Plugins Timeline

[hentailondon]

@hentailondon this is.... weird. Try removing stuff from your scene until you have only the empty atom, and if you can reproduce with the empty atom and as few animations as possible, send the scene json to me. If I can reproduce then, I should be able to figure it out.

Thank you for your reply I tried removing other animations but the bug is still appearing.
Here is the scene. I removed most dependencies. Keyframe 32.900 is an example of the movement spazzing out.

 

[hentailondon]

That is strange. I have what I believe is the latest version - I got it directly from the HUB - the package is AcidBubbles.Timeline.280.var (which should be 6.2.4 I think).
Mine looks like this:
View attachment 256760View attachment 256767
Is there any newer version? Or am I doing anything wrong?

This is the same for me running 280.

Though personally i like it that way, since i often use the key-frame navigation buttons in combination with delete/cut/copy/paste buttons. Having them on the top would harden the workflow.

 

[DNA]

Though personally i like it that way, since i often use the key-frame navigation buttons in combination with delete/cut/copy/paste buttons. Having them on the top would harden the workflow.

I guess it depends a lot on the workflow and the environment. I can see how that can be convenient. Using it in VR however, with the controllers, can be pretty error prone (happened to me to the point where it was annoying, and I had to save very often). One small accidental flick of the wrist and you've deleted all the selected keyframes when all you wanted to do was to jump to the previous keyframe.

 

[hentailondon]

I guess it depends a lot on the workflow and the environment. I can see how that can be convenient. Using it in VR however, with the controllers, can be pretty error prone (happened to me to the point where it was annoying, and I had to save very often). One small accidental flick of the wrist and you've deleted all the selected keyframes when all you wanted to do was to jump to the previous keyframe.

Yeah i can totally see that happening too.
Best thing would be a toggle in options or some sort

 

[just-sleep]

Hi. If you make changes in your scene, you might want to offset the position of all the "poses". Right now, it is impossible. It would be much appreciated to have a feature similar to "Bulk, Offset mode", that however targets the root position of ALL the poses. Or, even better, to have an option to save the root of a pose relative to an atom/subscene.

 

[jaro]

Without this plugin VAM would be almost useless…
I am experiencing one error regularly: If I setup scenes with different animations and parent person to each other (e. g. a hand to a boob), this works fine as long as I stay in this anim. If I leave it and come back, the parented atom is often misplaced w/o obvious reason. If I apply the pose again, it is correct. Is this a bug or do I do something wrong?

 

[Acid Bubbles]

@jaro maybe you have some nodes in Comply mode?

 

[Acid Bubbles]

@hentailondon For some reason I'm unable to play the scene (I can't check more now) but I can look at the curve:

If we zoom in on a spike, you can see the curve flying away?

The problem is that you have a constant curve, and just before and after, a smooth curve. But the only way to make a smooth curve with such an abrupt change of speed is to make a loong detour. You could either use constant elsewhere to "teleport", or linear, or flat, depending on the effect you want.

I'll check if I can change the behavior of constant curves to make the "before" part linear instead of smooth, it'll probably be more predictable that way.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

@just-sleep That would be nice, yes

 

[Acid Bubbles]

@hentailondon actually no, something _is_ wrong. When I switch the curve type I can see the curve get back to a valid shape (when I tried to reproduce in a test scene I wasn't able to, it behaved how I though it should).

I'd like to know how you got into that state? Did you notice any errors in the error log?

 

[just-sleep]

@just-sleep That would be nice, yes

Thank you for considering it. That would massively improve the reusability of animations.

 

[Clocksmith]

This plugin is a goddamn masterpiece. I used to animate in Daz Studio and your plugin is 10x faster and more intuitive to use. And you've made it available for free. Thank you so much for what you have contributed to the community.

One question: I have made a set of animations on an unscaled (i.e. 6 ft tall) model and it works with any other standard sized model that I load in as an Appearance Preset. It even mostly works when I scale down those models in the General Physics (?) tab. However, there are some prescaled models (i.e. their 1.0 scale is smaller than standard) and these load into the animation floating in the air (Y) and slightly forward (X) for all the animations in the set.

I can manually change their atom X/Y each keyframe but I'm wondering if there is a way to globally translate the primary atom position (or better yet, any target) in all keyframes. It probably still wouldn't be perfect but may save a lot of work.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Yeah scaling in VaM does lots of stuff... you can go to More, Bulk, and there's a mode there (check the wiki for details) to bulk offset every keyframe of a node within one animation. You can't scale the keyframes but translating them should already help!

 

[hentailondon]

@hentailondon actually no, something _is_ wrong. When I switch the curve type I can see the curve get back to a valid shape (when I tried to reproduce in a test scene I wasn't able to, it behaved how I though it should).

I'd like to know how you got into that state? Did you notice any errors in the error log?

Hmm i guess i was using the curves in a wrong way though this behavior is also buggy?

I didn't get any errors, the spazzing out was sometimes very inconsistent but changing curve type could indeed help.
My goal was to use constant curve for camera teleport but didn't realize you don't need a keyframe shortly before (pos2) as the constant curve only moves when the time is on the key frame and STAYS at the position (pos1) before doing so. So it was kinda redundant.

However sometimes i put a keyframe again at the same position (or else it would slowly move to the end keyframe), so it stays there (and this is where the bug sometimes appeared), should i just use smooth when the object does not move, or does it even matter? (i guess like you said, i was misusing the constant curve there, hence the bug).

I hope my writing is not too confusing xd

You could not open the scene at all? I removed all objects except the essential ones, so if you just see a black scene with person, timeline-controller and empty atom that's intended. By selection the empty atom root you can follow it's path.

Though i think misusing the curve was the root cause and one can find a way around it ^^

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Well @hentailondon the text is clear, but what would be nice is to have steps I can follow (where to click to get the same result). Might be as simple as constant curves not loading correctly, too. I'll need to figure this out at some point by any way to reproduce consistantly would be nice.

 

[just-sleep]

Encountered a bug. If you add the SimpleSign and load the Timeline control in it, it works unless you parent the SimpleSign to some other node, in which case it throws an error about "names" and it doesn't display anything. Probably because you don't give it the full path of the structure of the scene.
The reason why I'm assigning a parent to it is because I can then move it together with other buttons.
Hopefully this is an easy fix.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Thanks @just-sleep , added to the list!

 

[Raijinnn]

Hi, I'm trying to use the bulk offset feature. Following the wiki instructions, I clicked start offset and moved my target around, but I can't apply the changes. The wiki mentions "click apply" but I don't see the button in the UI.

Where should I looking?

Thanks ahead for the help!

 

[CheekiBreeki]

Is it possible to use triggers to load/import and remove animations in Timeline?
It'll be useful if we can load entire Timeline animation presets with triggers so we can switch set of large animations without exceeding the vam scene file size limit.
A workaround I've used is to load the Timeline plugin as a plugin preset which loads all animations at once, but this needs to reload all person plugins since all triggers reference the plugin# so it needs to be the same when loading a new preset.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

No @CheekiBreeki it's not possible to do that. I can see what you want to do, and it's pretty interesting though. It'd also have to work when exporting .var files, which is possible but tricky.

 

[CheekiBreeki]

No @CheekiBreeki it's not possible to do that. I can see what you want to do, and it's pretty interesting though. It'd also have to work when exporting .var files, which is possible but tricky.

Thanks! Yeah makes sense, it could be an experimental feature. I was thinking along the lines of exposing the 'Import animations' functionality to triggers, and import animations with a path. That would make it easy to separate animations from the remaining scene. Eg. the scene loads and triggers Timeline animation import. Before saving scene, you unload the animations (manually with trigger), otherwise you may break scene saving by going over the VaM filesize limit.
I did try loading lots of animations into one scene (about 1.3GB jsons loaded into Timeline), and it worked well. Just that you can't save the scene with them loaded.

PS: Also found a bug to occur sometimes. When I import a new animation into Timeline, it doesn't show up when trying to play the segment with a Trigger. When I edit the name of the Segment, it then shows up. Not sure if I'm missing something.

 

[Clocksmith]

In my animations, I have to move the head *position* down to get the body to be where I want it. The disadvantage of doing this is that I can no longer use plugins like MacGruber's Gaze to keep the head *rotated* at the VR camera to maintain eye contact and have to manually update the rotation of the head to point where I expect the VR camera to be. This means each time I use a new Look with a different form or height with the animation, I have to manually update how the head is rotated to stay on target.

Is there a way to *only* animate the head position and allow e.g. Gaze to control the rotation? Or is there some other utility in Timeline or another program I can use to automatically have e.g. the X rotation of the head targeted toward an object?

Also, while I would prefer an automatic option, just having a plugin that could manually point the head at an object at the click of a button would at least speed up the keyframe updates I have to make to each Look.

 

[Clocksmith]

In my animations, I have to move the head *position* down to get the body to be where I want it. The disadvantage of doing this is that I can no longer use plugins like MacGruber's Gaze to keep the head *rotated* at the VR camera to maintain eye contact and have to manually update the rotation of the head to point where I expect the VR camera to be. This means each time I use a new Look with a different form or height with the animation, I have to manually update how the head is rotated to stay on target.

Is there a way to *only* animate the head position and allow e.g. Gaze to control the rotation? Or is there some other utility in Timeline or another program I can use to automatically have e.g. the X rotation of the head targeted toward an object?

Also, while I would prefer an automatic option, just having a plugin that could manually point the head at an object at the click of a button would at least speed up the keyframe updates I have to make to each Look.

Solution here for anyone curious:

Answered - Plug-in to make person look at object

I have a SpawnPoint set up and am trying to set up keyframes with Acid Bubbles Timeline to have a person being animated look at the object I have the SpawnPoint set in. Is there a plug-in to do this? Macgruber's Gaze isn't an option because I need to set head position keyframes in the animation...

hub.virtamate.com

You can use Gaze for rotation control and turn of head rotation for the Timeline keyframes:

 

[hunhunter]

as everybody else here, i can not thank you enough for this animator plugin. i also have a couple of questions if i may:

1- is there a way to animate a cloth grabbing point with your timeline (the grab function)? i am working on a scene where i want to activate the grab function in a certain part of my animation, but since this atom only functions once it turns "off" then "on" again, and timeline plugin will ignore the atom's timeline while it is in an "OFF" control state even if i trigger it to "ON" state halfway. i also looked in to the trigger list on the cloth grab atom but i couldn't find away to trigger it manually without turning the actual atom on and off.

ex. a person character comes from a far and moves near a pointy object then their clothes get hooked while they move away of the object. so the grab point at the pointy object can not be activated the whole time as the person will be away of it, and also it has to be activated to "ON" state the moment their clothes are within range of the grab atom.

i know there could be a work around to achieve this but i would to use the cloth grab point with timeline if possible as i have other uses for it in the future, can you please advice?


2-second, it maybe obvious but i couldn't find it, how do i turn on the curve graph on the timelin's UI? as in see the actual curve, i can select on of the presets you provided but i wish to create my own custom curves (ease-in and outs) if possible.

thank you so much and looking forward for your kind response.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Acid Bubbles updated Timeline with a new update entry:

Timeline v6.3.0

• Real time works! So you can expect Timeline animations to fit with audio without Audio Sync, finally!
• Reduce save file size by more than 6 times! For older scenes, go to More, Options to use the Serialization Mode "Optimized". This requires Timeline 6.3+ to open.
• Animate rotation and position separately; this is still a beta feature, it will allow you to only animate the rotation or only animate the position, each with their own keyframes. Note...

Read the rest of this update entry...