Solved Switching Pose Presets using AcidBubble's Timeline plugin

[iLikeSoup]

Forgive the length of this post, I hope that if my questions are answered that it will help someone else in the future.

I am creating a scene which is basically a palette of a variety of environments, appearance presets, clothing presets, hair presets, and face and body decal textures (makeup, freckles, etc). The environments I chose were positioned to mirror each other's "bed" placement, so it doesn't matter which environment I choose, the general location of the person's atom is the same. I have all this generally done and working fine.

The other option I want to add is to implement a variety of sexual positions, each with their own set of animations.
The questions below are based on using Timeline to set up various sex positions which are triggered via a button within a single scene. One Timeline plugin for each position that has a main layer with variable sub-layers. One pose preset for each position. Each position does share some control targets, 'hip' or 'chest', for example.

Okay, still with me? Great, on to the questions that have surfaced while trying to attempt this:

A) When using a button to trigger a timeline, when there are more than one timeline plugin is being used, what is the proper and most efficient sequence of events that need to occur to properly switch an animation using a different pose preset? My best guess is to a) stop any and all timelines currently playing, b) load the new pose preset, c) set the animation associated with (b) and d) play the animation set in (c). Do I need to disable any of the timeline plugins before triggering a new one?

B) What settings need to be applied before saving a new Pose Preset via the Pose Preset tab? On a sidenote, I believe V5 of Timeline introduced a 'Save Pose' option under the Edit tab. Does this take the place of having to create a Pose Preset via the Pose Preset tab? I watched the short video but sadly didn't get much out of it. I always encounter issues with the person's root node not being updated when switching positions even though the pose preset was set to save the root node, bones...etc. A lot of the time, the pose switches, but the person atom's root node doesn't update. It doesn't always occur, and the issue generally surfaces when creating a new animation on a new plugin instance. If I screw around long enough, it gets fixed, but I tire of spending countless hours trying to fix each new animation which sometimes seem to affect perfectly working ones. So I know I'm doing something wrong but have no clue at this point.

C) When or for what reason should more than one timeline plugin be used? I've seen other scenes using this technique but not really sure if it's a requirement in my case. Sometimes I cannot figure out why someone used more than one instance of the plugin and it just adds to my ignorance. I am thinking that with what I am trying to accomplish that I need to separate the poses and have a timeline plugin associated with each of them in order to have variable sub-layer motions to a single pose preset; otherwise it seems that I cannot have one plugin that can be used for two completely different sex positions that share control targets.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The more I try to figure this out and try different things, the more confused I get and the messier my scene's animation.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Hi! I keep coming back to your post but it's always too late and I don't have enough brain left Here are some pieces of answers, if you have more specific questions I can help. Also make sure to check the wiki, I tried to document as much as I could.

A) Normally you should only have one Timeline instance per atom, and switch animations as needed. The only reason you'd need more than one is if you had _completely unrelated_ animations that are targeting _completely different_ controls. In this case, I'd say, disable the instance you don't want, then enable the new one. But it shouldn't be something you'd need for most cases.

B) There _might_ be a bug with the root control then. If you have a way to reproduce (like step by step) I'll try and fix it!

C) See A. I never, ever need more than one Timeline instance per atom.

Usually it should be fairly straightforward; make animations, switch between them using triggers or sequencing, use layers to run multiple animations at once (targeting different things). But Timeline is pretty powerful so you might get lost in advanced features, or you might have something very specific in mind in which case Timeline should hopefully be flexible enough to allow what you want... this doesn't mean it was built for your use case though, which might explain some of your confusion.

 

[DarkFantasy]

A) When using a button to trigger a timeline, when there are more than one timeline plugin is being used, what is the proper and most efficient sequence of events that need to occur to properly switch an animation using a different pose preset? My best guess is to a) stop any and all timelines currently playing, b) load the new pose preset, c) set the animation associated with (b) and d) play the animation set in (c). Do I need to disable any of the timeline plugins before triggering a new one?

I always use (A) Stop Animation (B) apply pose preset (C) Apply clothing preset if necessary (D) Start Timeline

For (B):
- I still use Pose Preset for buttons or the start of a new section or act sometimes as I find the actors tangle up just using the Timeline pose. I try it without the pose Preset first
- For scenes with penetration Pose preset and the order it is applied to the actors is important. Usually Female then Male as collisions are turned off as the pose is applied allowing the male to start inside the female making things really easy

For the Timeline Pose Preset:
- You can apply the preset and overwrite it any time. If you are using the "/" to add in random animations then you can also set different presets in Timeline for each animation in the series. This stops the jerking that happens when you load a preset pose.

So IMHO, and there may be a better way, I use both pose preset and Timeline pose preset now depending upon the situation. I start as simple as possible and then add components if they are necessary - Aka: start with Timeline and then add Pose Preset if you have tangling/collision issues or pose issues, (elbows and hands are a serious pain sometimes), need to start in a complex position with two or more actors.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Do you have cross-actor parenting maybe? Otherwise you shouldn't have to do all that, Timeline pose and triggers should be sufficient.

 

[DarkFantasy]

Do you have cross-actor parenting maybe? Otherwise you shouldn't have to do all that, Timeline pose and triggers should be sufficient.

For the most part they are more than sufficient. That one addition was huge!

I use the standard pose presets in VAM when the actors are moving from one area of the room to another. If they turn frequently the limbs get messed up, also, if they are close together and one has to pass through the other to get to the new starting spot then they get tangled. Adding the VAM pose preset on top prior to starting the animation allows the actors to be placed in the proper order if they are passing through each other and for some reason the limbs dont have as many issues. Of course the limb issues are only when they are starting in an extreme positions, like wrists together behind the back. Unless you place the actor first one elbow is almost always straight when it should be bent.

 

[enigma]

Have you played with subscenes? This allows you to containerize your animations/different positions and hence plugins won't conflict. Also have a look at macGruber's fade plug-in if the subscenes loading is unpleasant

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Yep, or if using Timeline to control global sequencing of the scene, there's a built-in integration with VAMOverlays too (so fade to black is timed with the remainder time, and it stays black until physics settle)

 

[iLikeSoup]

@Acid Bubbles, @DarkFantasy and @enigma

Hey, I owe all of you a huge apology for the extremely late reply. I didn't know anyone replied to this post and it was memory holed. Anyways...

Acid Bubbles, I don't want to rehash the old issues I was having considering it's been 3 months. I think the biggest issue was that I started with a pose preset in an animation, then made tweaks to the pose (on first keyframe) thinking that my tweaks were overwriting the original controller pos/rots. I have learned that if I make controller tweaks to the first keyframe of the animation, I need hit the appropriate save or overwrite pose button before moving the scrubber and continuing the work on the animation or I will lose those changes. I think this in particular is what was messing up some of my scenes. My ignorance on how to use your plugin gets less and less the more I work it. Absolutely love it and I thank you for sharing! And, I thank you for your detailed response to my wordy post.

DarkFantasy, thank you as well for your detailed response to my post. Your contribution did not fall upon deaf ears. Thank you! Good stuff.

enigma, not sure if you were replying to me or DarkFantasy, but I thank you as well. To answer your question, yes, I use subscenes quite a bit now after discovering how useful they really are. Thank you!