Daz Animation Interpolation Question

[Hobbyist]

Hi all. So I'm having trouble figuring out some animation stuff in Daz. I broke down the problem with a simple animation:

Figure is holding a sphere to start. For simplicity's sake, I had the figure hold the sphere with the thumb and forefinger to minimize the number of values that change. Anyway, it is parented to the hand. Figure extends his arm with his palm facing up as if to offer someone the sphere. Then, there is a pause. Figure twists his forearm until his palm is facing downward. Pause. He then abruptly opens his thumb and forefinger to drop the sphere.

The problem is the interpolation. When I add new keys, such as the hand opening, the movement starts before I want it to happen. As the figure is extending his arm, his hand is opening and the sphere is hovering there, not being gripped by the figure's hand.

Another scenario: Figure is plugging his nose with his thumb and forefinger because he is doing a 'cannon ball' into a swimming pool. He jumps in the pool. His nose remain plugged until he is submerged in the water, after which time he begins to swim.

So the question is: How does one prevent a movement from being started prematurely? And is there a way to do this efficiently, without having to backtrack and copy and paste the values of every property that I want to be constant on every previous frame?

In the case of the swimming pool, the only way I have to do this involves copying and pasting every value of every carpal on every previous frame to 'lock' the hand and fingers in place until he is ready to swim.

The question is very specific and it's hard to find the answer on Youtube amongst all of the "tutorials" showing how neato Aniblocks are.

[yngvarr]

You're absolutely right. When you add a hand pose on a certain frame, it automatically interpolates from the previous keyframe. You just need to create a keyframe right before the movement begins. No need to copy all individual values — simply use the "Create Keys" command (the key icon with a plus, or from the side menu) to lock it in.

[Hobbyist]

Ugg. That's the only way, huh? It would be enormously helpful if I didn't have to open umpteen drop downs on the timeline to copy keys. Alas...

Third party folks have created enough scripts, such as Limbstick, to make Daz a capable animation program, but anything decent that's done is in spite of Daz. I can't even use an Aniblock without it translating the figure upward.

And then there's the render times. Always. Even with my powerhouse card, 30 FPS isn't happening. Even 12 FPS has to be done by doing a render of the background and putting it there via PS so Daz doesn't have to render the environment on every frame. I've had to 'cartoonize' my project with PS filters because it doesn't feel right to animate photorealistic characters at 12 FPS.

[yngvarr]

I might not have explained it clearly. To create an intermediate keyframe, you just need to select the entire Genesis figure and click "Create Keys" once. This will generate a keyframe for all the bones of the figure at the same time.
As for animating in Daz: yes, AniBlocks are garbage and clunky to use. Rendering a full animation at 30-60 fps is time-consuming and inefficient. I’d highly recommend looking into an AI-driven pipeline: render only 2 or 3 main keyframes in Daz, and use AI to generate all the interpolated frames between them.

[Author]

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