Animation breaks apart - frustrated

[clawhon]

REALLY struggling here. I'm fairly new to animating in Keyshot and I have one that shows a product actuating as it should, but when I size the base that it screws into it blows apart my animation. What I don't understand is that there is no connection between the base geometry that I imported and the complete part. How does it destroy my animation?

If you look at the attached small animation, you'll see what the action is supposed to look like. All I'm doing is importing in a simple OBJ model of a "base" to animate the product screwing into. When I click on the newly imported base and scale it, BAM! It explodes my product animation as you see in the screenshots. What the heck am I doing wrong? I read how easy animation is supposed to be in Keyshot and it's a constant struggle for me when it does things like this that I can't make sense of...

HALP!

[KristofDeHulsters]

So many things here could be the issue. In order for anyone to help you, you should share us a package file so we can see what's going on in your scene.

[clawhon]

I have no doubt I'm doing any number of things incorrectly as I'm completely new to using Keyshot for anything other than basic renders. I've attached a package file for you to check out. I fear there will be so many issues that you don't know where to start in guiding me down the right path! Any suggestions or links to great resources would be appreciated. Right now I'm just flipping switches and turning dials trying to get a feel for the software.

Thanks ahead of time.

[theAVator]

Can you describe the step you're taking so someone can try reproducing the issue?
Right now, when I run the animation in your file, it runs perfectly. When I scale the base it seems to work fine, other than the positioning of the base becomes a little off and I also don't know what scale it needs to be. So, as of right now, I'm not seeing any issue with what you have. 

[theAVator]

Nevermind, I see it now. Hmmmmm

[theAVator]

Change your pivot point to Origin instead of Center for the lever group and the link group animations. That seems to fix it.

[clawhon]

Thanks for your help. I'll be digging into it this afternoon and give that a shot. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help here.

[KristofDeHulsters]

Sorry Clawhon, I wasn't in the office for a couple of days. Did you get it sorted? Otherwise I'll still have a look at it

[clawhon]

Thanks for checking back in. That did help and it was enough to get the shots I needed, but I'm still doing something wrong. I full well expect its a user error on my end, I'm just not knowledgeable enough yet to identify it. I'm working with our engineers and here in about 4 months they'll be upgrading their CREO and we're going to experiement with the Keyshot plugins to export Animation Studies which would help eliminate some of these issues. I still need to learn how to animate things properly though for sure.

I've attached a cleaned up file that illustrates what I'm running into right now. I have the armature linkage animating in a positive direction and I wanted to mirror that animation to show the opposite direction and then move that mirrored animation earlier in the timeline. When I move the either one of them it breaks one apart.

Thanks for working with me on this!

[germannick]

@clowhon,

it looks like that you mirrored the entire group folder at once. When you run a check by placing the first animation folder "lever actuation" exactly on top of the second animation folder "lever actuation mirror" your actions should cancel each other, but your sample doesn`t. Instead of mirrowing the folder "lever actuation", select each animation and mirrow it seperately. You will see that both alined action folders cancel each other now. From here you can move your actions into the desired limeline position.

[KristofDeHulsters]

Hi Clawhon,

I spent about 20 minutes looking for your problem and honestly I couldn't find anything wrong with your workflow. It must be something buried pretty deep in your file that is causing this issue. Since you got the shots you needed (and you can use a video editing software if you ever need to reverse the animation), I think the best thing to do is just do more animations and over time less and less hiccups will occur. Sorry that I couldn't help you more.