In short:
OcDS is able to read DAZ Studio values like position etc from the DAZ Studio timeline
OcDS specific values like light strength etc are NOT visible in the DAZ Studio timeline.
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Many users many not even be aware how to actually animate OcDS specific values.
Example: Animate Light emitter power
- Create a simple scene with a light emitter
- In the material settings search for the parameter Power (Watts) and click on the diamond shaped square
- select the option place keyframe
Now you can observe two things
+ the diamond shape square is now red
+ the parameter Power Watts has now a red line below
Now you want to place a 2nd keyframe with a different Power setting at 10 frames
- open the DAZ Studio timeline
- move the timeline to 10 frames
- adjust the Power to a lower value like 8.
- In the material settings search for the parameter Power (Watts) and click on the diamond shaped square
- select the option place keyframe
Now you have created two keyframes and you can move trough the DAZ Studio timeline to observe the effect.
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Nevertheless note that:
+ In the DAZ Studio timeline there is no indication at all that OcDS specific keyframes have been set
+ If you scroll the timeline to 5 frames the only indication that there is a keyframe set at some point in time is the red line below the power parameter.
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You can open a graph editor by clicking on the diamond shaped quare to see more information about the animated OcDS value.
That graph can also be used to perform some interactions.
- move existing keyframes
- adjust values of keyframes
- create new keyframes
- delete keyframes
If you are not familiar with the controls of that graph editor you can right click and use the help cursor to display a help menu:
Unfortunately it takes a while to get used to the controls and precise interactions with the graph controls do not always seem possible because of the scale of some parameters.
The range may be 0 to 100 but you may need to adjust from 0.01 to 0.05 etc.
Still the graph gives at least some kind of overview which kind of values are placed on a specific parameter.
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What does not seem to exist at all is a way to see an overview of all keyframes placed on any of the OcDS parameters.
If you open old scenes you may not anymore know on which value you placed a keyframe.
It can be very time consuming to open up each material individually to check where red lines are showing up that indicate some animated values.
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So yes currently you can animate OcDS specific parameters.
But all the current limitations do not make this an option that can be considered for a production workflow in which you need to provide results under strict time limitations.
Side Note:
Lately DAZ3D has released a lot of new videos about Animate, Keymate, Graphmate to show how animations can be done with the official DAZ Studio animation plugins.
compare:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM/videos
It seems there will not be an update to the DAZ Studio timeline system any time soon.
Nevertheless based on some forum posts it seems that GoFigure is in the process of making some updates for the "official" plugins GoFigure Animate, KeyMate and GraphMate.
From that point of view it is very disappointing that so far no solution has been found to make the OcDS specific animated values show up in the existing DAZ Studio timelines of keymate, graphmate or animate.
My personal hope still is that the OctaneRender standalone team can provide an official timeline solution for OR standalone which then can be adopted for all different plugins.