Like the topic says. I noticed that when I save an animation to the custom area of the content manager, it flattens all layers and keys. So that when I load that animation again, it cannot be modified. (at least not easily)
This was unexpected for sure. I think it would make sense to save the clip in whichever state it was in. If I flattened it manually, save that. But if I didn’t, save it as is.
And found that to be true. I can export animations out and bring them back in and continue working where I left off.
Is this a bug or is it by design? For those creating multi scene/shot animations in 3rd party renderers, what is your typical workflow? Do you have one iclone file per scene or shot? Looking for the best way to work non-destructively.
Apologies but I’m a bit confused on the actual issue so I hope you can clarify this for us.
You mentioned originally that saving animations flattened them, but you also say that you link in the manual which explains how to save without flattening does work. This would seem to contradict your original point.
So can you clarify the issue and the steps you are taking up until the problem occurs. This way we can try and reproduce the issue. Thanks.
Sure Peter. I identified two ways of saving animations. One flattens them and one doesn’t.
Drag any character into the viewport in iC8
Create a simple “arm raise” animation. Anything to get a few keyframes.
With the character highlighted, go to the Content Manager, select the Custom tab and then select the Animation folder.
Click the Save button to save the animation.
The animation should appear in the folder structure. If you click and drag that animation back onto the timeline, you’ll notice that the keyframes have been flattened and you can no longer modify the animation.
However, if I follow the steps in the article I listed above by right clicking the original animation and selecting “save with motion”. That will save the animation to a FBX file without flattening it first. However, it won’t easily appear in the content manager when I do that.
RL assets never saved in FBX format. Motions are save in proprietary .rlMotion format.
The only thing is, you have to save motion in appropriate folder for the motion to appear in Custom Content right away. Right mouse click on any custom motion in Content and do Find File. That would be the folder where you want to save your motion in.