dealing with spline curve issue in poser?

[Fantasy Difference]

Being new to Poser 8, after importing previously finished animations into Poser 8 from QAvimator, the linear keyframes from QAvimator are replaced with spline curves, which adds keys to all the frames in Poser.  Is there a way to import the animation and preserve linear ones for easier editing?  Thanks for the help.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, since no1 else has commented.

I don't generally use poser, but I had this issue when I first got it. If I remember correctly, the curves are just a setting, which you can changed to linear. I opened poser 7 but was unable to find where to change this back to spline curves. It's been quite awhile since I've used poser for anything more than converting animations between different skeletons. Check the Graph or the keyframe window, those are my best guess.

You might want to search the old forums, as I remember some threads about this very issue.

[Maeve Balfour]

I use Poser-7, so my interface is the older style, but the newer versions I assume will work on the same principles with animation.

Open up the animation palette, so the keyframes tab is open (the one which shows the frames with coloured blocks). I assume your imported animations have all the frames as the green blocks by default?
The GREEN blocks are the equivalent of spline tweening (giving smoother, more organic animations in general).
You can change their behaviour by selecting the relevant body parts and frames and converting them via the different buttons (probably still in the upper right side of the animation palette window). The linear keyframe setting is the orange, "hard line squiggle" button (the default spline setting is the green, "smooth curvy squiggle" one).
You can also BREAK individual frames (halt the animation until the next keyframe) via the break spline button (green with "split spline" button).
Finally, you can totally remove any keyframe/spline etc animation frames via the grey "flatline" button - just select the relevant frames and click this button - the associated bodypart will not move until the next keyframe occurs in the timeline.

Keep in mind you can swap around between spline and linear curves however you like during an animation, AND mix them up between individual body parts and their associated sub-settings (bending, twisting etc). Seriously powerful.

DEFINITELY explore the Layers tab as well, for added flexibility when tweaking animations - it's kind of like Photoshop non-destructive editing via layer effects. You add new animation layers above the Base Layer (the original animation), and make edits in the timeline via these. I generally prefer the "Add" style setting for new layers - these just override the underlying base anim without destroying it.
I would strongly suggest reading up the manual, and looking for tutorials on how to do this properly - hard to explain adequately in text form here. Definitely worth the learning time invested, if you want to create serious animations.

I hope this helps. Poser can be confusing at first, but it is seriously powerful for animating once you figure it out.

:matte-motes-smile:

[Fantasy Difference]

Can't thank you enough for the help, I'll be playing around with that and will most likely have more questions soon

[Fantasy Difference]

There is a 'Body' and 'Center of Mass' element listed in the animation palette.  Do I need to be concerned

with what is placed here that will screw things up when importing to SL?

[Maeve Balfour]

Centre of Mass: I would ignore that altogether. I have never used it myself (I am unsure of it's exact function LOL, but probably won't be usable for SL anims).

Body: Just refers to the figure as a whole entity. Best not to use this either, as values here won't translate into the final BVH export.

The most important body part of the AV is the HIP JOINT. The hip is used as the reference point for the AV's location in 3D space. So if you plan on physically moving your AV around, perform the movement translations on the hip joint (the rest of the body will move with it accordingly) - this applies for body rotations, X/Y/Z movement etc.
If you move the AV around simply by selecting the whole body and moving it, these changes WON'T TRANSLATE in the final BVH file exported to SL. So ALWAYS do physical movement in 3D space via the hip joint parameters.

All other body parts you animate as per normal (body part dials are easier to work with, in my opinion).

:matte-motes-smile:

Random tip which comes to mind: You can actually save frames out as individual POSES to the Poser library. These can be handy to build animations with - you just move to a frame on the timeline, and load the poses as needed. If you have the spline curve applied (the green blocks), Poser will perform the animation "tweening" for you - generating the animation frames required to get the movement between each static pose loaded up.