ToonShady
02-18-2003, 01:15 PM
Ok, what do I mean channel driven motions? I mean the animation of a specific envelop channel(s) (xyz, hpb, weights, MC, etc) that is driven by another channel(s) via expressions, motion modifiers or channel modifiers.
1. under the motion modifier drop down menu, we got half a dozen or so modifiers like channel follower, Master/slaveZ/slaveY/slaveX, simple constraints and affectors, parenter that roughly does the same thing: following another channel(s).
So what's the deal? All of them have some kinda problem like either is not animatable over time, no priority control when interacting with IK, Or it has interactivity issues that depends on rather you scrub your timeline, have auto key on or off, and god knows what other pitfalls.
2. Same issue more or less goes for expressions(motion/channel) and channel modifiers.
I give you one example. Recently, I saw the videos of the ninja rig in action from Lukasz's site. I thought the fake IK blending that he came up with was pretty easy to setup. Atleast the way I interpret it is constraining the IK goal objects for the arms and legs to another set of objects with some kinda blending control to fade in and out of the constraints. I thought this process was simple since lw has included the simple affectors and constraints that offers envelopable weight blending. Well that part worked, but the problem is when I keyframed the driver object over time and scrub the timeline, the IK bones don't react to the goal object that is driven by the the driver object. This is rediculous, I found that I had to also keyframe the goal object at the same frame where the driver objects has keyframes inorder to get the bones to update its motions.
I took this experiment a little further and replace the SimplePointConstraint with Follower, Master/SlaveZ/SlaveY/SlaveX, and channel expressions in individual trials. My findings:
Master/SlaveZ/SlaveY/SlaveX motion modifiers lags cause a slight lag in the position of the driven objects. Not good at all for what I need to do.
channel expressions: it works. IK bones updates when scrubing the timeline. but very time consuming because you have to apply expression to per channels. And it doesn't react intereactively if you don't have auto key on.
Follower motion modifier: By far this one offers the most functionality, speed of setup, and interactivity. Apparently, turning off after Ik made the IK bones update correctly. Which means IK should be evaluated after the constraint. But what's the catch? you can't fade out Follower's function over time. Which defeats the main purpose of the setup.
Conclusion. I really hate to bash at LW. But I gotta say, there're so many compromises within layout that frustrates an animator. Please, either fix up the issues with those modifiers and expressions behaviors, or gives us a super Follower type plugin that does it all: follow any channel available, animatable parameters, blend control, non-modal interaction, maybe SDK feature that drives value over different value, in addition to the existing features like IK priorty control, best interactivity. Also ease of use: something that will setup follower over many objects in the scene easily.
1. under the motion modifier drop down menu, we got half a dozen or so modifiers like channel follower, Master/slaveZ/slaveY/slaveX, simple constraints and affectors, parenter that roughly does the same thing: following another channel(s).
So what's the deal? All of them have some kinda problem like either is not animatable over time, no priority control when interacting with IK, Or it has interactivity issues that depends on rather you scrub your timeline, have auto key on or off, and god knows what other pitfalls.
2. Same issue more or less goes for expressions(motion/channel) and channel modifiers.
I give you one example. Recently, I saw the videos of the ninja rig in action from Lukasz's site. I thought the fake IK blending that he came up with was pretty easy to setup. Atleast the way I interpret it is constraining the IK goal objects for the arms and legs to another set of objects with some kinda blending control to fade in and out of the constraints. I thought this process was simple since lw has included the simple affectors and constraints that offers envelopable weight blending. Well that part worked, but the problem is when I keyframed the driver object over time and scrub the timeline, the IK bones don't react to the goal object that is driven by the the driver object. This is rediculous, I found that I had to also keyframe the goal object at the same frame where the driver objects has keyframes inorder to get the bones to update its motions.
I took this experiment a little further and replace the SimplePointConstraint with Follower, Master/SlaveZ/SlaveY/SlaveX, and channel expressions in individual trials. My findings:
Master/SlaveZ/SlaveY/SlaveX motion modifiers lags cause a slight lag in the position of the driven objects. Not good at all for what I need to do.
channel expressions: it works. IK bones updates when scrubing the timeline. but very time consuming because you have to apply expression to per channels. And it doesn't react intereactively if you don't have auto key on.
Follower motion modifier: By far this one offers the most functionality, speed of setup, and interactivity. Apparently, turning off after Ik made the IK bones update correctly. Which means IK should be evaluated after the constraint. But what's the catch? you can't fade out Follower's function over time. Which defeats the main purpose of the setup.
Conclusion. I really hate to bash at LW. But I gotta say, there're so many compromises within layout that frustrates an animator. Please, either fix up the issues with those modifiers and expressions behaviors, or gives us a super Follower type plugin that does it all: follow any channel available, animatable parameters, blend control, non-modal interaction, maybe SDK feature that drives value over different value, in addition to the existing features like IK priorty control, best interactivity. Also ease of use: something that will setup follower over many objects in the scene easily.