many questions about the keyframer

[furushil]

I have many questions about the keyframer that I want to ask here.

My first question would be this:

Bildschirmfoto 2014-04-16 um 15.42.31.png (78.83 KiB) Viewed 17754 times

If I want to move a simple object from A to B. How can I modify the first and the last point of the curve. The keyframer curve has no handles like the spline tool.
Is it possible to create a nice curve with only two points when using the keyframer?

[Elodie]

Right click on the keyframer points to make appear a little pop up menu and choose "spline". Then you will be able to draw your own shapes
You can choose the spline mode for every points :

[furushil]

Ok, that was easy!

Now, I have a curve in my progress profile. How can I apply the progress profile to the whole path? Right now it is applied from key to key.

Bildschirmfoto 2014-04-16 um 16.09.17.png (87.56 KiB) Viewed 17747 times

[Elodie]

The progess profile takes in consideration all your keys. It works a little like the Camera tool, but it also depends on your keys and their position in the timeline.
It's a little bit hard to explain with words. I will record a tutorial tomorrow and will upload it on the forum to explain

[furushil]

Thank you!
Just to make my question clear, here are two jpgs:

curve00000.jpg (24.03 KiB) Viewed 17731 times

curve00001.jpg (28.49 KiB) Viewed 17731 times

[ZigOtto]

yes, it's an old request I've done long times ago (Fri Nov 28, 2008 more exactly),
the progress profile works on the whole path, from the first to the last key,
whatever the nb of keys between them, BUT unfortunately, when you use some key in Spline mode,
it looks like the "elasticity" of the path is modified around this "splined" key,
I mean not only the path change in space (X, Y), but also the spacing is impacted ,
which will slightly interfer with your progress profile, when you have set a custom one,

when I need a moving very accurate in time, to define (draw) the path shape, I forget the Spline mode ,
and use more keys but in Smooth mode, then I hit "Contant Speed" option in the tools sub-menu,
and "draw" the speed-cuve, so, the resulting move will be respecting my custom speed-curve more closely.

here's an illustration :
the middle and down pathes are made of only 3 keys in spline mode,
the middle one with progress profile Linear (regular, constant spacing),
the down one just underneath with a polynomial (accelerated move),
and the up one is made with more keys but in smooth mode, same polynomial than the down one,
the spacing is here more accurate (constant acceleration) than the other similar path, but "splined" .
maybe it's not so obvious with my animbrush in this example, but if you compare, you can see
a difference in the spacings between the two using the same speed-curve and the same nb of frames.

welcome in the "high-level" tvpa deep-users circle !

[furushil]

that is really a strange behavior.
I also get something like this:

Bildschirmfoto 2014-04-16 um 19.07.04.png (55.9 KiB) Viewed 17727 times

Bildschirmfoto 2014-04-16 um 19.06.48.png (60.01 KiB) Viewed 17727 times

when I need a moving very accurate in time, to define (draw) the path shape, I forget the Spline mode ,
and use more keys but in Smooth mode, then I hit "Contant Speed" option in the tools sub-menu,
and "draw" the speed-cuve, so, the resulting move will be respecting my custom speed-curve more closely.

I didn't understand this right now and will have to look deeper into it, later. (Maybe Elodie can also demonstrate this tomorrow? )
Sometimes a moving object is getting bigger in time so I need the program to move the object and make it bigger with as few keys in the keyframer as possible.

I need to know how this works because I really don't want to use Flash for this (which is also complicated, but I understand it better right now).

[Peter Wassink]

indeed. the spline handles that control the path also influence the spacing.
As Zig mentioned, this has since long been a major headache in doing controlled moves in TVPaint with the keyframer.

What we need is two separate systems.
One to tweak the path and one to tweak the spacing.
The progress profile is not ideal for this either as it applies to all keyframed parameters within the effect
ideally i'd like a spacing profile for each parameter.

[ZigOtto]

once again, and for the time being, the workaround is to avoid the splined keys,
and to use more keys but in smooth mode to define your desired path,
(in my example above, 7 "smooth" keys instead of 3 "spline" keys to get the same bended path)
then active the Constant Speed option which will move / spread over the timeline
all the keys to get a linear moving from start to end,
after that, you can add (and tweak) a custom progress profile to set the speed
variation as you want (ease-in, ease-out, ... or flat section for a position hold f.i.)

[furushil]

once again, and for the time being, the workaround is to avoid the splined keys,
and to use more keys but in smooth mode to define your desired path,
(in my example above, 7 "smooth" keys instead of 3 "spline" keys to get the same bended path)
then active the Constant Speed option which will move / spread over the timeline
all the keys to get a linear moving from start to end,
after that, you can add (and tweak) a custom progress profile to set the speed
variation as you want (ease-in, ease-out, ... or flat section for a position hold f.i.)

Yes, now I understand and it works! This is exactly what I needed, thank you!

[Peter Wassink]

Thanks Zig, i completely forgot that you could workaround the problem like that!