- UMotion - Animation Editor
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Questions
Can't create smooth motion involving multiple axes
I can only assume I'm missing something, because it seems impossible to create smooth motion in which several axes of a bone or muscle group are keyed independently.
The clip I'm trying to create is a 'struggle' animation for a character being wrapped up in a web. Muscle groups should make this easy - and with Unity's own animation editor it is: I can key (for example) chest forward/backward and chest twist movements on different keyframes, creating a reasonably convincing 'writhe' effect. But with UMotion that seems impossible. If I key the chest open/close on frames 20 and 40, and upper body twist on frame 30 and 50, I would expect the twist and the curl to proceed together, just out of phase. Instead, the character acts like a robot, curling forward fully and only then starting to twist, then uncurling and then untwisting. I don't understand the curve view at all: it only shows one curve when several axes are involved and the keys can't be edited other than dragged along the timeline.
I can't believe this is how it's supposed to be; where am I going wrong?
Answer
Hi,
thank you very much for your support request.
The default rotation mode is "Progressive Quaternion". Switching to "euler mode" gives you all 3 curves. Please check out this video tutorial, it explains everything in detail:
If you have any questions, let me know.
Best regards,
Peter
Thanks so much for getting back to me :)
Euler mode definitely helps, but the workflow is a bit convoluted:
1. Adjust muscle group
2. Track down each affected bone individually and:
3. Manually drag each curve that you want to proceed smoothly into position
It doesn't seem to be possible to move keyframes out-of-phase on different axes of the same bone (dragging one along the timeline drags all three). This means that if I want to separate peaks, I have to create more keyframes - and once I've done that, if I decide I want to move a peak left or right on the timeline, I have to correct by eye the keys of the 1 or 2 axes I don't want to adjust in order to preserve those curves.
This is probably all water off a duck's back for an experienced animator, but, as someone who's only dabbled in the Unity editor, I'm really missing the ability to key axes truly separately in time.
Thanks again for the help. I'm going to pop a couple of suggestions in the 'ideas' forum, if that's OK!
Oh I am such a moron - just found the separate axes option (chain neighbouring keys). I guess I'll just be posting the ONE suggestion XD
Yes the "chain neighbour keys" (shown in the UMotion project settings) is what let's you move the keys of the x/y/z components individually. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.
Best regards,
Peter
Customer support service by UserEcho
Hi,
thank you very much for your support request.
The default rotation mode is "Progressive Quaternion". Switching to "euler mode" gives you all 3 curves. Please check out this video tutorial, it explains everything in detail:
If you have any questions, let me know.
Best regards,
Peter