I'm working on the It's a Pitch lesson and I'm having that age old issue of stuff moving when I don't want it to. I have made the 1st pose and the 2nd pose at 10 frames. Having not moved that foot yet, I forced a keyframe there so I could start it rotating for the frame 13 pose. The issue is that the foot is now moving from frame 0 to frame 10.

I'm guessing this has some thing to do with interpolation method, be it Hold, linear, Spline or what ever. I'm guessing also that I need to use Hold but I'm not sure where to use it. The right foot target? There seems to be so many levels of stuff in the foot and all I want it to do is sit still until I say move.

Thanx for any input and theory.

based on your description...

switch on the channel view in your timeline or PWS. (it's a button at the bottom) Select your foot bone, you'll see the red green and blue splines that run between your keyframes.

group select the CPs at your key frames where the foot is supposed to be still, right click>interpolation method>zero-slope to make them run flat.

OK. I see what you are saying and understand what I need to do.

Next procedural Question: When in channel view, Can I copy the 'dot' at frame zero for the foot and paste it at frame 10? There seems to be 4 or 5 dots that I need to have all stacked up on top of each other, is there a way to make them do that? What I'll probably end up doing is erase frames 10 on and redoing it.

Now I have to ask, is it possible to follow the tutorial instructions step by step without having to do this extra stuff to make it actually work? I have no issue learning the ins and outs of this software and really look forward to doing that. I just want to know if I'm doing something wrong that made this foot float around.

For your effort to be properly analysed you should start a new topic (or continue as you are here) and post a step by step progression through the tutorial. That is one of the few ways we can make a proper determination of what you are doing versus what the tutorial instructs you to do. If the tutorial is lacking... or if you've missed a step... working through it with someone else is the best chance of getting to the root of the issue.

As you don't have someone there with you to look over your shoulder and no User Group available (I assume) the next best thing I can think to do would be to record yourself as you work through the tutorial. This helps on many levels: 1) You get to learn from yourself 2) You can share the recording with someone else and get feedback from them 3) Repetition is a great way to learn.

For those that don't want to go out and purchase a screen capture/recording application I usually recommend Wink.
It can be had via: http://www.debugmode.com (its PC only)
It free and quite versatile... but does not compress in the flash video.
As such files can get pretty large.

Camstudio is another similar program others like to use too.

For purchased screen recording software (for both PC and Mac) I recommended Camtasia by TechSmith (www.camtasia.com)
It'll run you $299.

Keep in mind the tutorials in the manual are not all inclusive.
They are designed to get a new user up to speed quickly.
By the time Newbies have completed TaoA:M they are ready to strike out on their own and tackle more complex issues.
At the very least they have learned enough to know what questions to ask to get at the best answers.
For the absolute best results I recommend a second pass through TaoA:M after taking a break from it.
This really helps to cement what was learned.

More than a few have expressed interest in seeing an advanced user edition of TaoA:M.
But... that would largely defeat the purpose and simplicity of the current manual as Newbies would quickly leap past the basics right into the lessons for advanced user. That's human nature.


Is it possible to complete the exercise as is? You bet.
But as an animator there will ALWAYS be extra things to do.

When following your progress there is also the matter of which exercise you refer to?
The one from the manual? The video? Both?

I assume that you've seen and are using the exercise video tutorials?
If you are going strictly from the manual you'll want to check those video tutorials out.

http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm

I was going to leave this for Robert but I'll take a stab at it here.

Yes you can copy the dot (keyframe) and paste it onto any other frame.
Try it... you won't break anything. Save important progress first of course so you can go back to it when necessary.

You cannot have multiple keyframes stacked on top of each other per se.
Not if you are talking about the same object keyframed. (you can do this via separate actions but I don't think thats what you refer to here)

Perhaps you are in Dopesheet view?
If you change to channel view you can have keyframes for each different axis on top of each other.
Thats the default way A:M creates keyframes, in three dimensions.

I suspect you are encountering the classic timeline lesson of adjusting Interpolation.
Robert has a great video tutorial on just that subject.

Short answer here... to keep movements from looking floaty... would be to change the keyframes interpolation to Zero Slope.
You also will want to have that keyframe on zero or A:M will interpolate based on the next available keyframe.

I see Zero Slope is also what Robert suggested.

a dot means there's a key there.

make sure the "key bone" filter is on (not "key branch" or "Key model").
drag the time slider to the time you want to copy.
select the bone.
CTRL-c will copy the key.
drag the time slider to the time you want to copy to.
CTRL-v will paste the key.


yes.

Hard to know without looking over your shoulder. Either way, the fix is pretty simple.