Construction mode for animation

[Pancho]

I just finished rigging a horse with the help of Gear. Not perfect, but for now it works. If I want to alter the pose I can move all the deformers and the horse is following. That is on frame 1.

If I jump to another frame the rig still works as expected, but the horse isn't following any more. I'm in animation construction mode. So far no keyframes on any of the rigging devices.

BUT if I switch to "sync with current mode" (construction mode display) I again see what I want. The horse deforms.

Now, if I want to render, the horses aren't defomed properly, also not standing at the right position. As if I'd switched back to "Result" (construction mode display).

How do I make the deformations properly and change the settings so that I can render what I see in the "current mode". A bit weird to me!

Thanks for any insights!
Pancho



P.S.: SI crashed on me. I reloaded the scene and now I get the expected result. Still I have the feeling, that I'm doing something wrong.

[EricTRocks]

Generally you'll want to stay in the "Result" mode when viewing in the viewports unless you know why you're switching to sync mode. The "Result" will be what is the final result of the operator stack and will also be what is rendered. You can generally stay within the Modeling Construction Mode and work normally. If you're adding an operator and want it to be at the top of the stack or in a specific part of the operator stack then you can switch to that specific mode and work. I'd recommend switching back after though. Order of operations is a key part of the Softimage operator stack.

[Mathaeus]

I'd believe the problem and solution is somewhere around "So far no keyframes on any of the rigging devices". Softimage could behave bitchy in this case, especially with IK solver and constraints. If there is a key or expression on parameter (even just constant value in expression), it starts to behave as expected. Same thing if you have a clip in mixer which doesn't affect the current frame. Something related with lazy evaluation, I think. Probably switching the construction mode, just forces the evaluation for some reason, nothing more than this...
Don't know about Gear, but I suppose that custom IK solver (from Gear) can put even more strange behavior.

From my knowledge, putting an expression with constant value on important parameters which still aren't planned for animation - never hurt to do.

[EricTRocks]

If you get enough of those expressions it can start to bog down on performance. Depends on the complexity of course. Just something to watch out for.