[Brian Jones]

[Andy Henik] “It also happens in a sequence of one frame only (a sudden move to the rest possition), and it is not changeable this way.”

if it’s happening in one frame you are using the Enabled check off in the Dynamics tag, you need to use the Dynamics drop down just below that – it’s On by default, keyframe it Off when you want the puppet to rise back up and it will do so over the Transition Time number of frames.

[Brian Jones]

R17 does read .mtl files, I don’t import enough .obj to know how good it is but it seems to work for the few I’ve tried.

[Brian Jones]

you could turn Dynamic off for the puppet (when you want it to “un-fall”) it will use the Transition Time number of frames to return to it’s start position. You can check Dynamic Transition if you want that return to be dynamic of simple interpolation. Time that to occur while you are pulling up.

[Brian Jones]

It’s a good piece for a first one. Good subtle 3D style. Quick pacing didn’t feel slow at any place. Suggestions: the title on the can to start – some different treatment to the text for better readability –
The lightning on the brain, maybe lightning hits and moves on the 3D surface (allowing the surface) – the sugar in the test tube, too regular. You could add random rotation at the start and increase Follow Rotation in the sugar grain’s dynamic tag to force a more random final alignment.
I liked it.

[Brian Jones]

it has to be linear or the f-curve variation affects smooth speed so linear is good.
doesn’t matter if it’s 100 to 0 the math then is value = 0 + 100/149 so first Keyframe = 100 and last keyframe = 0.67
the add/erase a keyframe thing works like this – for example if you have a 30 frame repeat frame 0 to frame 29 where 0 = 0 and 29 = 100, to make the repeat smooth set a new keyframe at frame 28 (don’t change the value just set a keyframe) then erase the keyframe at frame 29 and move the keyframe on frame 28 to frame 29. That gives the same result as working the math out.

[Brian Jones]

I assume your F-Curve is linear, you can’t go from 0 to 100 since 0 and 100 are the same thing – your top value has to be less (the math equivalent of removing the frame in video) you can do the math – last frame value = 100 – 100/number of frames or you can set a keyframe one frame before your current end keyframe (in the 0 -100 sequence) delete the last frame and move the “one before to the last place

[Brian Jones]

haven’t run into this so just guessing, are you baking object or baking all? Are you including collision data when you don’t need to (not using it in xpresso collision node). How much do the objects interact?

[Brian Jones]

are you using Fluids in x-particles? (which version do you have?). Powder is sort of fluid and x-particles handles fluids fairly well – it will depend on what the powder is supposed to be – check out this https://lesterbanks.com/2015/03/x-particles-3-constraints-sand-effects/

another possibility is to cheat and combine particle flows for the pouring but fill mostly with revealed solids (scale or boolean or…) – as your containers are see-through it’s tougher.

[Brian Jones]

maybe with an FFD deformer (with enough divisions) around your 2D character, move the FFD points with the magnet tool, add a Pose Morph tag to the FFD (using Points in the tag) to record the base position and other moves as poses.

or try the same thing with the Camera deformer – a Pose Morph tag can be added to that deformer as well to record poses (and return to) your base undeformed mesh

or if your 2D character has enough evenly distributed points just use the Magnet/PoseMorph directly on it

[Brian Jones]

that looks like texture not particles or xpresso – maybe a Gradient in 2D-V