Turtle Isle (age problems)

[Jojon]

Thanks!

[dendwaler]

I am getting tired of this issue after a week of trying.

I builded a test age with 7 clothes , they all work in there.
But not in my main age, even not when imported 1 by 1.
It also looses its "clickability" which might somebody give a hint into which direction I should search.
Any suggestions left?

[tachzusamm]

I've read what happens, dendwaler, and it sounds really strange.
Especially this:

I made upto 5 clothes that started glowing when touched.
When i made the next when , none of the clothes where working any longer.
But even when i go back to an older saving they don't work again.
When i go back to the situation before the clothes where made and restart making the clothes again, then it works.
And the same thing happened again when making number six.

Well, I don't know what's wrong. But maybe it helps if you understand how Blender works under special circumstances:
a) When you create something (e.g. an object), and attach something other to it (e.g. an IPO curve or a material), and then delete the object, the dependent items (IPO) do NOT get deleted as well. They are kept in memory and are still available. Then, when you save your file, close Blender, and open it again, the dependent items ARE no longer existent - except when you've chosen to select the "F" button which tells "Saves this datablock even if it has no users". Users in this case means your object. Your datablock is your item( can be Material, IPO, Texture, ...)
So maybe you should check if you don't have kept "unused" datablock without users. Could be the case that you already have an older (but now unlinked) IPO or texture with the same name as your new IPOs / textures.

b) Working with IPOs is sometimes a bit strange. When you add an IPO to an Object or Material, be sure to remove the IPO BEFORE you delete the object when you intend to remove the object - because otherwise it will be kept when you delete the object alone.

It could also be the case that your clothes or their behavior conflicts with other stuff in your age.
What I would do to find out : Remove EVERYTHING of your age, except the clothes and maybe a ground plane to walk onto. (Be sure to keep a backup of course.)
Then see if it's working now. If yes, return to the full age and keep deleting stuff one by one or in groups to find out WHICH causes the conflict.
Oh, and when you start deleting stuff, ensure to remove it from the bottom in hierarchy to top, to avoid the effects described in a) and b).
So delete an object's IPO, textures and materials first, then the object itself.
If it's not working then, well... then we have to think it over again.

Oh, and sometimes it helps if you name objects, materials, textures etc. like "Object_01", "Object_02", ... instead of letting Blender set the Name (Object.001).
Maybe there's for example already a lost "ObIpo.006" which you don't see because the user has been deleted before. This could attach to a newly generated Object.006 again, although it should NOT. Blender sometimes acts really strange when it comes to animations. Renaming the Object and IPO to Object_06 and ObIpo_06 *could* help.
Or, maybe, simply SKIP the not working cloth (e.g. it's #6), and continue with #7 and #8to create your 7 clothes.

Explanation about datablocks:
http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/vide ... datablocks


EDIT:
Just a note. You won't be able to see un-linked datablocks in the normal outliner view. To see or find them, you could switch the outliner to Oops Schematic mode.
Here's another video which describes datablock in a slightly different way, also explaning the "F" button which means "Fake Users":
http://blendertips.com/datablockVids/da ... Intro.html

[dendwaler]

Thank you very much for taken the effort to explain this all,Tachzusamn

Reading it made me realize that I had gone through that already many times and i did not forget anything described by you.
So it had to be something completely different.

And ... I found it.!!!
May be stupid but I made the next mistake.

The cloth is a png. I needed the "late rendering script" on 1 of the locations.
I added this script but forgot that you may have only one script for 1 object.
So the latest script was the leading one.
As soon as I made or imported the fifth cloth it went wrong.
I had to put the lines in the existing script, but I did not.
Even being aware of that I did not delete it temporarely.
What i did not realize is that in this case it overruled the behaviour of all the clothes objects, not only for the one involved.
They did share the same IPO for the material animation.
Realizing this I altered it and included the late rendering in the script D'Lanor made, and now all 7 clothes are working!
I only still have to add the python code for remembering the touches.
I do that tomorrow, and then I can start with my next challenge, a ride.

Thx! for your effort, it really helped me out.

[dendwaler]

I want an object to move around 1/4 of my age.
I have made an ipo curve for it with 8 keyframes and 12000 frames.
It works partly.

after about 30 degrees the object suddenly restarts at the beginning.
So only about 4000 frames of the complete animation.
I have set the end frame on 12000 in the animating/render global settings.
Is there something I overlook or is 12000 frames beyond the global limits?

EDIT:
I changed it to 1500 frames, now it completes over the full lenghts and smooth enough,
Only its way to fast.
I can do with less steps but I have to stretch the time between the steps.
Is this possible without effecting the time on other animations?

[tachzusamm]

Hm, no idea about the effect of scaling. But my guess is you could end up with the same result as before.

Another idea. I know it sounds crazy, and I'm not sure if it will work.

Okay. You have an object which won't move *below" a certain speed. But what if you link it to an (invisible) parent with a very similar but slightly different speed, but in the *opposite* direction? Can be any motion curve as well. The velocities should substract. Like running towards the back of a driving bus, inside the bus. The result should be a very slow speed.

Worth a try?

[dendwaler]

Worth a try?

But what if the fast object reaches the end?
It will restart... and so will the relative object.

It seems to me that there is a time limit in object animation of 150 seconds as can be seen in the NLA editor.
That is 25 * 150 = 3750 frames.
When you have more frames, then the animation slows down, but stops after 150 seconds anyway.
That is good for video animation (slow motions with a constant frame rate of 25 )
But it seems not helpfull for this purpose.
I hope I have a wrong understanding of this subject, but for now i shortened the distance of the animation as much as possible .
But ended up with still a bit to high speed.

[Egon]

I have bump into similar problem not long ago here.

Does PyPRP have issues with exporting animations longer than 1200 frames?

It is not due to the length. I have animations way longer than that. But sometimes animations just get borked enough to break on PyPRP export. I never figured out what causes it and usually when that happens I just start over.

[dendwaler]

I missed that thread. thx Egon

But I have an working animation as i wished with 10000 frames.
Don't ask how but it suddenly worked when I altered the starting frame from 1 to 1000.
For an unknow reason this did it.

[dendwaler]

Just a screenshot of the animated object in the background.