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MotionStudio Tips
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
MotionStudio Tips // Roundtable
Post by frank // Nov 17, 2008, 12:11pm
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frank
Total Posts: 709
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I decided to put together some tips for Motion Studio. Some of this info is mentioned on my website, but I thought it would be nice for Motion Studio enthusiasts to have these little nuggets of knowledge in one place.
I would like for this to be an expanding list. If anyone has a tip to share, post it here. If possible, I'll try to continually edit this first post with your tips so that we can keep them together.
TIP #1: Don't Use Undo
If you make a change to the skeleton that you do not like, be it in Setup or Animate mode, don't use trueSpace's Undo function. Just shuffle the scrubber (move ahead a few frames and then back to 0), which will reset the skeleton and refresh the scene. (This works given the fact that Motion Studio disables AutoRecord.)
TIP #2: Floating Bones
Credit: Vinny "Humdinger"
This trick gives a bone that is attached to a skeleton, yet does not affect it through IK, such that when dragged, it "floats" - independent of the parent skeleton.
Assuming you are about to start this floating bone on an existing skeleton, simply:
Joint -> New
Bone -> New
(SEE ATTACHMENT 2a)
TIP #3: The Puppet Stick
Credit: Mikko Ronkainen (via Vinny "Humdinger")
If you find yourself wanting to animate the movement of an entire skeleton without using standard Translation and Rotation keys, this is an excellent trick.
Skeleton -> Add
Select the new skeleton (and name it, if you like)
Using the Right Mouse Button, click the character and drag it to the new skeleton.
Now you can keyframe the movement (both translation and rotation) of the entire skeleton/character using this one bone. This is much more convenient than using native Translation and Rotation keys, especially since the Rotation axis will in most cases not be centric to the character.
(SEE ATTACHMENT 3a)
TIP #4: Motion Studio and Vista
When using Motion Studio on a Vista machine, it will not behave properly (at least it didn't in my case) if you are running the trueSpace executable in Compability mode. So be sure that is not checked/enabled.
TIP #5: Keyframing Sub-Objects
Credit: Vinny "Humdinger"
You can add standard rotation and scale keyframes for any object which has been attached (with no skinning) to a Motion Studio bone. Avoid adding translation keyframes for that object, as this can cause conflicts.
TIP #6: Parenting Sub-Skeletons... or "The Drag-n-Drop Trick"
In hindsight, this should have been the first tip on the page (and it was mentioned briefly in Tip #3) because this can be a big stumbling block and cause some frustration. In fact, this is one of those things that was discovered by accident.
While in Setup mode, select the target skeleton so that the list of bones on that skeleton are displayed in the list on the right. Then - using the RIGHT mouse button - drag the source skeleton from the list on the left, to the destination bone in the list on the right.
TIP #7: Move The Animation Deck
By clicking the "Deck" tab and dragging, this panel can be removed from within Motion Studio and placed wherever you'd like. I find it very handy to place this along the bottom of the screen, below the trueSpace window.
(SEE ATTACHMENT 7a) |
Post by frank // Nov 18, 2008, 7:56am
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frank
Total Posts: 709
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bump
added some tips |
Post by Dragneye // Nov 22, 2008, 7:57pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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THANK YOU! :jumpy: |
Post by robert // Nov 30, 2008, 6:39am
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robert
Total Posts: 609
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This is really very helpful, thanks Frank.:D |
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