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Introduction

mcjCycleFilter was initially created to filter/smooth cyclical animation curves.

then were added the ability to

• use your mouse to directly edit the curve
  
• synthesize the curves from mathematical functions
• repeat, slow down, speed up or delay an animation

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Version History

• January 4th 2013 fixed crashed-inducing problem when a figure's root node was selected
  
• march 17th 2012 fixed for daz studio 1.8 compatibility ( no prop.isSelected() )
• Jul 27, 2011release

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Installation

    A Zip file containing the script(s) can be found at the bottom of this page, in the "attachments" section

    Unzip this file in your Daz Contents folder, typically this means c:\program files\daz\studio\content.

    Once installed you will find the script in your library, in Studio/scripts/mCasual

    mcjCycleFilterDS2.ds is for Daz Studio version 1.8 and 2

   mcjCycleFilter.dsa is for Daz Studio version 3 and 4

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Usage


    important note: mcjCycleFilter is a script, not a plugin.
    
    Like all scripts it tends to do its work rather slowly.
   
    So you will want to use it on short animations.

    It was created for cycles, like walk cycles and dance cycles


    Select a node in your scene, example, i selected Aiko3's right foreArm

    Set the PlayRange (Timeline tab ) to a short span of time, ex: frames 0 to 30

    Launch mcjCycleFilter by left-clicking on its icon in Studio/scripts/mCasual

VIewing / editing the "Current Values" curve     in the upper right corner, select one of the properties of the foreArm, i selected Bend         in the lower left corner of the screen you can see that the source selected is "current values"     in the lower right corner of the screen you can see that the Input Range covers frames 0 to 30     all this means : the red horizontal line shows us that Bend  is currently at 0 degrees and stays 0 degrees  from frame 0 to frame 30     the red square indicates that Bend has a keyframe at frame 0     in the upper left corner you can see "Bend - Current [-1 1]"     so for points on the curve at the bottom of the plot Bend is at -1 degree and for those at the top Bend is at +1 degree     when "Source Selector" is set to "Current Values" you can use your mouse's right button to add key-frames and you mouse's left button to delete them.

  

Time-shifting and Time-stretching a curve     in figure 2, the selected source is still in current values     Input Range goes from frames 0 to 30     we can see that the Bend angle varies from 0 to 90 degrees,     Aiko is bending and unbending her arm,     this all happens in 1 second since the frame rate is 30fps.     but this time the Output Range is not identical to the Input Range, instead i typed new values so that it covers frames 30 to 90          if we press the "Apply" button, mcjCycleFilter will do its magic !   Notice that after i pressed Apply, i changed Input Range to [0...90] and we can see what happened the animation curve that existed from frame 0 to 30 was copied ( time shifted ) to frame 30 and was time-stretched to cover 60 frames or 2 seconds

Filtering / smoothing a curve     In mathematics, our animation curves are called functions. Example, Aiko's right Forearm's bend angle is a function of time.     In the 1800's Joseph Fourier discovered that any function can be expressed as a series of sinewaves, of various frequencies, phases and amplitudes;      By removing some of the fastest moving sine-wave components and re-synthesizing the function, we obtain a smoothed curve     Filtering is turned on by check-marking the "Enabled" check-box in the "Filter" group.     The "harmonic cutoff" slider lets you specify which sinewave components are excluded from re-synthesis.     Smaller values give smoother curves.     An added benefit is that the curves now smoothly loop.        Example: in red, we see a jittery animation, and in blue, the smoothed/filtered curve we obtain with a Harmonic cutoff of 3            Before filtering After filtering

  
  

The built in synthesizer ( mathematical functions )     Instead of working on the existing animation curve you can build one from scratch using mcjCycleFilter's built in synth.     Turn it on by clicking "Synth" in the "Source Selector" box.         the func drop-down-list lets you chose a mathematical function Available functions in this version   Sine   Abs(Sine)   Cosine   Abs(Cosine)   Triangle   Sawtooth   Square   Random   Constant   Parabolic   Peak   Smooth Step   Oval   Trapezoidal     Min and Max let you specify the amplitude of the swing. For Aiko's right ForeArm, we could use Min = 0 and Max = 90     angles are reversed for the left ForeArm, so we could use Min = -90 and Max = 0 or Min = 0 and Max = -90     Phase lets you shift the curve while maintaining perfect looping. A Phase of  90 degrees shifts the curve by 1/4 of the curve's width.     A Phase of 360 degrees shifts the curve by the full width of the curve ( and is in fact a waste of time )     Cycles will make the function repeat a number of times.     example:          The first func in the list is named "current" allows you to shift, amplify/attenuate or duplicate the existing animation curve

  

things mcjCycleFilter was meant to do Many natural character movements use the sinewave function. Circular movements By using different values of phase you obtain circular movements example Aiko's right Shoulder's property:    Front-back function: sinewave Min: 0 Max 60 Phase -180 degrees property:   Bend function: sinewave Min: -50 Max 30 Phase -90 degrees result: the arm traces a nice oval also, the hand moves at a constant speed Follow-through / movement that propagates through the body Starting from the hip and ending at the head, we apply sinewaves with decreasing phase values example Aiko's hip property:    ZRot (side tilt ) function: sinewave Min: -15 Max 15 Phase 120 degrees Aiko's hip property:    XTrans (side movement) function: sinewave Min: -12 Max 11 Phase 120 degrees Aiko's abdomen property:    side-side function: sinewave Min: -20 Max 20 Phase 90 degrees Aiko's neck property:    side-side function: sinewave Min: -20 Max 20 Phase 30 degrees Aiko's head property:    side-side function: sinewave Min: -20 Max 20 Phase -30 degrees Note that the legs animation was done using the mcjAutoLimb script available here result: Here we phase-shifted the sways of the dress relatively to the body sways

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