Going from blocking to splining?

[WaffletimeCat]

So my main issue right now in SFM is figuring out how to take all of my poses and make them into animation. I understand the curves and how they effect bones, but I don't know how to begin. Do I select all of my keyframes and hit spline, then work off of that? The problem with that for me is that not all of my keyframes contain every bone, so they always start moving from one frame to THEIR next frame, instead of the animation's next frame. That may sound a bit confusing so I have some pictures below to show it visually. Any help in how to begin splining would be awesome.

This is all of the keyframes: https://postimg.org/image/vf1zgnwip/
While this is the lower arm keyframes. Notice that it has fewer keyfrmes from the overall keyframe timeline. Should I include it in all of the keyframes even if it isn't moving in some?: https://postimg.org/image/t97om5t29/

[marty]

you need to make as many inbetweens in blocking as you can so that when you spline parts just don't feel "missing", but ofcourse there are many things you will have to fix in spline, and timings to readjust, don't get me wrong going from blocking to splining is extremely infuriating.

[WaffletimeCat]

so, ♥♥♥♥ tons of inbetweens - then just select everything an hit spline - then adjust?

[marty]

Originally posted by WaffletimeCat:

so, ♥♥♥♥ tons of inbetweens - then just select everything an hit spline - then adjust?

well when you go to spline, you're still expected to add more keyframes.

[WaffletimeCat]

as needed yea, thanks for clearing things up for me

[TTV_KinkOnAString]

After you blocked the main poses try making the curves linear to see the timing better. After that, if you notice something off you can add inbetweens and adjust stuff. Then, go back into stepped tangents and continue blocking. Most times the animation looks good when blocked but when splined it looks like sh1t. Not much point in adding many inbetweens when blocking.

[Hakurei]

Blocking and Blocking plus my friend.
Making a pose every 2 or 4 frames usually works for me.

[WaffletimeCat]

aight

[surfer171]

Originally posted by IT'S 12 O'CLOCK:

After you blocked the main poses try making the curves linear to see the timing better. After that, if you notice something off you can add inbetweens and adjust stuff. Then, go back into stepped tangents and continue blocking. Most times the animation looks good when blocked but when splined it looks like sh1t. Not much point in adding many inbetweens when blocking.

In my perspective, blocking is just a way to put key poses into your animation (obviously). Point is I'm gonna say is that, you have your key poses ready so all you have to do is do a little in betweening; just add poses that fits the transition of your animation and then change the rest to spline. I mean, SFM isn't some 2D animating software where you need to draw frame by frame of in betweens to make it look good. Anyways, I wouldn't be using linear as a way to test your timings instead use spline since spline is a tangent that simulates acceleration just like us when we move our bodies, it takes time to get into the speed we want.

If I were you, if you notice something wrong with your animation, just keep going, don't shift back to step tangent just yet cause I assume you know that any motion made will have a green trail that shows every path taken by the selected bone so if you see for example the path goes straight through the body then add in between so that the path change to moving around it. It's mostly trial and error when doing spline tangents, just rest assured that blocking is to set key poses and your in between is how to piece things together so that you have a good transition between on key pose to another. Smoothing is done in motion editor by the way and that the combination of both straight ahead and pose to pose animation are recommended in the animation field, loads of advantages actually.