Strange Tremors

Diana Kennedy · Post by **Diana Kennedy** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:51 am

Hi!

I have an odd issue: When I render my films created in ASP8, (Quicktime Movie) Format, the finished clip shows unwanted "trembling" on some objects; see:

http://vimeo.com/34372120

The thumb in the foreground and then the lamp. Sometimes whole background trembles. I didn't add any movement on these layers of course, neither trough bones nor with camera or anything. Any clue what causes these unwanted movements and how to avoid them?

DK · Post by DK » Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:35 pm

1. To make sure there are no keyframes on the thumb track or any other track click the actual icon next to the timeline and then click delete. This way you can be sure there are no keyframes on that track at all.

2. Are you sure you haven't added the handheld camera script by accident?

3. if all else fails render 1 frame as a png and import it into a fresh AS project then rerender the scene again to test if the problem is with AS or the project file.

Cheers
D.K

Diana Kennedy · Post by **Diana Kennedy** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:29 am

Thank you very much DK. In the given Scene I did as you said, I took "a photo" of the fierst caption and I deleted every keyframe on the lamp. Works so far. But What will I do if I actually have a layer that needs keyframes and will not stand still outside the keyframe-points...?

DK · Post by DK » Tue Jan 03, 2012 2:46 pm

Hi Dianna.
If the still image worked for you and did not render with a tremor you can safely say that there is a few stray keyframes that are causing the problem. I would suggest trying to elimimate them from your original AS file or import the layers one by one into a new AS project, render and to see which layer is causing the problem, ie,oopen a new AS file and import the thumb only and try to eliminate the nasty keyframes then re-import into your original AS file might be a solution.

Don't worry this has happened to me several times and it always turns out to be a couple stray keyframes but it can be painstaking tracking it down.

Cheers
D.K

Diana Kennedy · Post by **Diana Kennedy** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 1:53 am

Well, I deleted and then re-imported the images in question and they are without tremor now, so you are probably right, it may have been a hidden keyframe issue. But then they were WELL hidden, because neither did I add them on purpose nor did I find them when checking the timeline.

Thank you a lot for your help, DK

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:33 am

Hi -- I was working on some scripting for something completely unrelated to this - but I came across (ASP8) a tool in the menus:

Script / script writing / List all channels

This writes to the LUA console a list of all the channels and sub-channels plus the number of keyframes in each for the active layer.

now the bad news. the LUA console (on my system anyway) doesn't hold enough lines so that you can scroll back to see the point motion channel info if you have a layer with lots of points in it -- each point is a sub-channel.

however .... it ain't rocket science to take that standard script (it's only about a dozen lines of "functional" code) and change it to print only (say) point motion sub-channels where there are "too many" keyframes; or maybe even go further (but more work!!) and get it to tell you which frames have keyframes?

in other words - if you're often getting unexpected jitter that is because of an unwanted keyframe or two this might help track it down.

so, recognising that it's hard to generalise what might be "stray" keyframes in amongst the "deliberate" ones, do you have any better thoughts on what would be a useful way to develop the idea to give some valuable diagnostic tool? or is it enough just to flag up channels with "above a (variable or preset) threshhold" number of keyframes? or those with more than zero keyframes between (frame a and frame b)? ...

but most of all -- is it worth the effort to automate a diagnostic if the problem is very rare?

Diana Kennedy · Post by **Diana Kennedy** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 12:29 am

Yes, the question whether or not to create a diagnostic tool is on how frequent the issue is.

For me the most urgent fix would be a solution that prevents ASP to automatically select all points on a vector shape when during editing the points, you miss one. This slows you down and costs you the last nerve when you do animation by editing the points.

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:14 am

Hi Diana. yeah - agreed - it's a "feature" of translate points that it's too easy to select and move "the wrong point(s)" if you've only got one point selected (and translate only allows you to select one or all - not "some").

I need to think more about the way that "select points" and "translate points" work together. The "select" tool doesn't add keyframes in the timeline - but "select points within translate" does... even if you don't move them ... and it's far too easy to (accidentally) invoke the "select within translate" for the wrong points... and very easy to move them by even a tiny amount.

[I think the same is true of bones ... if you're in timeline and you're in (say) bone rotate tool - and you select - but didn't intend to select and didn't move - a bone you still get a keyframe in the relevant channel. ]

I can see both sides of this: for some people this "automatically add keyframe" (even though the point / bone hasn't been moved) is exactly what they want (saves going to the timeline and manually adding a keyframe) - for others it's a pain in the - ask me where ....

I haven't had a long deep look at the code for the Translate Points tool - so I don't know if it will a simple or horrendous task to do this but... the logic is ..."only add a keyframe if the selected point(s) have [been intentionally???] moved" (and if they haven't and you want a keyframe then maybe you need to go to timeline and manually add a keyframe).

Like I say, I don't yet know if that's a practical coding change - or what the user-ergonomics might be (might need an extra keystroke or mouse click or ... to say "yes - I DO want to move the selected point(s))") but if it could be done would that solve the critical problem?