Animation Layers and Shapekey Drivers

[Maneki]

I got a addon which helps creating multiple animation layers to split the animation work flow into layers called simply “Animation Layers”. For example block out animation on layer 1 and refining on layer 2. This addon comes with a merge option to create one layer out of multiple layers without overwriting anything but perfectly merging it together. The issue with the daz importer seems to be that it can’t handle keyframed shapekeys in the daz importer UI which are driver driven. When I remove the driver and just keyframe a shapekey it works but I’ve a theory that the issue is caused by the shapekeys in the daz importer UI not being layer specific. I wrote the addon creator before I found the issue and wrote him now again, waiting for a response, but this could be also a daz importer specific issue. Would it be possible to make the values in the daz importer UI layer specific?

[Maneki]

Here’s a snapshot of the addon functionality and the error I get when I keyframe daz importer sliders on the layers:

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[Maneki]

I think part of the issue is that after merging, the shapekeys/slider disappear from the action list since merging removes set keyframes in the daz importer UI.

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[Thomas Larsson]

I don’t have that plugin, but we have just dealt with similar issues in #1176. Two tools in the Advanced Morphs panel, Convert Morphs To Shapekeys and Remove Shapekey Drivers, give you undriven shapekeys. Animations can now be imported directly to shapekeys if you enable the Load To Shapekeys option in Import Action.

[Maneki]

I tried “Convert Morphs To Shapekeys” and it seems to work for FACS but not for custom morphs. I also assume even if it’d work for custom morphs it most likely doesn’t work with the “auto morph armatures” feature.

Edit: I also want to note that when I converted the FACS it created duplicates of the shapekeys without drivers, not sure if it’s intended to have double the amount of morphs.

[Alessandro Padovani]

I don’t know. I mean FACS is a system designed to import facial mocaps and/or animate with the facs facial rig. It makes little sense to use it otherwise. For “manual” animation it is intended to use the the face units and visemes, that’s the alternative to FACS. I mean in daz studio you either use units+visemes or you use FACS, they’re not meant to be used together.

In this case I’d go for units+visemes since you don’t use the facs rig.

Then that the animation layers addon doesn’t handle driven keyframes is probably an issue with the addon, that’s only meant to handle manual keyframes. That again you can “fix” by using units+visemes that are intended for manual keyframing.

If we begin to mix things and misuse them out of the intended domain it is easy to get lost and create unforeseeable issues.

[Maneki]

@Alessandro Padovani I understand, the addon generally has issues with drivers it seems, at least the ones within the daz importer UI. The creator responded and he’ll try to fix it. Could I preemptively ask how exactly the drivers in the daz importer UI are set up in case they need further information about the functionality? I gave them a snapshot of the driver editor of one of the drivers of the shapekeys directly on the mesh, I’m not sure if there’s more to it, especially to the drivers which don’t control shapekeys but bones directly.

[Alessandro Padovani]

@Maneki For technical explanations of the inner workings of the plugin I’m not the guy to ask, you better wait the answer by Thomas. That above is only my point of view as a “seasoned“ user, that of course I personally believe makes sense enough.

Perhaps it may help the creator of the animation layers addon to point him to diffeomorphic that he can use to create test scenes, or to point him to this discussion directly.

[Thomas Larsson]

The Convert Morphs To Shapekeys tool now has an option to delete shapekeys that already existed. This is intended for the facs morphs, which originally were a combination of face bone poses and shapekeys. After the conversion the original shapekeys are gone, or at least the drivers are removed.

I also added an option so the facecap and livelink importers can use converted shapekeys rather than the original morphs.

[Alessandro Padovani]

I can’t test facecap and livelink since I don’t have a iphone. Please @Maneki let us know if this works fine for you so we can mark as resolved. You should be able to convert to shapekeys then use animation layers.

[Maneki]

A little update to my issue:
It really seemed addon related. They did a hotfix for it and it seems to work now but they told me they’re not really satisfied with the solution for now. I gave them a link to this report in case some questions appear. If possible I’d like to keep this post open for a bit.

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[Maneki]

The addon has solved the issue.