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looping a bike riding animation

dru_494f0ac36edru_494f0ac36e Posts: 14
edited December 1969 in New Users

Hi folks,

I'm fairly new to Daz, and I usually dive right in to stuff. Before I posted this, however, I did look everywhere I could think of to find my answer.

I needed a figure riding a bicycle for a project I've taken on for a local company. I usually do architectural viz stuff, so…usually just standies of people. These folks however, wanted a bike rider.

Animating a figure in 3DS max is just not in my skill set or my time frame right now…then I thought of Daz. Or Poser. Guess which won, for a guy with no more budget from the client.

So. I found a bike, I loaded up the genesis figure (thinking I can change gender/clothing as I need to), opened up timeline and went to work. I now have a -very- acceptable figure riding a bike, with legs following pedals, etc.. Again, not familiar with Daz, but I found a group function. So I grouped the figure and bike together - yay - nothing broke!
Then I found what I thought was my holy grail, Daz has NULLS! So I parented that group to the null, and now I can animate the null from A-B, and everything follows - groovy….

EXCEPT, I don't know how to make my 36 frame pedaling rotation just keep looping. It obviously stops at frame 36. I'd hate to have to key every single frame by hand for 600 or more frames.

Is there any solution to this? Any way to save that looped animation out as a re-useable chunk? Maybe that I can place on a timeline, kind of like ani-blocks?

I would deeply appreciate any help.
Also when done, I'm uploading this to where-ever I can for people to use. It's such a simple thing, you'd think everyone had done one already, but I couldn't find any…

Thank you!

Comments

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,635
    edited December 1969

    I use a plugin called Keymate for things like this. It enables me to copy that initial cycle of frame and past it to the end of the sequence as many times as I need.

  • dru_494f0ac36edru_494f0ac36e Posts: 14
    edited December 1969

    I've looked into keymate at your recommendation - definitely a possiblility...
    I also saw AniMate2...any thoughts? And THANK YOU for such a quick reply!

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,635
    edited December 1969

    Animate 2 is mostly for pre-made animations called Animatics. You can buy sets of these from vendors. Not sure if there is a bike riding animatic offered for sale. As you've already animated one cycle, I would think Keymate would be helpful. It often is packaged with Graphmate which provided some added options.

  • dru_494f0ac36edru_494f0ac36e Posts: 14
    edited December 1969

    I will look into keymate/graphmate as well as AniMate2 (from what I've read, you are supposedly able to generate an 'ani-block' from different sources, including your own keyframes you've made on the Daz timeline. Thank you so much for your help. Much appreciated!
    I'll post a result when/if I succeed - or perhaps I'll just give it all up and go flip burgers for a living! :)

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,635
    edited December 1969

    Aniblock….that's the right word. Not animatic. I haven't tried that but sounds like a plan.

  • dru_494f0ac36edru_494f0ac36e Posts: 14
    edited December 1969

    It just might be! I'm kind of leery of these things, being in the 'po boy' camp...if it works I'll let you know.

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