"key all points" script?

[capricorn33]

There are two tools that I absolutely can't live without when I am blocking my animations out;

- "key skeleton", to be able to key the whole skeleton in stepped mode with one button press and lock the full body pose... and
- rudiger's "nudge key" (more specifically the shortcut keys for goto next / previous keyframe), for working on the timing of those stepped key poses.

(These two functions are so basic for anyone using a pose-to-pose workflow that it amazes me that something like this hasn't been implemented as regular tools in AS yet! )
EDIT: oops... just noticed that 8.01 is supposed to have previous/next keyframe control... didn't know... sorry about that)

Luckily we have these fantastic community scripts that help us out. Thanks rudiger for the "nudge keys", and thanks all of you who have written various "key all bones"-scripts too.

However, these "key skeleton"-scripts are good only for bone animation.


I have been playing around with point animation these last few days, and I noticed that I would have needed a "key all points" script as well, to complement the various "key bones/ skeleton" scripts that already exist.

If you work pose-to-pose by point animating directly such a script would be an absolute a must-have.


I wonder, do you know if anyone has written such a tool already?
I couldn't find any when I tried to search the forum....

If no one has I might give it a go.



AND......
....when I thought further about it, I realized that it might be necessary to also have a "clean up unneccessary points"-script to run afterwards.

because...
...if you key ALL points when you are blocking you might be keying a LOT of points that in the end aren't actually moving between two keyframes. Which of course is unnecessary and probably would be slowing AS down...(?) so when you nailed your timing and start to refine there should also be this script that; deletes the key on a specific point, if the surrounding keyframes carry exactly the same value for this same point. - IOW "delete all unnecessary keys"


Has anyone seen such a script?

cheers

[funksmaname]

I don't know of such a script and it was only yesterday (or day before) that I asked Mike if he would add the vector layer functionality to his key skeleton script... I don't think he plans to do it - so if you could add your mods to his script that would be great! I like your cleanup idea too, sounds good (for both bones and vectors!)

Get scripting

[neeters_guy]

The basis for mkelley's key skeleton script is Janimatic's keyall script, which not only keys almost every channel, but does so for all sublayers. This is overkill (and slow) for most purposes, but because all the channels are included, you could modify the script to suit your needs. See this:

Keyframe many layers at once?

Many of the links are broken, but I believe you can find the JS script pack at Animators Forum.

[funksmaname]

according to Mike, looping through layer is much easier with the new scripting stuff... it's all chinese to me.

[capricorn33]

The basis for mkelley's key skeleton script is Janimatic's keyall script, which not only keys almost every channel, but does so for all sublayers. This is overkill (and slow) for most purposes, but because all the channels are included, you could modify the script to suit your needs.

Yeah, it's actually the janimatic tools I have been using all the time...! So I'm familar with them.

You're right, it's overkill with keys on all channels and layers, even those you don't need. There should be a filter option for each channel. And an option to key points translation and curvature as well...

And how to cycle through layers.... yeah, that seems to be a tough one, right?

.../ it was only yesterday (or day before) that I asked Mike if he would add the vector layer functionality to his key skeleton script...

Oh, I hadn't seen that! We are really thinking along the same paths here, aren't we?
I'll go right over to AF forum and check that "looping through layers"-thing out.