Creating this topic to track the progress of this animation.

Last night started lip sync and expect to finish tonight and should begin keyframing tonight or tomorrow.

I have a question on how to make sure that the actions are saved with the chor. Two nights ago I created a new project and imported the 01_02_01.chor file and edit some actions and the save option the Choreograph was enabled after I made changes and these action changes were saved with the chor. Last night when I opened up the same project and edited a different action the action infomation was saved in the project file(The save option on the Choreograph was never enabled). I verifed this by opening up a new project and imported the chor file and the only information in the file was from the first set of edits.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

I just tried it....

I opened your chor in am and made a change to one of the dialog actions (which are embedded in the chor).
Then I saved it all as a temp proj.
I went back to the chor and svn showed an exclamation mark which means it was altered.
Opening the altered chor up in AM (not with the temp proj) and the action changes were present.

Is this what you mean and what you're doing?

PS I reverted the changes to your chor so there'll be no conflicts.

I thought we weren't embedding anything? And that we are using chors only, not projects?

IMO actions, models, anything should not be embedded.

If you make a change to the action (and like it) - save it. If you make a change to the chor (and like it) - save it. If you make a change to a material - save it, etc.

If you do an embed all on a project everything gets embedded - models, actions, materials, etc. (True?) Then you would have to unembed models, materials, etc by doing a save as on the individual components.

EDIT: Did you just turn on embed for the action?

If you don't want the dialog action to be separate from the chor, then create a new chor action for the dialog. No? Am I crazy? (don't answer).

We should get this straight asap. Its too confusing with some embedding, and some not (well, maybe too confusing for old people anyway)

That's the way all the audio actions are. I didn't make them so don't look at me. This is a new phenomenon.

But they still save with the chor rather than the proj.
The only problems I can see with it is if the chor "goes bad", then all the actions could be lost. Also, if a chor needs to be separated into multiple chors, then I don't know how to un-embed them from the original chor. Save them out I maybe.

Ken is correct. The audio actions were embedded in the chor when I imported it into the project. It does not mtter to me if the actions are embedded or saved in a separate file but please let me know.



That is what I did but then when I opened up the project the next day and started on a new audio action, that new action was saved to the project. If this is not the behavior that you see I will see if I can reproduce it tonight. I thought maybe there was some setting or something.

Thanks,

Steve

Try it again using my steps and see if it still happens.

Thanks for the making me feel like I am losing my mind . but you made me stick with it until I figured out what was going on. Here is what I can reproduce. If I import a cho into a temp project and just add a dope sheet, edit the poses associated with the dope sheet(or just edit poses) and save the temp project;the animations on the action will be saved with the project. If I move and keyframe a bone(just one bone) then add poses and dope sheet changes the animation will save with the project.

My assumption is Ken, is that when you edited the action in the cho file you had keyframed a bone. Maybe?

Also after this episode I would agree with Nancy that it maybe better to save the audio actions as separate files.

Oh a night of animation has passed with no animating.


Steve

Nice tracking down. Yes, I just moved a hip bone before.....which saved to the chor.

Yes, the solution would be to save the actions out to a folder in your shot folder (the audio folder might be ok). I hope every one learns this.

I always save just the Chor (I ignore saving the temp Project). Do you still lose the lipsync if you save only the Chor?

Martin,

Sorry about the delay but it was a busy weekend.

If I just make pose changes to the action the option to save the chor is not available. I am having a hard time trying to keep my action edits in the chor file. This weekend I thought I would try to keep them embedded and made changes to the action and move a bone, so the option to save the chor became enabled, but was have limited success with the pattern that I thought I had worked out last week. So I saved the actions out to act files in the audio folders. Should I not be doing this?

Use "Save As" in that case.


We can embed the dialog Actions back into the Chor anytime so it's no big deal but it seems like you'd get the same no "*" problem whether the DopeSheet-based Actions were saved externally or embedded?

The real solution would be to "*" the dang DopeSheet-based changes, (I might actually have to fire up the compiler.)

Hold off a while Martin....

I just opened up 1_01_03.cho.
Then I adjusted the WQ pose in an action.
I saved to a temp proj (which saved the chor).
Then I opened the chor freshly and the changes were in the action.

So, that says it's not related to the poses. I'll just check the dope sheet now.....

Same result with a dope sheet.

Smwolke, I'm not seeing your results with any data change. Could you re-try/post your steps?


PS Despite my findings, I would highly recommend using the face nulls instead of the dope sheet. It's just as fast/easy.

The link is a video of the steps that I am taking to get the results that I see. Also I downloaded 15.0d to see if that would fix the problem but I still get the same results.

Maybe I will try doing the lipsyncing with the face nulls. I am assuming that is using the FACE interface and if not please let me know because I do not know what else to do to accomplish this task.


embeddedaction.mp4

Steve

I couldn't quite make out your video to tell what you are doing, or experiencing so I'm not sure I'm understanding the problem - but are you sure the action changes aren't being saved (when you do a save as or save on the action?) ? Or is it just that it takes an inordinate amount of time for the changes made in the action to be reflected in the chor window?

That is what I'm noticing - I have to bang on the enter key or space key in the chor forever - before changes show up in the chor and even then sometimes it doesn't show up, even after closing the chor window and reopening - and then eventually the action changes seem to "take". Its as if there is a hang up some where and a huge time delay before it shows up...

It is very slowwwwww response ....

This is really weird. I'm also seeing it with this chor(1_03_01). Can you try it with 1_03_03 chor and see if it works properly as it does for me. I can't see why that chor should behave like that.

Ken,

You are correct. I get the behavior I would expect with 01_03_03, add a dope sheet and I able to save the chor. I do not get this behavior with 01_03_01 or 01_02_01. Not sure what is going on. I did notice though if I make any pose changes to the action in 01_03_03 after I have saved the chor for the first time the poses changes will no longer give the option to save the chor.(Steps in 01_03_03: Import chor into blank project, add new dope sheet to action, save chor, make pose changes and I no longer have the option to save the chor.)

Nancy,

Sorry about the choppy video but I was trying to keep the file size reasonable. I am sure it is not saving for me because I do not have the option to save the chor after making action pose changes. If I save a temp project the action poses are then saved in the Project and not the chor.


None the less;I am done playing around with this nuance and have opted to press forward with my animation.

Here is the procedure. IF you make a change to the action (not the chor) - just Save (or SAVE AS) the action. If you make a change to the chor SAVE or SAVE AS the chor. eg

1) import chor into blank project (I am assuming chor already references the external action if it was dragged to a model in the chor)
2) add dope sheet to dialog action
3) SAVE THE ACTION (or SAVE AS the action if no *)
4) make pose changes (not sure if you are making pose changes in the action or in the chor)
5) if you made pose changes in the action - save the action (no need to save chor - it hasn't changed)
6) if you made pose changes in the chor - save the chor. If you can't save the chor (ie no * appears on the chor) - then choose SAVE AS to the same filename that you would have used for SAVE. You will be asked if you want to overwrite the file - choose OK or yes

There is no need to save a project. You now have separate files for the action and the chor. The next time you import the chor, the action file that is referenced (not embedded) in the chor will also be loaded into your PWS.



I am assumming when you say you save a temp project, and that the action poses are saved in the project - you mean that they get embedded in the project.

To unembed them - SAVE or SAVE AS the action. Then SAVE or SAVE AS the chor in that order. You will now have 2 separate files.

I hope this helps.

If you modify an action and save (not embedded), that doesn't mean the chor needs to be save too. The chor is referencing and action name and will load that action whether it was modified or not. If it's an embedded action file, it will only save to the project that it is embedded too. Opening the chor in a different project, won't bring the embedded action in (I think).

That's the problem. The dialogue actions are embedded in the chor. But they aren't saving with the chor (all the time).

Hmm, from the video he posted, he's trying to save the chor without opening the chor window. Opening the chor window and refreshing (using the main menu>view>refresh) to see if that updates the chor may do the trick.

PS-Try renaming the action to a,b,c or something, after adding the dopesheet and see if that allows you to save the chor.

What I can tell is that
1) changes to embedded actions get saved with the chor - do not need to save a project for it to work.

HOWEVER

2) the change may not be immediately reflected in the chor window. So...

3) To save the chor with the embedded action - Have to use SAVE AS - SAVE AS - SAVE AS on the chor (if SAVE is not an option on the chor - ie no *, else use SAVE) - the changed embedded action will get saved with the chor, either way. It does not get saved if you don't do a save on the chor. (steve is saying he isn't saving the chor)

4) Regardless, to see the changed action reflected in the chor - sometimes have to wait a long long long time - So to really see it, have to start a new project and import the chor - the change in the embedded action will now show up.

But then again I ask - why is the action embedded to begin with?

And it doesn't matter if actions are embedded or not, the changes in actions do not show up in a timely fashion in the chor window - refresh in the chor doesn't work immediately (long long long time delay - if ever)

As I said, try using the refresh in the main menu under view. I have more sucess using that than the spacebar. When I was building assembly actions for the sets on TWO, that was the only way the chor would update the action.

whoo hoo - that does seem to work better! (didn't even know it was under View) - gracias!

Thanks all,

That is easy. SAVE AS and overwrite the original chor. Sometimes I wonder how thick my skull is. It just makes me nervous, to see the * still on the action after the SAVE AS on the chor, I feel like I am going to lose my work on the action. I don't; I just feel like it.

So, can we get a "Save as Chor" shortcut key?