Global Dynamics Switch?

[Greenlaw]

Hey, I just noticed that I can enable/disable Physics at a Group level. I haven't tried it but since all the characters are under a single 'characters' Group, I guess I could enable/disable Bone Dynamics by keyframing this option? If that works, it would save me making all those bone selections. Just a thought for anybody who wants to try.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, never mind. I just remembered that option has nothing Bone Dynamics. Hey, it's late and I'm tired.

[synthsin75]

If everything using dynamics is in a main group layer, I would suggest making an action in that group layer that includes turning off all the dynamics. That way you can enable/disable all dynamics by simply adding that action or deleting its single keyframe on the group layer. No need to select all the right bones each time. Just remember to only use it at the top group layer.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for the suggestions.

For now though, it really is easier to just bring the Bone Dynamics scenes into 9.5. So far today, the interactivity with Bone Dynamics has been so much faster in 9.5 that there's no need to switch them off at all. For now, we'll work this way (setup in 10.1.1 and export to 9.5 when needed,) and hope that Bone Dynamics will get optimized for 10.x before too long.

If the devs see this thread, I'm sure they'll get on it right away.

G.

[Greenlaw]

synthsin75,

Ugh...your workaround suggestion is sounding pretty good to me now. :p

This morning we got that one scene done where we absolutely wanted the Bone Dynamics on the multiple characters. That went very smoothly after exporting the scene file to 9.5. In fact, animating with active Bone Dynamics went so much more smoothly and interactively in 9.5 than it did in 10.1.1 that we thought, "Why not add dynamics to the remaining scenes with these characters?" That's when I realized, "Oh, we really needed the new constraints in 10 to make these remaining scenes in the sequence work." Oh, well.

We have a lot of other work that needs to get done quickly so we'll probably just drop dynamics for the rest of the sequence after all. At least we got the one scene we really wanted dynamics completed.

I sure hope the performance issue with Bone Dynamics in 10 can be fixed before we start our next project. It's good to know that we can work around this issue in 10 but it's also really frustrating that Bone Dynamics is not working as well as it did in 9.5.

After we catch up on a few more scenes, I'll try to throw together and submit an example scene that illustrates the difference in performance. It's really quite a big difference.

Thanks for your help.

G.

[synthsin75]

Personally, I'd rather do anything but work in two different versions of AS at once, no matter how feasible exporting to v9 makes it.

I haven't found the time to duplicate the performance problem with dynamic bone, so if you can strip a file down to only what's necessary to show the problem, I'd report it immediately. Otherwise it may take me a bit to work up a file for the devs to look at.

[Greenlaw]

No problem. I'll send you a file tonight.

I wound up doing another shot with four characters sharing the same bone dynamics rig...this time I kept it within 10 just to see how bad it could get. The animation turned out nicely but, yeah, the poor interactivity in 10 made the process quite painful compared to the first shot animated in 9.5.

BTW, I"m not exactly sure what you mean by disabling the bone dynamics from the top group layer for nested rigs. Doesn't switching Bone Dyanmics have to be done to the selected bones directly? Thanks for any info.

G.

[synthsin75]

BTW, I"m not exactly sure what you mean by disabling the bone dynamics from the top group layer for nested rigs. Doesn't switching Bone Dyanmics have to be done to the selected bones directly? Thanks for any info.

I mean that if you start by setting up the action in your top group layer and then go into each bone layer and disable the dynamics for the relevant bones on frame one of the action, you'll only have to disable/enable all of them from that top group layer (without finding all those bones again).

What I would suggest is using frame one of your project for ONLY this purpose. Then you can go to the top group layer and insert a reference/copy of this dynamic disabling action. To re-enable dynamics you'd just need to select that top group layer on frame one and clear the animation From Layer At Current Frame and hit Yes to clear sublayers as well.

[Greenlaw]

synthsin75,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain! I tend to think of Actions as reusable motion clips, and it just didn't occur to me to use it this way. This could serve as a good workaround for our situation. I'll give it a try later today.

The bone dynamics we have set up for other characters in the remainder of the film are much simpler (pony tails, etc.,) but because we have several characters in many scenes, this trick should still be very helpful to us.

G.

[Greenlaw]

It took me a few tries to work it out but I finished a simple test.

First I created a chain of bones and applied Bone Dynamics to some of the bones; I also drew a simple graphic for the bone chain to deform. Then I duplicated the bone layer with the graphic three times and offset the layers in position so I could see each chain/graphic. Next, I placed all three layers under a single 'master' group. Finally, I created an Action for the group to switch the bone dynamics off in frame 1 and a second Action to switch them back on at frame 1.

So far it seems work to work! I still need to try this with the 'heavy' rig described earlier but I don't see why it wouldn't work there.

As a side note to anybody else needing to do this, I had to create separate 'off' and 'on' Actions for this setup. At first I wondered if a single Action could work as a toggle switch but I guess an Action can only works as an absolute switch, meaning you need one for 'off' and another one for 'on'.

When I try this with the characters, I'll probably name the 'master' group for the characters 'BD Switch Frame 1' to help me remember to insert the Actions only on this layer only, only at frame 1, and not directly on any of the nested layers.

Thanks again to synthsin75 for this excellent advice!

G.

[synthsin75]

Ah, I didn't even think of making an "OFF" action, so you one-upped my idea. Good thinking. Much more efficient than clearing the animation from the whole frame.