Shit. (another update)

Last time I updated on the next animation, I mentioned I'd done about 87 seconds of animation so far (2640 - 30buffer @ 30fps). This is true and accurate. But there has been a problem.

In the Judy animation, I started using Library Overrides. In easy terms, you have your model in a file. You import the model in to your scene, but it's not technically there, it's transferring from the original file. This means in the scene you can't edit it unless you make it local to that scene. If you keep it as a Library Override, you can update the original model and it transfers to all scenes using it.

The idea is that if you have a team working on different scenes, or a model is not yet complete, you can still link to it and it will update as you go and keep the same model for all users. I'm using it for the second reason. I wanted to use Kyn V2, but he doesn't have things like Shape Keys (lets you move parts of the model in a preset way, like mouth movements, blinking, etc), and his fur wasn't fully done and I want to tweak his head some more.

Now, you can go back and add things like shape keys fine. You can add modifiers and things to the model. It turns out what you can't do is change things like fur and vertex groups, which are pretty important.

What this means, is the model in the top picture no longer has fur groups in some areas, and the newer better fur won't update into the scene.

I've been playing with it today and found some more limitations, and I might have a way of fixing this, but as it stands, it looks like I might need to redo all 2640 frames of animation for Kyn. I'm hoping I can do a second library override with the updated model and try to transfer keyframing between the two, then get rid of the old version. I think this might work, fingers crossed.

So that's where it stands right now, I've paused animating to concentrate on finishing his model to a certain level. I've got most of his fur looking a load nicer, but I don't want to risk the possibility of restarting his part of the animation a third time, so I want to get the remodelling and fur part done before trying to recover the current work. I know the Library Override can handle the rest of the stuff.

It should really come as no surprise that there's delays again. It's a learning process.

*EDIT*

SUCCESS!

I've got the updated Kyn rig most of the way done, so it's just shapekeys left to do now. Linked the new model into the big file, Select new rig, shift+select old rig, ctrl-L and select Animation Data. It then copies the keyframes and location data to the new Kyn. That's no longer a week wasted!

Plan for this week then is: 

Tonight: Animation

Tomorrow: paid work then animate if I have time left

Thursday: animate

Friday: who knows

Time to see if I can start to make progress with this thing. Also, because I'm now using the new Kyn, I'll have to start looking at posting the original free to use soon.