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[Kevin Gales]

I decided to take a closer look at animation features available in anim8or
 and here is a feedback...the intention is not to piss anyone off or discourage anyone from ever trying to do animation in anim8or but this is to highlight areas that needs improvement to Steve

1.Animation in scene mode (do not do that try using sequence mode maybe):
You cannot toggle hide/unhide bones..animating fingers individually is a no go..there are so many bones that will hide each other regardless of the diameter of the bones(however it's not a big deal if you're not going to use so many bones to correct distortions)

2.Rotation Gizmo? :

The gizmo for rotating bones is in 2D that's bad if you rotate to any user angled perspective you will still see the gizmo in 2d meaning...you'll get puzzled about the directions of the angles...this will lead to unwanted distortions
My advice here stick to animating in right,top and left views

3.IK?:
You cannot position IK controllers so during animation..sometimes they will hide depending on where you pulled them..sometimes the ik controllers gets stuck inside other bones and under the dense parts of the mesh.

4.Bones (no limit feature) is not exactly infinity.. thats's bad:
...let's say you're trying to animate a rotating wheel..that won't really appear as required if you're going to use bones...this is because the bones revert their motions after reaching their max angles.This is exactly what causes sliding on the floor. Anyone should try animating a rotating wheel you'll see

5.Path? :The path of an object is attached directly to the object.. that's bad...If you try to modify the path at some point you may find out the path you're trying to modify is hiding inside the mesh.Paths needs to be x-ray or movable.

6.[SOLVED] Keys :Well keying sometimes gets really bad first you have to make sure all bones are keyed at 0 on the first frame...If you forget this..things will get weird..also if you want to make a bone remain in the same position for a number of frames you key those too

For example if you wish a bone remains at x = 10 from frame 10-100
you'll have to manually add x=10 to every key between 10 and 100..seriously this will take you years
:The graph editor is supposed to be editable for such situations

7.Multiple bones rotation:Nope You can't do that...you'll have to rotate each and every bone individually and that eventually gets impossible due to some reasons above such as IK hiding or over populated bones in scene mode which doesn't allow you to hide some bones.This feature is very essential.

[Claude]

6.Keys :..also if you want to make a bone remain in the same position for a number of frames you key those to

For example if you wish a bone remains at x = 10 from frame 10-100
you'll have to manually add x=10 to every key between 10 and 100..seriously this will take you years
:The graph editor is supposed to be editable for such situations

Hi.
The graph editor is  editable.
Double click on keys on both side and make them corner instead of smooth. Then use the handles
to make the curve flat between both keys.
Here's an example:

[Kevin Gales]

6.Keys :..also if you want to make a bone remain in the same position for a number of frames you key those to

For example if you wish a bone remains at x = 10 from frame 10-100
you'll have to manually add x=10 to every key between 10 and 100..seriously this will take you years
:The graph editor is supposed to be editable for such situations

Hi.
The graph editor is  editable.
Double click on keys on both side and make them corner instead of smooth. Then use the handles
to make the curve flat between both keys.
Here's an example:

Ohh thanks I did not notice the key types...so this means number 6 is solved...

[Steve]

Kevin Gales: thanks for your feedback. I know there is much left to do to improve animation and your comments really help.

[Kevin Gales]

Kevin Gales: thanks for your feedback. I know there is much left to do to improve animation and your comments really help.

Glad to help  ...Anim8or have so much potential.. so far the modelling part is so good...most of the time I am using it for hard surface modelling 

[johnar]

Hi Kevin,
 I thought the jump was really good. If i may suggest, take out some frames as he is getting up to the halfway point on the table, just to speed him up a bit as he's mounting the jump, and multiple keyframes to hold his position on landing. Ie: Move and key his 'position' on each frame as soon as he hits the floor.

 Some answers maybe:

1)
Hands are definately easiest to animate in sequence mode. Make a whole lot of hand 'poses' and export them into a folder for future use with that figure.
 A 'pose' meaning a 2, (or 1) framed sequence. Then its only tweaking of hands/wrists in scene mode when needed.
2)

The gizmo for rotating bones is in 2D that's bad if you rotate to any user angled perspective you will still see the gizmo in 2d meaning...you'll get puzzled about the directions of the angles...this will lead to unwanted distortions.

With practice It'll make more sense and get easier. At the end of the day, Green will rotate the X axis, Blue for the Y axis and Violet for Z. The outer ring will rotate the joint around the 'Screens' Z axis, and the Yellow arrows will rotate around the screens X and Y axis.
 I find it easiest to only use green, blue and violet, and from the most sensible view to 'see' the movement on the designated axis.
 Setting limits to bones movements can also be helpfull.

 3) IK controllers can be positioned, and repositioned when necessary, in figure mode.

4)

Anyone should try animating a rotating wheel

 That's a gimble related thing, i think, and has been dsicussed a lot in the past. You can 'force' the wheel to rotate smoothly, using the right values at the right positions... i can help with that if you're still having trouble.
  5)
 You can hide both the bones and the object, making the figure invisible, and leaving the path visible

 6)
 Solved by Claude

 7) multiple bone rotation.
 Sorry, not sure  if i'm understanding that one. IK is for multiple bone rotation, FK is 1 bone at a time. (?)
 Happy to explain more on anything that still troubles you

[Kevin Gales]

Johnar
1.I guess that could do...I think this makes sense why sequence mode is included separate to scene mode...So scene mode

just becomes where you just put everything together and render....
2.I still don't prefer that... If you have seen Blender's gimball...I like that one cause it doesn't matter what angle

you are viewing from you will be 100% certain which direction the selected bones will go...Try rotating bones after using

the arc rotate to get a user angled view in Anim8or
3.Ohh so you just need to move them using the common object manipulators I figured they could be scaled too..fascinating
4.No comment on that
5.I still believe it could have been much cleaner if the path could be detached and moved to a different location..
7.Sometimes you might need to move only three bones without interfering with the ik (by multiple bone rotation I mean for example just select the head and leg bone and rotate them together something like that...)


However I believe there should be more tutorials on some of these...I haven't seen any anim8or video demonstrating animation of organic human like movements...

[Kevin Gales]

1.Is there any technique to attach a figure to another figure? for example I created a separate figure for the fingers then another for the hand and arm and I want to join those
2.Is there a way to set multiple bone length?Say I select 5 bones then set same length.... it's already possible to set same diameter... 
OR select say 5 bones and resize (I tried the resize tool it doesn't work or maybe I am missing something )

[johnar]

for your last 2 questions:

attach a figure to another figure

and 

select 5 bones then set same length

 Not that i'm aware of

[Steve]

1.Is there any technique to attach a figure to another figure?

You can make anything the parent of something else so that the child moves along with the parent. This is not as useful as it could be, however, because the child only follows the base location of the parent. You can't attach a ball, for example, the a figure's hand so that the ball folloes the hand of a figure.

I've done some preliminary work on supporting this but it's not really good enough. You need to be able to change the parent-child relationship dynamically otherwise you can't have the figure throw the ball. adding this is much more complex. Hmmm. I just had a thought: you could use two balls and hide one or the other, o amybe I'll finish this up in the next release or so!

[Kevin Gales]

1.Is there any technique to attach a figure to another figure?

You can make anything the parent of something else so that the child moves along with the parent. This is not as useful as it could be, however, because the child only follows the base location of the parent. You can't attach a ball, for example, the a figure's hand so that the ball folloes the hand of a figure.

I've done some preliminary work on supporting this but it's not really good enough. You need to be able to change the parent-child relationship dynamically otherwise you can't have the figure throw the ball. adding this is much more complex. Hmmm. I just had a thought: you could use two balls and hide one or the other, o amybe I'll finish this up in the next release or so!

Interesting! I am waiting to see how that will turn out if you do manage to complete the experiment...