How do I do Blocking or Keyframing Without my Model Splining?

[SuspiciousLemonade]

So I've been trying to figure out how to key frame in the graph editor with out my model moving when I move it one small inch for months. I have also been looking at tutorials but those didn't help. May anyone lend a hand on how to solve this inconvenience please?

[Sly-Scale]

You'll have to be more specific.
Currently, it sounds like you're just selecting the entire model over on the Animation Set editor, which means all its bones... so when you're using the Primary Viewpoint and move one of the bones, well you actually move all selected bones.

What you need to do instead, is to ctrl+click on individual bones before you start moving anything.

If this doesn't help, keep in mind that most models have bones that are parented to other bones: 'spine0' will move 'spine1' and 'spine2'; 'neck' will move 'head', etc. Everything is also connected to 'root' and 'rootTransform' bones as well. So just be careful with what you're clicking and moving.

If you don't want these bones to be moved by their parent bones, then you need to set up rigs. Usually that's a matter of downloading the rigs you need (which varies from model to model,) or creating a custom rig. For said custom rigs, you'll need to browse around for Petruz and KabalMystic model downloads. Those two modelers are very generous, and should have descriptions that point you in the direction of such a free and versatile tool.

If I'm overthinking all this, maybe you just need to press W, E or R after selecting a bone and before you move it. W, E, and R will let you 'Move,' 'Rotate,' and 'Screen' those bones, respectively.

But if you're talking about unintentional movements of the model when you touch any part of it, try selecting your keyframes and pressing numbers 1-thru-8 for the 8 different tangents available. Each tangent is responsible for different transitions from one keyframed pose to another. If these tangent motions are causing core issues to your model's poses, consider selecting all your keyframes (shift-click one end, shift-click the other) and pressing 4. That'll give them all an instant transition from keyframe to keyframe. It should clean up any issues with transitions and motions and movement.

Hope this helps!

[Sly-Scale]

Oh and one more thing: if your SFM animations exceed 40 seconds and there's just tons of keyframes in them, you might be running into stability issues with the .dmx file format itself. It's an unfortunate limitation and you'll need to break up your SFM into multiple files.

Emesis Blue was most certainly not the product of a single file; they had to stitch all the animations together. Like imagine if you were building a castle, but you had to make the drawbridge, gate, masonry and portcullis before you put them together.

[SuspiciousLemonade]

Originally posted by Sly-Scale:

Oh and one more thing: if your SFM animations exceed 40 seconds and there's just tons of keyframes in them, you might be running into stability issues with the .dmx file format itself. It's an unfortunate limitation and you'll need to break up your SFM into multiple files.

Emesis Blue was most certainly not the product of a single file; they had to stitch all the animations together. Like imagine if you were building a castle, but you had to make the drawbridge, gate, masonry and portcullis before you put them together.

I'm talking about it splining but I don't know which setting it should be on and how to make it like this https://youtu.be/GL5fBFdwgrk?si=FqBTjvE4JvO7xzHE

[SuspiciousLemonade]

But thanks for trying to help!

[Sly-Scale]

Oh, that's mostly frame-by-frame stepped animation. The smear frames, those stretchy fingers, the ridiculously snappy posturing -- that's all stepped animation; he's also moving finger bones along the X Y Z axis, instead of rotating said fingers.

By default, stepped animation is pressing 4 while you're in the motion editor, and making 60 poses for 60 frames in 1 second. You might get away with doing 15 quarter-poses per second, i.e. animate the legs every 67 miliseconds, and stagger the arms, torso and head to move by 17, 34 and 51-milisecond offsets.

There's also a drop-down menu in the motion editor that says something like "Splined" -- change that to Stepped.

This is easily one of the trickiest animation styles to pull off. The only way it would be harder is if you went back to Garry's Mod, took individual screenshots, and assembled everything in a video editor.

You should look up a YouTuber named Hoot, he does a lot of stepped animation; not as elegant as this guy, but it's a simpler example of what you posted.

[Sly-Scale]

You can also look into Cen0, another YouTuber. He's really good at doing impact frames, i.e. when time seems to stop, to show someone punching someone else. Definitely watch his 'Pootis Engage' videos, he shows off behind-the-scenes at the end of them.