Animation > Tools > Pose animation

Creates a custom playback sequence for irregular keyframe progressions.

Posing an animation sequence

  1. Create an animation using any of the Alias animation tools.
  2. To create a custom playback sequence, choose Pose animation from the Animation menu.

    The system prompts: 

    Enter frames in pose animation:
  3. Type the frame times at which you want to view the poses.

    For example, if you want to set poses for frames 5, 23, and 40, type: 5 23 40

  4. To start the pose animation sequence, open the Playback Options window (Animation > Editors > Playback Options ) and under the Animation Options heading, set Pose Animation to ON. Close the window.
  5. Choose Animation > Show > Playback to view the pose animation.
  6. Change the pose animation by redoing Animation > Tools > Pose Animation, or temporarily disable the pose animation in the Playback Options window by setting Pose Animation to OFF.

Pose Animation Options

Time Range

The method by which the pose animation keyframe times are chosen.

Option Window – Click to display three sliders:

The Start Frame, End Frame, and By Frames values you specify are used to create an evenly spaced time sequence (For example: Start = 1.0, End = 10.0, By = 2.0; creates Pose sequence = 1.0, 3.0, 5.0, 7.0, 9.0)

Prompt – You are prompted to type in a sequence of frame numbers to use as the pose animation (similar to the input in the Animation > Keyframe > Set Keyframe tool).

Key Frames – Searches the currently enabled playback channels and sets a pose sequence frame at every defined keyframe in those channels. This is useful for showing the defined animation poses. To set playback channels, use the Animation Options section of the Playback Options window.

Pose animation workflow

  1. Create an animation sequence using any of the Alias animation tools.
  2. Choose Pose animation   to open the option box, select Key Frames, and then click Go. The whole animation is scanned for keyframes and a new pose sequence is created.
  3. To set new keyframes on the pose animation sequence, open the Parameter Control window (Animation > Editors > Param Control) and open its Global animation section. Open its Universe section and toggle the Frame parameter of the object to ON.
    Note:

    Keyframes in the pose sequence animation should have STEP tangents.

  4. Now any Set keyframe operation that you do also adds a keyframe to the pose sequence.
  5. Open the Animation Options section in the Playback Options window and toggle Pose Animation to ON.
  6. Choose Animation > Show > Playback. The animation plays, displaying only the frames for which keyframes are defined.
Parent topic: Animation menu