The most common user questions from our Discord channel

Meshes are deformed when exported from Cascadeur

In order to be properly exported from Cascadeur, character models should have zero transforms.

This is how the Transform tab on the Object Properties panel should look for a mesh or several meshes that make up the character (but NOT for other elements). Otherwise, there will be issues.

Oftentimes transforms are zeroed during the process of creating the model, right before rigging. However, if this is not done, there will be distortions when you try to export such a model from Cascadeur.

In the future versions transforms will be zeroed automatically during export. For now, you’ll need to zero them manually before skinning (before exporting the model to Cascadeur). How exactly this should be done depends on the software you’re using.

For example, in Blender you should:

Select the character’s skeleton
Use Object → Apply → All Transforms

While in Maya:

Copy the model
Freeze the transformations
Copy the skin from the old mesh
(optional) Delete the old mesh

Characters have wrong scale and/or rotation when imported to Cascadeur

In Cascadeur, the Y axis is always directed up; Cascadeur units, which are equal to centimeters, are used as measure units.

Neither of these can be changed at the moment. Because of this, models imported from software with different coordinate systems and/or measure units might end up with incorrect scales or rotations.

To work around this issue we recommend to take into account the configuration of coordinate axes and measure units in the software you are using for creating the models. Most of the 3d solutions provide options to change the corresponding settings either in the scene itself or during export.

In Blender, for example, if you are using FBX export, the corresponding settings can be found under the Transform tab:

AutoPosing tool twists the character’s limbs

For the AutoPosing tool to work correctly, the additional points on the elbows and knees of the character rig should be placed as shown on the image on the left:

Left: the correct placement of the controllers; right: the incorrect placement.

Pay attention to this as you create a rig for the character. You can learn more about rigging the character’s limbs on the Hinge Connections page.

AutoPhysics makes the character jump when I don’t want them to

The example is provided by the user Montana from Cascadeur Discord channel

This problem appears when the AutoPhysics tool is applied to a stay-in-place animation, such as a walk or run cycle. In animations like these the character’s legs slide on the ground. AutoPhysics uses fulcrum points to calculate physically accurate motions. If the character’s leg (or other body part) doesn’t change its spatial position across several frames, it is considered a fulcrum point.

But when legs slide on the ground, like in our case, the system does not recognize them as fulcrum points. Instead it assumes that the character is in mid-air, and alters the animation accordingly.

Currently, the tool is not suited for working with stay-in place animations. However, if you still want to use it for such animation, you can do the following:

Create an animation with a character moving

Apply AutoPhysics tool to it
Squeeze it into a stay-in-place animation

See the Stay in Place Animation page to learn how to do this.

Cycles are not smooth

At the moment tangents in the key frames are calculated automatically on the basis of the adjacent frames. As there are no additional keyframes before the first frame and after the last one, tangents for these frames are not calculated in a way fitting for a smooth cycle.

Tangents before copying the animation:

In the future versions of Cascadeur, the Graph Editor tool will be added. There, you’ll be able to adjust tangents manually. Later, tools for working with cycles will arrive as well. For now, however, you can use this algorithm:

Copy the entire animation several times. You should end up with at least three full cycles
Select the cycle in the middle. There, the tangents are calculated correctly, so the whole cycle should be smooth

This is how the tangents should look after copying:

Now just export this cycle