funky curves, how do I avoid them?

funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Andy Engelkemier

on Feb 10, 2012 at 6:33:55 pm

What's with the kinks? Sometimes this happens and I'm not sure why. I've never liked the curve editor in AfterEffects, mostly from lack of knowledge I'm sure. I'm use to the ones in Max or Maya, which work the same.

So this is a basic move. right to left only, but in the middle a near pause. This is where I hate AfterEffect trying to automatically create a curve for me. Instead of getting slower in the middle it changes directions twice. All I actually want is a quick slide in, slow slide left, then quick slide left out.

I don't have the patience for it, so I'll add transform modifiers and just create 3 transforms. So how do you deal with this? My solution works, but it's Terrible so I'd kind'a like to know a better way.

Re: funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Andy Engelkemier

on Feb 10, 2012 at 6:42:38 pm

Shoot, I Might have figured it out. So please correct me if I'm wrong.

Are you guys separating dimensions when doing position animations? As soon as I did that I seem to understand everything that is going on.

I'm sure there is a reason they did that, but I don't see it. The limitation in having them separate is now I don't get a speed graph for knowing how fast the thing is actually moving, it'll only show it for one direction. I guess the only thing I'd need that for is an effect on an expression and then I would just add the two together if they remain separated for those purposes as well.

Re: funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Michael Szalapski

on Feb 10, 2012 at 7:16:39 pm

Yes to pretty much everything you just said.

- The Great Szalam
(The 'Great' stands for 'Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble')

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Andy Engelkemier

on Feb 10, 2012 at 7:24:42 pm

I'm not sure I agree with Adobe's idea that it's more important to keep a consistent speed than directions, but at least I know a good way to solve it.

No curve editor should Ever look like that between two keys. The funny thing is, I've had this before, and fixed it by deleting all keys and creating them again, but in a different order. I'm not sure how that even makes sense.

Re: funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Michael Szalapski

on Feb 10, 2012 at 7:31:52 pm

I've never been a big fan of how AE does that either. I know some people who used to use different nulls all parented together before AE gave us the split option. :P

It's just something you get used to. (Or start filing feature requests about, hint hint)

- The Great Szalam
(The 'Great' stands for 'Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble')

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

Re: funky curves, how do I avoid them?

by Ryan Paterson

on Feb 10, 2012 at 10:40:47 pm

I've found that setting the preference 'default spatial interpolation to linear' to on will help with some of the weird jumps and glitches as well