How to delete spring effects in Characters before sending to iClone

Character Creator General
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1

Hi, I am following the workflow CC5 for Character creation and iClone8 for animation.

While I try to work on Edit Motion Layer in iClone8 I constantly have a notification that says: ‘‘this object contains spring effects. you can disable the effect by adding an off key in the spring track before using motion layer tool’’.

I add an OFF key in the beggining but i realized that the spring effects affect the bones which are connected even if I have them OFF. And as a result I can’t work on curve editor for the specific bones. Whatever I do, spring effects still have the same result (jitter in my case).

Any ideas about how to delete them in CC5 or to actually disable them in iclone8 so I can do a proper cleanup?

Thanks,

Spyros

2

It happens to me all the time. They say it really doesn’t matter unless you’re using something like a dog or a cat, something with a tail, only then do you really need to use that in most cases, just click on it and keep going.

3

I keep messages disabled by unchecking “Message Panel” In Preferences > Display

4

My question is whether, even if I don’t pay attention to the warnings, or if I disable them so I don’t see them, the Spring effects still influence the character, even when I set an OFF key at the beginning.

I’m wondering if the Spring system might still be functioning in the background. For example, when I try to smooth the keys on Spine02 rotation (X, Y, and Z), it seems to affect the visible jitter when I scrub or adjust the curves. However, once I press play, the jitter persists—even after I’ve refined the curves in the Curve Editor.

That’s why I’m questioning whether the Spring effects are truly disabled, or if they continue to affect the animation despite being turned OFF.

Of course, it’s possible that this issue is caused by something else entirely, so any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

5

I am positive that whatever issue you are experiencing is not related to spring.
But in any case, you may deactivate spring assignment to bones in CC.

Start Edit Spring from character Modify panel, then hit F3 key for Bone Manager.
Select spring bones one by one in Bone Manager and uncheck Active box in Edit Spring panel until all are gone from the list.

6

You are right. I tried what you describe and deleted the spring effects but still the problem exists…

Would you be positive to forward this problematic animation to see if you could understant what the problem could be?

I work with CC5 and iClone8 but I can just forward the pre-retargeted move ai fbx so you can check it out if you have earlier versions.

7

Yes, I have CC4 and latest iClone 8. If you wish you may apply a motion to a CC3+ base character in a fresh iClone project, upload it to a cloud and post a link here, so that me or someone from RL support can look at it. Also provide some details on how the motion was created.

P.S. If it was some sort of mocap, then jittering with certain bones is expected.

1 Like
8

Hi,

Thanks for your availability to check this out.

All the animations are recorded using nine “Go Pro 12’’ cameras with move ai pro, in a studio space 9x9 meters.

I uploaded in the following link 3 animations. iclone_jitter - Google Drive

The A4_G2_TAKE_01 is the one I initially created this post for, and I have a priority to understand what is wrong. It’s a character walking and carrying a bag on its shoulder (could be a man or a woman as it is in the reference images). For this animation I did as you said, added a CC4 character and added the animation to him.

As you can see in this animation, I have some significant jitter issues in the spine. As I write previously in this post ‘’I smooth the keys on Spine02 rotation (X, Y, and Z), it seems to affect the visible jitter when I scrub or adjust the curves. However, once I press play, the jitter persists, even after I’ve refined the curves in the Curve Editor’’.

I also uploaded 2 other animations so you can see what are the problems I have in general. Extreme jittering and trembling while seated or lay down.

I also uploaded the pre-retargeted files and the move ai profile to import pre-retargeted files so you can import the animation yourself if necessary.

In each folder I have some extra info, as a blender file, a video and some reference images so you will get a better idea of each animation.

Regarding your P.S. of course jitter is expected as it is a MoCap, I am just getting confused how to remove the jitter (especially in the first one, A4_G2_TAKE_01), as I can’t find a way to remove the spine one. I suppose if I understand what’s the point with this one, I will be able to fix the rest. I am just uploading them mostly as a reference of what are the RAW mocap results I have.

Thank you,

Spyros

9

Yeah, fixing mocaps is very tedious routine. You were on the right track though, just needed to identify boned to smooth the curves for. In was not only spine02. Practically everything including head, bone_root, arms… needed to be cleaned up. A lot of trial and errors would be involved. For walking animations, a feet sliding might be introduced after torso/root bone smoothing. That could be fixed with Motion Correction feature at the end.

I do not work with mocaps often, but I did some basic cleanup on replicated Kevin character as an example (on the right to the original in an enclosed project). For idle part at the end where the most jittering occurred (it was beyond repair), I simply wipe out all torso and legs keys and did some minor manual animation.

10

Hi,

Thank you very much for your effort on cleaning this.

I saw the curves in both characters and it seems it needs a lot of work to do all this cleanup. And also, motion correction it usually creates other artifacts…

I will have to find an easiest way, maybe using some of my mocap data from other walking recordings which are ok and fix the upper part only…

Thank you very much again!

Spyros