animation join up on loop

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abutkus
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:22 pm

animation join up on loop

Post by abutkus » Sat May 06, 2017 7:35 am

hi, is there someway of making the last key frame in an animation the same as the first keyframe so that the animation joins on a loop.

here is a video preview of what the problem is, if you see when the animation for the tree or the character runs through its ~250 frames, there is a distinct jump, it would be nice if the last frame transforms to the original position so there is a more equal join.

https://youtu.be/2HIDDIDszAM

sorry to pester, creature is such a great product, I'm learning/using intensely and starting to get the hang of everything now :))

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: animation join up on loop

Post by chong » Sat May 06, 2017 7:54 am

Hello,

You might want to take a look at looping animation using 2 tools available:
http://www.kestrelmoon.com/creaturedocs ... ation.html

However, you might have to retime your sprite swapping after that since the 2 tools are normally run before any sort of sprite swapping.
Take a look and see if it helps.

Cheers

abutkus
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:22 pm

Re: animation join up on loop

Post by abutkus » Sat May 06, 2017 9:00 am

thats great, does what i want, as a workflow, it may be cool to have the loop and convert functionality as part of the export process, so the project keeps the current motor information (animation motors remain the same), and the export simply converts to fk for the loop and convert.

that way can keep modifying the animations with the original motors otherwise my workflow will be, save the project, copy the project to a temp filename, open temp filename, go into each animation and convert to loop and convert on each animation, export, delete temp file.

just an idea.

Thanks again for help.

Andy

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: animation join up on loop

Post by chong » Sat May 06, 2017 5:00 pm

Hello,

Yes your point is definitely valid! Actually the second more involved method ( Animation Loop Analysis Tool ) just finds the best looping frame range for you without conversion to FK. You just need to remember to set the Export Frame Range ( important, this is NOT the frame range of your current Animation, but rather, the Export Frame Range set in the Game Engine -> Export Window ) correctly based on what you found in the tool to get it working.

So there are 2 methods available for your choosing.

The reason why we don't offer the convert to FK + loop automatically on export is because sometimes the results of it might not be what you want. So there might be some amount of tweaking involved... but I get your point. It does help the workflow, definitely a great suggestion.

BTW, the next update to Mac will include an "Export Project" option so what you can do is you can easily export your project into another folder instead of manually copying.

Cheers

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