Cineversity

Hi there,

my second xpresso question of the day.  Say i’ve got a animation rig - doesn’t have to be a character but its got hierarchies with animation on multiple levels.  Can i remap this to a single slider with xpresso - effectively making the animation nonlinear and slider controlled?  For example 0% = start of anim, 100% = end of anim.

I saw the new xpresso track node which does this for a single track but was hoping theres a way to do this on something more complicated than 1 animation track.  Obviously with enough time i could wire every single animation track to a xpresso track node.

Better ways?

Hey Rich,

I have done this by using the RangeMapper. You have a single slider and for each animation you use one RangeMapper to adjust the value as you need them. In this way things can start earlier or later, faster or slower for each part. Some RangeMapper could be even used after another one (complex and not really suggested, but in some cases very effective)

All the best

Sassi

P.S.: just a little example. Please note that you can set many points at once, Custom, and you can have the spline interface very large. Think of the 0-100% (or whatever value you chose) as an equivalent of the time line, so you leave the slider “linear” perhaps with a number system of frames e.g., 0-90. Then you can create any animation as before. More work, but less stress during animation, a typical Technical Director work.

Ah yes range mapper is my favourite node of all.  Thanks very much, but how about if we had animated a more complicated animation - say a character rigged and animated catching a ball - including follow through and secondary animation.  This would be almost impossible to recreate using values from just a range mapper.  In this case i’d like to be able to actually create the animation with traditional keyframe animation and then remap it to the slider.  I have a feeling i’m going beyond the scope of whats possible, but i’m looking into time tracks and the track node and trying to see if theres a clever workflow to do it : )

Hey Rich,

And there we go to the roots of the problem.  ;o) 

The typical animation of a character is done normally with a good rig. It has handles which makes the complete figure easily to handle. So the artist can focus on the expression, without being heavily limited. It is not recommended to animate, lets say, from the spine over the arm to the hand to the finger—when you want to have a figure grab a coffee and drinks the coffee. The hand is mostly the only part of the arm that becomes keyframes—the handle becomes key-frame to say it clearly. The arm follows based on the Inverse Kinematic (IK). Sometimes the “spine to hand animation” might be more appropriate but the IK is certainly more common for this part of the animation. In short, complex animation is not based on many key-frames, it is based on an clever rig.

Anyway, forgot about Time-track, it has a horrible management, and after a month you have no idea where you have dragged this into. Sorry about my complain, but this tool feels nice for one or two things to connect, but I personally can’t really suggest that for a complex character. ...and certainly there might be cases where someone used it successfully. ;o)

If you look for something more advanced and easily to manage, use e.g., the Animation Clips. You create animations and edit these like a movie and little extraaniamtion can be added on top of that. Yes, it is not a five minute learning curve. But character animation is always seen as the major animation skill and certainly a qualified job in its own rights.

As a side note: For very detailed animation and body-expressions, I guess the best way is since long a motion capture studio visit instead. Standard captures are sometimes available as set. But I haven’t investigated about this in a while.

Back to your question, some people like to define specific gestures, in the area of a hand or a face with the PoseMorp. Here comes as well the “Driver” tag into play. Check it out!

My best advice is certainly (and sorry if I suggest something that you might judge as a lower skill-level) check out the character set ups in the Content Browser. It is a nice Library of options.

Again, character animation and rigging of such a character are two very different things, you need to know what a character is supposed to do. To finally not overload the rig with functionality, but as well not make it too clumsy and or too rudimentary in the handling. “Map it to sliders”, well that might work for (e.g. facial) expressions, and there again we go to the PoseMorph.

Things like CMotion might help a little if at all. However your question indicates to me, that your really want to know it in depth. (?) Well, thinking about that for a moment, perhaps not at all, just one (or a few) slider request shows more a “how do I get a bath without getting wet” mentality, not really hunting the fine expressions, hehe. So—what is it?
What I want to say, it is an advanced art form, and thinking—how simple it should be AND keeping all expression options open at the same time, will lead from my point of view into frustration. (Because there is something that doesn’t work with each other. Core problem again, there is no one size fits all.)

There are many tutorials about that here on Cineversity, but an in depth training about character animation (expression based) is not present. From my point of view that is more a twofold education: take some actor classes, then perhaps the “animation mentor” option to dive deep into it. How to set up these “puppets” is more discussed here.

All the best

Sassi

Hi again,

thanks for the detailed answer.  I have done a few character setups myself before although i must admit, i’ve never really learned about the whole motion clip editor.  I definitely want to learn more about this.  I originally came from a maya background, and for the last few years have been learning how to take the knowledge i had from maya and convert to cinema4D.  For almost all, i’ve got to say i find cinema 4D a lot more user friendly and the workflow is better, and in some cases cinema4d can do things that i never could in maya.  But every software has its strengths.  This is probably why i sometimes pose these abstract theoretical questions - more for my understanding.  I think maybe using a character was a bad example, my fault.  Again this is not really an actual problem but more of a theoretical question as to whether its possible to actually remap keyframes nonlinearly in cinema4d?  I realize that trying to remap a complex rig with expressions, deformer etc is probably too much a challenge. 

I think your right about the motion clips - i’ve just had a little look at them and think this could be more along the lines of what i was thinking.  I can create quite complex animation (not rigs as such, but detailed animation) and still treat it like an element itself.

I apologize again for probably not explaining myself very well, but thanks for the hints and pointing me in the right direction.  Its all one big learning curve : )

Hey Rich,

I understand and please never take any detailed answer as a sign that I would underestimate your skills. I write in a forum with a very large dynamic in terms of skill-levels. I remember vividly sitting with one artist from ILM and try to follow his wish to convert his knowledge from Electric Image to C4D. I understand both packages and the more I jut “translated” on a one to one basis, the more my knowledge grew, that is the wrong way. It is comfortable for the one—as that puts only new labels of the knowledge boxes, but it creates as well also a bottleneck. Something that I try to communicate here more often. So—thank you for your example and experience. MAYA is certainly a powerful package and has its roots in the Studio landscape. In that way the simplicity was never (to my knowledge) first priority. Which lead to a different package. To compare both, and keep the personal requirements out of sight must fail from my perspective. There is no better, as the right tool for the right job is the key, and a big hammer will not repair a Porsche ;o)

Quite honestly to know two packages and be fluent in Adobe Master Suite is already a challenge, to know perhaps three Packages (3D) is something that I do not really believe anymore, they are to large and too deep these days. My reaction when they started growing really fast ten years ago, focus on one only. Get deep and not fringed out. But that is only me. I rather learn along the feature film pipeline than to get a collection of 3D running.

I mention all of that, as everyone has very unique plans with his/her career as an digital artist. The more focused one is on the targets the better. Having said that, the character tools are even an exellent set of options for e.g., MoGraph artists, as I will show soon with my personal adaption of Animations clips here, the Non Linear Animation for Teams.

yes, I understand your curiosity and that is certainly great. I hope I do support this here.

All the best

Sassi

Ah no worries i didn’t take it that way anyways, alway appreciate any suggestions you have : ) .  Infact its one of the reasons i come back to this forum again and again, your expertise is amazing, and i enjoy the discussion.

Yes i agree, its too hard to know more than one package in detail, 1 is enough.  I don’t think i even remember how to do the most basic things in maya anymore : )

By the way really enjoying the cinematography course so far, only 5 lessons in but think its a very important topic to cover, many thanks.

All the best mate

Thanks a lot, Rich!

I have the feeling the whole industry is a running target, and we all try to get the best out of it. The bandwidth alone between “Siggraph Papers” and what one find in last years software releases seems like a challenge to bridge.

In all of that—to find some stable ideas or even a solid perspective isn’t simple. I never assume that I know it all (of course not) and I’m always listen to other sources, e.g., FXPHD (close to 100 course [soon] that I had the pleasure to join).

Having said that, finding the core of all of that, or as I call it the “inner logic”, and turn it into training is another challenge. I’m happy that most people here are aware of that problem and none is expecting to get an infusion in five minutes to complete the learning mission. Hehe, but I have to admit, that would be great.

The Cinematography series was a perfect match for me. I love this theme and to combine it with 3D, to turn it into a series from a C4D point of view, was a nice (and nearly timeless) work. I knew that the update of Cineversity needed to be complete before any release would happen, so I found in this series the perfect match to a given situation. I have so many books about Cinematography and love to read the ACS magazine (American Cinematographer Society)—I can’t imagine to get tired of that theme any time soon. So, I wish you a lot of fun with it.

Thanks again for your feedback and input! Very much appreciated.

Have a good one

Sassi

richnosworthy - 12 February 2013 12:12 AM

Better ways?

The xreTIME python expression found at my site
http://www.tcastudios.com does this and some.

Cheers
Lennart

Hey Lennart,

thanks for that.  I’ve used your steadycam pro before - amazing stuff.  And that xpresso setup is awesome, gonna have to properly dissect how that one works.  Also saw your retime plugin which is also very nice!  I really want to get more into python for cinema4D.  Done a little but nothing too great yet.

All the best