Carrara 3.0 animation

[Mr. Jeff]

Hi all. New to this forum. I am using 3.0, thinking about upgrading to 5.0 if I ever get the handle on this program.

Anyway, I an doing some animation projects of a simple character walking around and talking. If you must know, it’s a talking poker chip with arms and legs.

Anyway, here is the deal. Sometimes when you move a part of the character that you’ve never moved before, it seems to mess up everything I’ve done before. Lets say a leg had just been moving back and forth, as if walking in one direction and them I have the character turn. Now I’m effecting rotations on the leg, hip or knee that I’ve not had to effect before. Because I didn’t add a key frame right before it started to move, locking it into place, it begins to change from the beginning, rather than were I wanted it to begin.

So you say, just make sure you add those key frames, But that’s easier said than done. I had a character walk across the room, turn, bend over, pick up an object and all the 200+ frames I worked on got messed up. I have 12 elements making up each hand, arms parts, let parts, foot, etc. And each on has 3 different rotations, all need a key frame. Are you following?

Finally, here is my question: Lets say I get up an animation segment that is 15 seconds long and it’s perfect! I’m 100% happy up to there. Is there anyway to tell Carrara to lock everything up to this point. To not change anything from this point and back.

I hope I explained this right.

Thanks!

[Couerl]

C3 is pretty far behind in animation features. I have high hopes for C6 due out this year sometime and animation features have been requested heavily on most of the public lists. C5 is far ahead of C3 in many areas, not just animation, but it is way ahead and if you plan on doing more animation, the upgrade even to standard is pretty cheap.

I don't think there's any way to lock down your c3 animation other than simply to save another copy as a backup file just in case.

[Mr. Jeff]

Thanks!

Yeah, I see C5 is about $150 on ebay so maybe I'll buy it. The version of C3 was on the computer when I bought it and I don't have the SN so I don't think I'll be able to upgrade.

Anyway, thank! Any other animation suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Jeff

[Mr. Jeff]

Trying to do animation on this program is driving me crazy! Is there anyone out there who has done animation? Maybe I'm just not getting this or maybe this is not the right program for animation. Any thoughts?

[markbremmer]

Animation in Carrara 4 is waaaaaay better than C3. And C5 is better still.

The problems you are describing sound like it has to do with how you've assembled the character. The actual heirarchy if an animated character is critical to success - regardless of what program you use.

If you want to post a screen shot of the heirarchy from the Properties Tray, we can trouble shoot it for you.

[Couerl]

Yes, setup is very important, also I think just the fact that C3 has no universal manipulator makes positioning and animating things very awkward and unintuitive. The sale at Daz on C5 happens until feb-2nd I think and is too good to pass up. There's still an upgrade path available from C3 I beleive and after feb-2 you'll never see another deal like this until it hits the bargain bin in 3 years. I'd quit eating for a week to get it. ;)
If animating is what you want to do then why beat yourself up?

[Mr. Jeff]

I'll take a screen shot tonight (at work right now). Although I think it's set up properly.

I was told that animation in C5 is no better that C3 (See first reply)

It just seems that things do stay where I want them. I have 5 seconds set up perfectly. The character moves just the way I want it. But as I continue on, what was once perfect is now changed. Suddenly my character legs are going crazy! I try adding Key frames everywhere to keep this from happening. It happened this morning. Suddenly everything back to frame 1 had changed!

Anyway, thanks couerl and markbremmer for your input! I do appreciate it!

Jeff