Shape questions

["john clark" <john.clark23(at)ntlworld.com>]

Hi

 

I don't understand some things about shape animation. For example I have a head (with shapes) that has some teeth(with shapes) and a tongue(with shapes). The mixer in this model has shape tracks (for single shapes) and compound shape tracks( that control combinations of head teeth and tongue). Now say that I mix up some beautiful head shape that I want to save off for some reason; I duplicate just the head (not the teeth or tongue) and freeze it. The mixer at this point will show all the duplicate(unused) head shapes, which I get rid of by deleting the clusters on the duplicate head. So far so good. But it will also have generated duplicate teeth and tongue shapes even tho' the teeth and tongue themselves weren't duplicated. This presumably has something to do with the fact that they take part in some compound shapes that the head is also part of. Now (since there are no duplicate teeth or tongues from which to delete clusters), if I pick all non-italicised shape sources and hit delete I get rid of the litter but also delete the shape track that refers to the original source! What's that about? I mean, its easy enough to drag the original back in, but if you have more than just a few shapes and have hooked the tracks to other controllers in the scene, it can be a pain up the arse. Can anybody explain what's happening and how to prevent it?

 

(there are a few other things that I don't understand but I'll save them till later...)

 

cheers

 

 

John