animation from point A to point B terribly broken

[Anonymous]

see file attached. I'm just trying to get this tree to move from one end to the other, as well as scale from 0 to 1. I will modify/center pivot, move the pivot to the bottom of the group and set up the animation. Fine Then I do a few more groups, or trees in this case. This will work for a while then break. Every time the tree will scale and get stuck on around .1 on the x, even though the channel editor and graph editor say nothing's wrong. I've tried freezing transformations, resetting transformations (which required me resetting the center point as in the sample supplied), but when I reset transormations, you will see in the sample supplied that the center point has now moved back to 0, and even thought it has, you will see when you advance 10 frames that something very messed up happens, where the tree grows from the middle and goes to the end point. None this make sense and I'm fairly certain I've cleared out just about anything that could be causing the issue. I also tried parenting all this to a locator and the same thing happens. I sure hope there's a solution to this. Dave

[mspeer]

Hi!

I can't see any problem. Please post a screenshot / screencast.

[Anonymous]

screencam attached. This is AFTER resetting transformation. It does this every time. I set up the animation to go from one side of the disc to the other. I set my scale to make it pop up and down. Then afterwards I will do some other stuff and EVERY time I come back to this animation, something breaks. Usually what happens is the animation scales flat on the x. Then, I reset transformations and the center pivot is way off. I've tried exporting as different formats and re-importing, cleaning up polys, re-creating the animation and this always happens.

Dave

[mspeer]

Hi!

The animation works correct straight following the set keyframes, also in your screencast.

"animation scales flat on the x".

This i don't understand.

Everything seems to be working correct based on scene setup.

Solution (maybe):

What you may want is the result you'll get after using Center Pivot.

Don't change the transformation matrix of an object after setting up an animation, this will of course change the result.

(This happens when you are using Reset Transformations in your example, this also resets the pivot).

[Anonymous]

no, it doesn't work fine. it stars in the center, goes to the front THEN travels back on the X direction. You should be able to tell from the graph that it's not supposed to do that.

The flat scale on the X means that most of the time even though the scale is at 1, it looks like it's at .1

also, I set everything up first, then do the render, so the third element doesn't help either. I'm already doing that.

[mspeer]

Hi!

Please believe me.

1. It works correct, the movement you see is based on movement + scaling (based on pivot position).

Just enable Display -> Display Handle in "pasted__Tree03" and you see the correct movement + scaling on top.

2. After you go to frame 20 (a frame where scaling is  [1 1 1]) and use Center Pivot on "pasted__Tree03 you'll get a movement from right to left (which may be what you want or not).

Anyway, you have to change your animation or scene setup if you want a different result, cause everything works correct.

[Anonymous]

sorry. No matter what I do, it ends up breaking and this is the only model that it happens with.

I guess I'll have to figure it out on my own and show you the solution.

the problem is that this is for an animation I'm doing for BMW and it's due in 10 days.

Dave

[Anonymous]

here you go... a screenshot of that very same tree, flat

[Anonymous]

... and here's the file. All I did was open my scene... and now it's unusable

Dave

[mspeer]

Hi!

Ok , now i understand "x-flat".

But also the new scene you uploaded works fine here (Maya 2018.2 on windows).

What happens if you close Maya, start again and then re-open the file?

Maybe it's a transform on top, or double-naming?

If the scene you uploaded still shows a problem it may be a bug with the Mac version of Maya.

[mspeer]

Hi!

If you still have the problem you could try the following:

1. Is this flattening also visible in final rendered image?

2. Evaluation Mode set to "DG".

3. Don't scale down to (set a key at) exact "0", instead use a very low value like "0.001"

[Anonymous]

1: yes

2: I'm not sure what that is or where to find that

3: I was wondering that too, but it's also position that is affected as well as scale, but you may be correct in that one messes up the other.

I'll be working on it tonight. I'd very important that I get it working, because I need to make duplicates and I've literally lost a day's work on this project just troubleshooting.

Thanks-

Dave

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Ok, i could make it reproducible.

If i move to frame 20, switch Evaluation mode to "Parallel" (i always use "DG") and then directly go to start frame and then hit playback or go to frame 2 the display of the tree is wrong in Viewport 2.0 and rendering (but not in Legacy Viewport). Every small change on the transform Matrix resets this back to a correct display and rendering.

Any of the following removed the problem (from message above):

2. Set Evaluation Mode to "DG" (Preferences ... -> Animation), or

3. Changing values for key at 3.20 from "0" to "0.001" (please avoid a scale of exact [0 0 0]).

Please report this problem (bug?) to Autodesk.
Help -> Speak Back -> Report a Problem

[Anonymous]

ok, I'll give that a shot now.

What to the evaluation modes do?

Also, I just had a freeze using the Arnold render view, where quitting wouldn't fix it. I literally had to reboot my machine. Would this help something like that?

Thanks!!!

Dave

[mspeer]

Hi!

Please read the Maya Online Help / Documentation for more details about Evaluation Mode.

Also here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/simplecontent/content/using-parallel-...

For me it's faster (less time troubleshooting) to use "DG" all time, it's less error-prone then "Parallel".