Animations stopped working?

Twelvepak

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Twelvepak
I just logged into Vam today for the first time in a bit, and loaded up several of my old scenes I made last year, and none of the animations work anymore. Not even if I select rhe animation in edit mode and manually hit the play button. I can't see what is causing it. Anyone have any idea what the problem is? I assume it has something to do with one of the recent updates?
 
Since no one has responded, I feel like maybe I am missing something obvious. If the way animations work have changed, can someone at least point me to a resource explaining the changes? If I can't get my animations working again, then VaM will have lost its appeal for me.
 
What kind of animations? Timeline, animation patterns, other?
For me even the oldest ones I have still work. Maybe you can send me one example, I could take a look.
4 eyes see more than 2 ;)
 
Animation Patterns, not timelines. Triggered and stopped by a UI push button. The buttons won't trigger the animations now, so I tried manually starting the animation but nothing moves. In the animation window, the progress bar at the bottom moves, but the characters in the scenes do not. Someone told me on Discord last night it might be plugins because of the security updates. I've always used some plugins for breathing, expression randomizers and sound randomizers, so I want to check that this morning first.
 
What kind of animations? Timeline, animation patterns, other?
For me even the oldest ones I have still work. Maybe you can send me one example, I could take a look.
4 eyes see more than 2 ;)

Still can't figure it out. I'll try and see if I can figure out how to send you a scene if you want to look at it.
 
Anyone else want to try and see what is causing this? I sent one of my scenes that used to work perfectly to Saint66, and it doesn't work for him either. Like me, he doesn't see anything wrong. This makes no sense. Really need some help...
 
Let's ignore button triggers (doubt they are issue), your builtin animation patterns won't start when you hit play button? (Interesting)
(well even if freeze sound/physics is on, animation "should" still play)
Did you removed all plugins/make copy of scene with no plugins (and load it)?

Idk how much and what stuff you have in scene, how big it is, what did you animate,
what triggers, animation step triggers, person/atom/scene plugins loaded, etc...
maybe you have FloatParamRandomizer somewhere that is set to current time 0, idk...

Did you try chopping it down?
Just delete atom by atom all the way down to animation pattern until you find the culprit.
Basically go barebone while " playing" animation, save as new scene, load, then play it....

If you can't figure it out, feel free to share, ill gladly take a look.
Btw what vam version?
 
Some checklist:
  1. Any plugins asking to be allowed and you denied them? Delete content of your AddonPackagesUserPrefs folder to reset security permissions. Obviously only allow plugins from sources you trust or the whole thing is pointless. After allowing all plugins you might have to reload the scene.
  2. Any error messages when you load the scene as first thing after opening VaM? Fix those! If unsure what to do, make a screenshot of the full error message and post it here.
  3. You said the AnimationPattern is playing (progress bar moving). Is the AnimPattern still linked to the atom its supposed to control? Do the AnimSteps look reasonable positioned?
  4. Is the position/rotation of the atom you are trying to control locked? (check the move tab)
  5. Maybe you got multiple things trying to control the same atom?
  6. If all this doesn't help, please upload the scene so someone can take a look what is going on.
 
Thanks for responses. To MacGrubers checklist
  1. No, I have not tried the Prefs reset, didn't know that was a thing. That will be the first thing I try when I can log back in again. After I downloaded the most recent updates, I went the the plug-ins security tab but nothing looked like it had changed. I still had the box checked to allow plugins. I haven't seen any windows pop up asking to allow any individual plug-ins. Maybe that will happen after I try the Prefs reset.
  2. The only errors I have are missing things from other scenes/looks that I do not have. They don't have anything to do with my scenes that the animations stopped working in, as I did not use any of these things in the scenes.
  3. Yes, the patterns are still linked where they are supposed to be. The patterns were perfectly positioned before. All of my scenes used to work, and I didn't change anything in them, the animation patterns just stopped working. This wasn't just with one scene, it was with all scenes I ever made that had animation patterns in them.
  4. The node the patterns are tied to are in a hold position when the animation pattern isn't active. Once the animation trigger is hit, then the animation pattern plays until the trigger to stop and then that node returns to the hold position. At least they used to before this issue started.
  5. I don't think this is the case. As before, these used to be working scenes that I didn't change in the least since the last working version.
  6. All of the scenes in question have been uploaded for awhile and none of my peeps that have downloaded them report this happening to them at all. After I have tried resetting the prefs, if the problem persists, I can send one or more of these to anyone willing to try and take a look at them via DM in discord. I tried sending a file via the DMs here, but I wasn't able to attach any files here via the private messages.
 
Regarding:
1. Make sure you are on the most recent version, VaM 1.20.77.9 does have a security confirmation for every individual VAR package that contains a plugin.
4. That hold position thing sounds like a strange and uncommon thing to do.
6. You can upload to some file sharing service like MEGA and post the link here, increasing your changes someone will look at it. Or send it to me via Discord DM, but it might be while until I can look at it.
 
Ok, been awhile but I managed to get some time and dug into this issue more today. I FINALLY figured out the problem. I don't know which update changed the way this worked but here was the problem:
In old scenes I have made, I had the nodes that the animation patterns were linked to in a "Hold" position until the animation pattern was activated, and when the patterns were deactivated, the node would snap back to it's hold position. For whatever reason, this no longer works. If the node has the hold position boxes checked, the animation pattern will no longer move. It used to, but this doesn't work anymore. I had to change the nodes to "On", and everything seems to work now.

Wish I had figured this out before I did a full clean re-install, lol. Now I have to go back and put all my files back where they were and hope I get them in the right places!

Thanks to those that made suggestions in an effort to help.
 
Glad you sorted it out (y)
I was just about to post another idea: I came across a scene where the animations won't start. After try & error I found out, that a certain plugin was demanding exact the version the author had installed when creating the scene. Mine was newer and so it didn't worked.
You can control this behaviour when packing a *.var.

But it's unrelated, sorry ;)
 
Let's ignore button triggers (doubt they are issue), your builtin animation patterns won't start when you hit play button? (Interesting)
(well even if freeze sound/physics is on, animation "should" still play)
Did you removed all plugins/make copy of scene with no plugins (and load it)?

Idk how much and what stuff you have in scene, how big it is, what did you animate,
what triggers, animation step triggers, person/atom/scene plugins loaded, etc...
maybe you have FloatParamRandomizer somewhere that is set to current time 0, idk...

Did you try chopping it down?
Just delete atom by atom all the way down to animation pattern until you find the culprit.
Basically go barebone while " playing" animation, save as new scene, load, then play it....

If you can't figure it out, feel free to share, ill gladly take a look.
Btw what vam version?
 
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