll
| by hand. after doing this, all worked perfekt!
|
| here's a little idea for oncoming versions:
| when doing animations with povray itself, you have the possibility to
| set a flag (+kc) for cyclic animation. for i'm a real friend of cyclic
| animtions, i miss this flag in your plugin very much...

Post a reply to this message

Figured I better go ahead and bring this up here.
The IK Keyframing isn't able to do multiple segments in one run apparently.  Is
that the usual operation of the animation plugin?  Sorry if it's already been
talked about, I hadn't seen anything about it.
I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I right-click on the
Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene keys.  That
way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.
Please note that I have only done a trial run of this so far, I'm not a true
Moray user (yet).  I plan to get registered soon because this program can do
plenty well for most anything I'd ever want to try even though I'm clumsy with
GUI/wireframe modelers.
If anyone knows more about keyframing into segments within one animation run I'd
sure appreciate hearing the story on it.

Bob

"Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:3875F59E.71CCE9F7@mitre.org...
| The Animation Plugin is now available for Moray 3.2.  You can download
| it from:
|
|    http://pages.hotbot.com/arts/are/index.html
|
| There have been numerous changes from the earlier version.  Report any
| problems or requests either here or directly to me.  The earlier version
| of the plugin will not be supported (which means if you use a version of
| Moray before 3.2 you are SOL).
|
| Xander

Post a reply to this message

Bob Hughes wrote:

> I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I
> right-click on the
> Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene
> keys.  That
> way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.

hi xander,
i've found out some strange behavior of your anim-plugin when doing
interpolation between keyframes. it may have to do with the problem bob
hughes described (although i don't understand all of what he said..).
to reproduce, try this:
-starting moray with the default scene (one camera, one light)
-create a simple sphere located at the origin
-i want to make an animation of the sphere rotating two times (720°)
around the
  z-axis
-click the key-sign to activate animation
-choose >render>options>25 fps;100frames
-right click the key-sign>set>selected
-choose linear interpolation
-move slider to last frame
-type in 720.0 degree for z-rotation (key is automatically set)
-now move the slider and watch the z-rotation values!
-> there is no rotation but a switch from 0 to 720 at the last frame.
workaround:
-set a key at frame 50 with z-rotation 360 AND
 set a key at frame 25 with z-rotation 180
-now it works and (that's funny) now you can delete the keys at frame 50
and 25.

------------
another problem with the animation-plugin:
choosing at the option menu "25 FPS" makes an animation with only every
5th frame to be rendered (polyray and povray)
workaround is to choose "custom", type in 25 FPS, reset the end frame to
100 (or whatever it was) and now:
-click "OK" and then render>animation. don't go back to render>options
because the options menu will not be the same that you had left...

alex

Post a reply to this message

Sounds like program bugs to me anyway  :-)

Could it be that the keyframes only go from 0 to 1 in a clock cycle for the
total set number of frames and so it causes problems because of that?

I had tried increasing the total number of frames incrementally and then doing
another keyframing for each.  It turns out just like if you were to set multiple
keyframes within one set of total frames (in other words I was going back and
resetting the number of frames after each successive keyframe change).
Anyhow, both ways produce a flawed animation.  Only way I could do it right was
to Delete/Scene at the end of each keyframing change and animate again (after
setting up another animation), renaming each previous Avi sequence so as not to
overwrite it, then splice all of them together later in VidEdit.

I didn't see anything wrong as long as there were no in-between keyframes,
unlike what Alex has said here.  If I moved the slider to the last frame and set
the object there only then all was fine.  When I tried more than one keyframe in
one animation sequence then it broke the movement.

Hope that explains better what I was trying to say.  Still, it might not be a
bug after all since it does work for one uninterrupted keyframe animation.

Bob

"Alex Wolff" <ale### [at] gmxde> wrote in message
news:38A75B50.F3380999@gmx.de...
| Bob Hughes wrote:
|
| > I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I
| > right-click on the
| > Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene
| > keys.  That
| > way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.
|
| hi xander,
| i've found out some strange behavior of your anim-plugin when doing
| interpolation between keyframes. it may have to do with the problem bob
| hughes described (although i don't understand all of what he said..).
| to reproduce, try this:
| -starting moray with the default scene (one camera, one light)
| -create a simple sphere located at the origin
| -i want to make an animation of the sphere rotating two times (720°)
| around the
|   z-axis
| -click the key-sign to activate animation
| -choose >render>options>25 fps;100frames
| -right click the key-sign>set>selected
| -choose linear interpolation
| -move slider to last frame
| -type in 720.0 degree for z-rotation (key is automatically set)
| -now move the slider and watch the z-rotation values!
| -> there is no rotation but a switch from 0 to 720 at the last frame.
| workaround:
| -set a key at frame 50 with z-rotation 360 AND
|  set a key at frame 25 with z-rotation 180
| -now it works and (that's funny) now you can delete the keys at frame 50
| and 25.
|
| ------------
| another problem with the animation-plugin:
| choosing at the option menu "25 FPS" makes an animation with only every
| 5th frame to be rendered (polyray and povray)
| workaround is to choose "custom", type in 25 FPS, reset the end frame to
| 100 (or whatever it was) and now:
| -click "OK" and then render>animation. don't go back to render>options
| because the options menu will not be the same that you had left...
|
| alex
|

Post a reply to this message

Bob Hughes wrote:
> 
> Figured I better go ahead and bring this up here.
> The IK Keyframing isn't able to do multiple segments in one run apparently.

I have a feeling that I'm going to need more information to really
understand the problem here.  To make sure that I both understand what's
happening (bug fix stuff), as well as what you really want to do
(features), I might need a real step by step description.

> I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I right-click on the
> Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene keys.  That
> way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.

Are you trying to go from one point in time to another, yet keep an
object in it's current orientation/position?  If that's all, then hold
down the Shift key as you move the time slider.  No interpolation will
occur.  When you get to the point in time you want to start things at,
force a key (or keys) at that point.  Did I forget to add that in the
docs (it may be under the place that talks about copying keys)?

If you are just using IK in the process of building an animation, then I
really need more info.  I've had no problems playing with Lutz's robot
arm & IK to do little animations.

Xander

Post a reply to this message

Alex Wolff wrote:
> ...
> i've found out some strange behavior of your anim-plugin when doing
> interpolation between keyframes. it may have to do with the problem bob

> hughes described (although i don't understand all of what he said..).
> to reproduce, try this:
> -starting moray with the default scene (one camera, one light)
> -create a simple sphere located at the origin
> -i want to make an animation of the sphere rotating two times (720°)
> around the
>   z-axis
> -click the key-sign to activate animation
> -choose >render>options>25 fps;100frames
> -right click the key-sign>set>selected
> -choose linear interpolation
> -move slider to last frame
> -type in 720.0 degree for z-rotation (key is automatically set)
> -now move the slider and watch the z-rotation values!
> -> there is no rotation but a switch from 0 to 720 at the last frame.
> workaround:
> -set a key at frame 50 with z-rotation 360 AND
>  set a key at frame 25 with z-rotation 180
> -now it works and (that's funny) now you can delete the keys at frame 5
0
> and 25.

Unfortunately, Lutz allows values outside 0 -> 360 for rotation angles
(well, I suppose -180 -> 180 would be ok too).  Any rotation
interpolation is performed using Quaternion interpolation.  As far as
I'm concerned, 720 = 360 = 0.  The only reason that 720 stays in the
last frame is that I actually store the Moray values internally for keys
- but for interpolation, I give back to Moray the intermediate values.

Linear interpolation of the individual rotation values would probably do
what you are expecting for this particular animation.  However, if you
are interpolation rotations for something that uses more than one axis,
you will get really rotten results doing things that way.  That's why I
use Quaternions internally for all rotation values.

The amazing thing is that following your steps you get anything useful
at all.  If you ask for an interpolation from 0 -> 360, I could
legitimately do nothing - the position is the same.

I don't think I'll change the way I'm doing things in the foreseeable
future - I realize it makes for extra work in some circumstances, but it
is better solved in the end by coming up with a different way of
specifying rotation values (f-curves or the like).

> ------------
> another problem with the animation-plugin:
> choosing at the option menu "25 FPS" makes an animation with only every

> 5th frame to be rendered (polyray and povray)
> workaround is to choose "custom", type in 25 FPS, reset the end frame t
o
> 100 (or whatever it was) and now:
> -click "OK" and then render>animation. don't go back to render>options
> because the options menu will not be the same that you had left...

Yup - there's something busted there.  I noticed that the start/end
times didn't change appropriately to the change in frame rate (yuck -
that's painful code to write), as well as the custom frame rate not
being retained.

I'll fix that stuff for the next beta.

Xander

Post a reply to this message

"Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:38A84028.A4F5FCF3@mitre.org...
|
| Bob Hughes wrote:
| >
| > Figured I better go ahead and bring this up here.
| > The IK Keyframing isn't able to do multiple segments in one run apparently.
|
| I have a feeling that I'm going to need more information to really
| understand the problem here.  To make sure that I both understand what's
| happening (bug fix stuff), as well as what you really want to do
| (features), I might need a real step by step description.

I'm probably not the best person to describe it since I just started out several
days ago, really new to the whole thing, but here goes:

I'm trying out the robot.mdl for testing with the IK and I can get a one-time
animation which has just a beginning point (frame zero, only the key button
pressed) and end point (last frame, key button goes yellow automatically after a
movement is performed on the robot model).  It works fine, no problems.
However, if I try to do two such movements on the robot model it breaks the
keyframing and will not interpolate the two sequences.  This is what I was
unsure was supposed to be able to be done or not anyhow, one sequence of
interpolations or if multiple ones were at all possible.
At best the motions get muffled down to a slight movement, as if the
interpolation were being scaled way down.

| > I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I right-click on
the
| > Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene keys.
That
| > way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.
|
| Are you trying to go from one point in time to another, yet keep an
| object in it's current orientation/position?  If that's all, then hold
| down the Shift key as you move the time slider.  No interpolation will
| occur.  When you get to the point in time you want to start things at,
| force a key (or keys) at that point.  Did I forget to add that in the
| docs (it may be under the place that talks about copying keys)?

I think so if I understand right.  The reason for that was simply to do one
keyframing sequence at a time since it didn't work all together in one
animation.  I made it render each separate animation instead was what I was
doing to get around the problem of the model not switching from one motion
segment to another.
The held Shift key is something I didn't know about.

| If you are just using IK in the process of building an animation, then I
| really need more info.  I've had no problems playing with Lutz's robot
| arm & IK to do little animations.

Not much to it to tell about.  I open the robot.mdl and press the Key button,
then I set the Options to have a certain number of frames, ie. 0 to 30.  I go
place the slider at 10 for example and move the robot arm into another position.
Move the slider to 20 and move the robot arm again and finally likewise a third
time.
Moving the slider from beginning to end to see the actions that will be done
only shows it to move from one position to another without any interpolating of
the movements.
I just saw a message posted tonight in which someone else at AOL has said the
official Moray 3.2 seemed to not have any bugs concerning this sort of thing but
I don't know exactly what was meant by that if the animation plugin isn't
updated as well.
Hopefully you could understand my explanations here, hate to make it tougher on
you than it already must be working with this stuff.  I was thrilled enough just
to see it in action, since after all Moray was able to do a IK animation but
like others I was trying to get multiple motions rendered out too and not able
too.  Still whether that is a bug or not is the whole reason for my question to
begin with.
Thanks for listening Alexander, anything more you want me to drone on about I'd
be more than willing.

Bob

Post a reply to this message

| When you get to the point in time you want to start things at,
| force a key (or keys) at that point.  Did I forget to add that in the
| docs (it may be under the place that talks about copying keys)?

Btw, no you didn't forget.  It's written down in there, pretty much everything's
said in the Doc (or *.Wri as the case may be) I guess.
I did forgot something.... I was using Linear and Cubic (one type at a time or
mixed) while setting the keyframes; I wasn't trying Step since I just figured
that wouldn't do interpolation of motion like I was wanting to check out.

Bob

Post a reply to this message

I think I get it now.  After going back to the robot model and trying to
recreate some animations I've done before, there appear to be a couple
of bugs...

First thing I noticed is that you really need to select "linear" or
"cubic" before setting the key (and it appears you may need to reselect
for each new key at times).  Otherwise the subobjects of the robot don't
have their interpolation set to linear.

An apparent bug (introduced in the last beta or so) is that if you force
a key (using Set|Object) doesn't properly propagate the
step/linear/cubic down into the subobjects.  this, I believe, is what is
causing your problems.

Xander

Bob Hughes wrote:
> 
> "Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
> news:38A84028.A4F5FCF3@mitre.org...
> |
> | Bob Hughes wrote:
> | >
> | > Figured I better go ahead and bring this up here.
> | > The IK Keyframing isn't able to do multiple segments in one run apparently.
> |
> | I have a feeling that I'm going to need more information to really
> | understand the problem here.  To make sure that I both understand what's
> | happening (bug fix stuff), as well as what you really want to do
> | (features), I might need a real step by step description.
> 
> I'm probably not the best person to describe it since I just started out several
> days ago, really new to the whole thing, but here goes:
> 
> I'm trying out the robot.mdl for testing with the IK and I can get a one-time
> animation which has just a beginning point (frame zero, only the key button
> pressed) and end point (last frame, key button goes yellow automatically after a
> movement is performed on the robot model).  It works fine, no problems.
> However, if I try to do two such movements on the robot model it breaks the
> keyframing and will not interpolate the two sequences.  This is what I was
> unsure was supposed to be able to be done or not anyhow, one sequence of
> interpolations or if multiple ones were at all possible.
> At best the motions get muffled down to a slight movement, as if the
> interpolation were being scaled way down.
> 
> | > I've managed a work around by doing separate segments where I right-click on
> the
> | > Key button before beginning the next part and choosing Delete/Scene keys.
> That
> | > way it starts fresh where the objects left off from the previous run.
> |
> | Are you trying to go from one point in time to another, yet keep an
> | object in it's current orientation/position?  If that's all, then hold
> | down the Shift key as you move the time slider.  No interpolation will
> | occur.  When you get to the point in time you want to start things at,
> | force a key (or keys) at that point.  Did I forget to add that in the
> | docs (it may be under the place that talks about copying keys)?
> 
> I think so if I understand right.  The reason for that was simply to do one
> keyframing sequence at a time since it didn't work all together in one
> animation.  I made it render each separate animation instead was what I was
> doing to get around the problem of the model not switching from one motion
> segment to another.
> The held Shift key is something I didn't know about.
> 
> | If you are just using IK in the process of building an animation, then I
> | really need more info.  I've had no problems playing with Lutz's robot
> | arm & IK to do little animations.
> 
> Not much to it to tell about.  I open the robot.mdl and press the Key button,
> then I set the Options to have a certain number of frames, ie. 0 to 30.  I go
> place the slider at 10 for example and move the robot arm into another position.
> Move the slider to 20 and move the robot arm again and finally likewise a third
> time.
> Moving the slider from beginning to end to see the actions that will be done
> only shows it to move from one position to another without any interpolating of
> the movements.
> I just saw a message posted tonight in which someone else at AOL has said the
> official Moray 3.2 seemed to not have any bugs concerning this sort of thing but
> I don't know exactly what was meant by that if the animation plugin isn't
> updated as well.
> Hopefully you could understand my explanations here, hate to make it tougher on
> you than it already must be working with this stuff.  I was thrilled enough just
> to see it in action, since after all Moray was able to do a IK animation but
> like others I was trying to get multiple motions rendered out too and not able
> too.  Still whether that is a bug or not is the whole reason for my question to
> begin with.
> Thanks for listening Alexander, anything more you want me to drone on about I'd
> be more than willing.
> 
> Bob

Post a reply to this message

"Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:38A94820.5F8014BB@mitre.org...
| An apparent bug (introduced in the last beta or so) is that if you force
| a key (using Set|Object) doesn't properly propagate the
| step/linear/cubic down into the subobjects.  this, I believe, is what is
| causing your problems.

Thanks for the semi-confirmation of the problem (but no thanks :-))
I still can get a perfectly fine animation with just the first and last frames
set but nothing right for in-between keyframes even if only moving the slider
and repositioning the model (with IK).  If what you're saying is that this
should be possible then I'm not able to; that was mainly what I wanted to find
out, if it were even intended in the first place or whether I was asking it to
do too much.
I'm continuing to try with the official Moray 3.2 that was just released and
seeing no difference in it yet.
Will let you know if I encounter any success.

Bob

Post a reply to this message

I believe there may be a workaround - it appears if you select the
entire object (not just the bottom thing you are manipulating with IK),
then force the key, you should get the proper interpolation.  If you are
doing things the way you ought to (moving the slider and wiggling the
end of the IK chain), the bug I described will cause problems just like
you describe.

Another thing that ought to help (with the current version) is when
setting the very first key, select the entire object before setting the
key.  That way when you move the slider it won't pick up the incorrect
interpolation type from the root of the object (which by default is
step).

I'll try to get corrected code posted in a day or so.

Xander

Bob Hughes wrote:
> 
> "Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
> news:38A94820.5F8014BB@mitre.org...
> | An apparent bug (introduced in the last beta or so) is that if you force
> | a key (using Set|Object) doesn't properly propagate the
> | step/linear/cubic down into the subobjects.  this, I believe, is what is
> | causing your problems.
> 
> Thanks for the semi-confirmation of the problem (but no thanks :-))
> I still can get a perfectly fine animation with just the first and last frames
> set but nothing right for in-between keyframes even if only moving the slider
> and repositioning the model (with IK).  If what you're saying is that this
> should be possible then I'm not able to; that was mainly what I wanted to find
> out, if it were even intended in the first place or whether I was asking it to
> do too much.
> I'm continuing to try with the official Moray 3.2 that was just released and
> seeing no difference in it yet.
> Will let you know if I encounter any success.
> 
> Bob

Post a reply to this message

Bob Hughes wrote:

> Thanks for the semi-confirmation of the problem (but no thanks :-))
> I still can get a perfectly fine animation with just the first and last frames
> set but nothing right for in-between keyframes even if only moving the slider
> and repositioning the model (with IK).

I run into the same problem trying to animate the robot, and I believe was one of
those who reported this problem to Xander. The problem (or bug) is that IK child
objects doesn't inherit the keys of their parents. Knowing this, "all" you have to
do is forcing the same keys for the child objects as well. See my post in p.b.a.

----------------------------------------------------
Mikael Carneholm
Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration
UCB (University College of Borås) Sweden

Personal home page:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
E-mail:
sa9### [at] idautbhbse

Post a reply to this message

Terrific! That seems to do it right that way, thanks for the answer.
I should have thought to try selecting the whole thing myself.  At first though
I was fumbling with the whole model selected and trying to move it, and of
course it wouldn't (IK that is).  Then I selected only the end part to be moved
afterward and everything goes as planned, it's great.  Multiple movements and
all.
I found now that 'Cubic' is going to be a tough thing to get right because it
wants to make those spline-like motions but 'linear' is perfect it seems.

Thanks again for going to the trouble of answering.  Don't know what you have in
mind to "correct" this but if it will mean not having to select the whole model,
set keyframe, and select intended IK end piece, then that would be all the more
user-friendly.  I just don't have a clue as to how you made that plugin in the
first place  ;-)

Bob

"Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
news:38AA994D.4E68F691@mitre.org...
| I believe there may be a workaround - it appears if you select the
| entire object (not just the bottom thing you are manipulating with IK),
| then force the key, you should get the proper interpolation.  If you are
| doing things the way you ought to (moving the slider and wiggling the
| end of the IK chain), the bug I described will cause problems just like
| you describe.
|
| Another thing that ought to help (with the current version) is when
| setting the very first key, select the entire object before setting the
| key.  That way when you move the slider it won't pick up the incorrect
| interpolation type from the root of the object (which by default is
| step).
|
| I'll try to get corrected code posted in a day or so.
|
| Xander
|
| Bob Hughes wrote:
| >
| > "Alexander Enzmann" <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote in message
| > news:38A94820.5F8014BB@mitre.org...
| > | An apparent bug (introduced in the last beta or so) is that if you force
| > | a key (using Set|Object) doesn't properly propagate the
| > | step/linear/cubic down into the subobjects.  this, I believe, is what is
| > | causing your problems.
| >
| > Thanks for the semi-confirmation of the problem (but no thanks :-))
| > I still can get a perfectly fine animation with just the first and last
frames
| > set but nothing right for in-between keyframes even if only moving the
slider
| > and repositioning the model (with IK).  If what you're saying is that this
| > should be possible then I'm not able to; that was mainly what I wanted to
find
| > out, if it were even intended in the first place or whether I was asking it
to
| > do too much.
| > I'm continuing to try with the official Moray 3.2 that was just released and
| > seeing no difference in it yet.
| > Will let you know if I encounter any success.
| >
| > Bob

Post a reply to this message