Perform command improvements in Iclone


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By Colonel_Klink - 13 Years Ago
Getting frustrated with the war Iclone works has caused me to think of ways in which the capture of perform animations could be improved.

example:
Today I loaded a sketchup wall prop with a door as a sub prop which I wanted to animate. I selected the door and duly animated it and collected the open and close door perform commands. But when I went to operate the prop I had to select the door and animate it. Of course the door animated, but not in the position of the wall. Further, saving the wall as a new prop caused the animated door not to work. Merging the wall and ddor lost the perform commands completely

I suggest that animating props within Iclone be improved so that users can quickly animate subprops within Iclone without the use of helpers, and that any sub prop perform commands be inherited by the parent with or without the merge function.

Thanks
Bob
By thebiz.movies - 13 Years Ago
I second that motion. Its counter-intuitive to have to select a sub prop to get to the perform command.

Or barring improvements perhaps someone could provide a simple tutorial that shows how a subprop can be animated and collected (added to the perform command) without losing the positioning in relation to the parent prop. Specifically a door. Im working on a double fire door and cannot for the life of me get the position to work.
By animagic - 13 Years Ago
I don't know. If it's a door or window and especially if you have multiple doors and windows, it would be easier to do a perform by selecting the subprop I would think. If it was all lumped under the main prop then it would become a long list and you would have to try to distinguish between the various subprops.

For one of my recent movies, I created a mixing console with the controls and switches animatable and all being subprops. I did set the pivot point for each control and switch, but it did seem to work correctly that way. I didn't try a merge, so that may well not work correctly.

By Colonel_Klink - 13 Years Ago
This whole animating prop thing is making me very disappointed and extremely frustrated. On another post I have outlined the method I am trying to get doors to work. I create my animations in Max so don't need helpers, however the splitting of a single animation take from max doesn't appear to work. I'm trying to make the model so that it is like the jeep prop where there are no sub props and right clicking on the prop will enable perform commands for various parts of the prop to animate.
Seemingly this is supposed to work, as per the help topic "Converting a Model with Animations into iProp Format", however my experience so far with this has been time consuming to say the least.

I can get a single animation to work properly but multiple ones cause problems. I don't want to have sub props for simple open/close door and window animations. In my opinion it is either broken i.e. only works on a single part of a prop, or the feature to animate more than one part isn't documented, because the above topic pertains to multiple animations to one object/prop/ not a prop with nested parts.

I have also tried the dummy pivot helper to animate the door/windows in Iclone itself and set the perform animations there. They work fine when the doors and windows are reset back to there original spots, but when merged with the parent the animation perform commands are lost.

Cheers
Bob
By rcsinger29 - 13 Years Ago
This is very possible.

You are probably much more versed than I, however,

When you load your wall and door, DETACH the door from the wall and zero the transform key. Assuming your pivot is already in the correct place, the "hinge" of the door will be on 0,0,0.
Animate your door, apply the curves, then flag (or remember) the keyframes in which your animation(s) use. Once the animation is complete and you have flagged the project track. Align your wall to the door (leaving the door on 0,0,0). Attach the door to the wall, then merge the prop. The door will still open just as it did before merging.
Now, with your wall selected, collect clip on the keyframes in which the door opens (the flags or your memory) and add perform to the wall.

You can now "remove all animation" from the wall. The door won't open.
Now apply your perform command and it will work correctly.
You can move the wall anywhere you like and the perform command will continue to work properly.