Using Bounce Physics in Carrara
EvieS
Posts: 62
I'm a new user to Carrara - got 8.1Pro...and can't find any tutorials on how to use the MODIFIERS>BOUNCE or really any of the physics options available and since a manual isn't available, I was wondering if anyone could instruct me or point me to some tutorials. And does anyone know if the bounce can be added to figure body parts imported as animations from Poser and/or DAZ. Primarily I'm wondering if certain body parts can be set to bounce using soft body physics without having to pre-animate the movements. I'm sure you probably have a guess as to what body parts I'm talking about. There are numerous presets available for Poser and Studio both, but I'm hoping Carrara's physics can perhaps provide a more realistic effect. But again, I'm completely lost on how to use the modifiers options. Thanks in advance.
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A Free plugin called Jiggle deformer is what you need:
http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/JiggleDeformerPage.html
Carrara 8 version at the top of
http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/Sparrowhawke3DPlugins.html
Keep us updated on your progress.
Thank you most graciously for that link and information! I am already downloaded and off to try it out! Thanks!
Well, gave it a good whirl...but apparently the plugin does not work with 8.1 Pro. It will load the plugin and let you set the parameters but almost immediately thereafter it will freeze up the entire program forcing you to ctrl-alt-delete and kill it. So I uninstalled it. Tried earlier version of the plugin and it wouldn't even load in Pro at all. So not sure. Author apparently stopped updating after version7 and his video tutorial would not load or play. I did manage to get to see a sample animation done with it, but it did not impress very much.
I'm really hoping somebody who understands the bounce and physics system in Carrara can provide a tutorial on this. I've been manually animating body jiggles for several years now and it takes far, far, far longer to do than just basic movements. If somebody can get soft-body or other methods to take care of gravity simulation for us, it would make life a whole lot simpler.
Thanks again for the advice and links, but it appears to be a bomb.
Here is a youtube showing that it works in carrara 8, made by 3dage that posts here frequently:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=a2nMQ9HfBps
Here is a far more complex animation/tech demo
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=related&v=Ge6XmvoXHWY
The pdf has quite a few tips in the start about how to avoid crashes...
In the end there are start values that also may help
http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/Downloads/Jiggle/JiggleDeformerInstructionManual.pdf
You also need the weight maps
http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/Downloads/Jiggle/JiggleWeightMaps.zip
Here is a guide on how to create a "milk shake animation", translated from japamnese to english
http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://zenryokuhp.com/poser-oboegaki/archives/2008/01/jigglecarrara56.html
Premade aniblocks you can buy
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/victoria-alive
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/genesis-alive
Example http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Frj2MwXs93g&desktop;_uri=/watch?v=Frj2MwXs93g&gl=SE
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=plcp&v=xMkUaISPLcg&desktop;_uri=/watch?v=xMkUaISPLcg&feature=plcp&gl=SE
Check the dates on these animations. They were not done with 8.1 - but instead had to be earlier versions. They look great, but as said, does not work with current version of Carrara apparently. It just kept crashing the program repeatedly. One of the vids dates to 2009.
Carrar Version 6, I'm afraid and out of date as well. Thanks though!
Thanks for the product link. I may check this out. Of course I already have Nerd's set of preset jiggles for walks, but no matter how good the morphs are, the timing and movements never quite match soft-body effects. Thanks for your continued help though!
The first video is from 2011 and says carrara 8 in the description.
Carrar Version 6, I'm afraid and out of date as well. Thanks though!
Carrara 6 is included in thids book covercd
http://www.amazon.com/Figures-Characters-Avatars-Official-Beautiful/dp/1598638165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353441618&sr=8-1&keywords=daz+studio
HI Irony3D
Welcome :)
The "Bullet" Soft-body Physics in Carrara 8, doesn't support creating a soft body "area",.. But Sparrowhawke's Jiggle plugin does work, and should work in Carrara 8.1.1.12 to create the effect you're after.
Sparrowhawke's plug-ins are all free, and they're some of the most useful. :) It's well worth spending the time lo learn how to use them.
The Modifiers in carrara,. are basically Object modifiers,. which deform the object,. so, there's little ability to define an "Area" of a model to be effected,. ...depending on the modifier options.
Fenric (another plugin developer and Carrara guru) has creates an ERC plugin (Enhanced remote control) which could also be used to drive secondary animation.
Carrara has a decent key-frame sequencer for animation and you can easily duplicate key-frames and move then to another position in the time-line, to repeat a movement.
There are also a range of different "Tweener" types, such as Bezier, or Oscillate,. which can be used to repeat a movement a number of times.
Carrara can also take this animation and convert it into an NLA (Non linear animation) clip,. which can be placed in the timeline, instead of using key-frames,..
You can place NLA Clips in the time-line to form a sequence of different animations.
You can also specify which parts of the animation in the clip, will effect which specific parts of the figure.
For example: you could animate a character Blinking,. save it as a clip, and add it into any other animation sequence, as many times as you needed, and you can place the clips anywhere in the time-line.
You can also save / convert Poses, from keyframes, to NLA Poses,. which can also be placed in the timeline, and the animation will transition from one NLA pose or clip, into the next.
NLA Clips also have options to change the playback, so you can Loop the clip endlessly, or reverse the animation, or change the speed of playback.
Another option in Carrara is to use "magnets" just as you would in Poser or DS, to effect the mesh,.
you could animate those to push/pull the mesh, when you needed,.. and repeat the keyframes in the timeline.
Hope some of that makes sense,.. and helps :)
Just downloaded and viewed the avi video tutorial from
http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/Sparrowhawke3DTutorials.html
On my android tablet even...
Upgrade your video player at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
Another Carrara dynamics package that may or may not help you.
http://www.f1oat.org/pycloid/index.html
this should be covered in the existing user manual which comes built into carrara ( Help / Carrara help) that should open up the PDF manual. it's not a new feature or part of the physics.
the way the Bounce modifier works is as an animateable helper,.
It animates the motion of the object on the Z axis (up and down), based on the settings,. without the user having to create key-frames,. (See pic) you can animate the X/Y motion of the object to make the bounce seem more realistic,.
but ,.. since carrara has "Bullet" physics, which can more accurately create a bouncing object,.
this modifier may become less used in the future.
but,.. this "Bounce modifier" is not what you're looking for.
Jiggle would be my choice right now,. we just need to help you get it up and running.
Q: What happens when it crashes,.?
Any error messages ?
Also, info about What system, and OS, may help.
Meanwhile,..
Here's a couple of pages of introduction / explanation, and simple tutorials for the Bullet Physics in Carrara 8,
It's not as up to date a it should be but it should cover the basics.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7907045/First_step_Physics_C8.pdf
Hope it helps :)
When the jiggle is applied in Pro8.1...after application, the next thing that happens is the software [Carrara] simply goes blank [character disappears] and then is locked, no buttons work...dead...CTRL-ALT-DELETE to rectify the problem.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2nMQ9HfBps is from last year...and refers to 8, not 8.1 and there have been some changes, I'm sure you're probably aware, so I'm wondering exactly what version you've used the jiggle in successfully? 8 or 8.1? Could this be an 8 to 8.1 issue?
I'm running Win7-64bit on an i7 Intel processor with 12GB RAM and 2GB Radeon card. Not sure that would have any bearing. Carrara never crashes on me...except when I use the jiggle plugin. So I'm pretty confident the problem is with the jiggle itself. Also using a V4.2 basic figure.
Quite honestly if the use of the plugin is this complicated and problematic, it's just simpler to stick with magnets and morphs in Poser. If you have some advice or instructions, please let me know in detail. Perhaps a detailed walkthrough of loading a figure from Pz3 to completion of adding the jiggles and animating. I've read through the manual for the plugin and gotten nowhere.
Incidently there is no Carrara 8 manual. The manual comes from version 7...and has as of yet, not been updated. Trust me, I bug DAZ on this constantly [two weeks ago last time]. Senseless to sell software with no up-to-date manuals...but they do.
this should be covered in the existing user manual which comes built into carrara ( Help / Carrara help) that should open up the PDF manual. it's not a new feature or part of the physics.
the way the Bounce modifier works is as an animateable helper,.
It animates the motion of the object on the Z axis (up and down), based on the settings,. without the user having to create key-frames,. (See pic) you can animate the X/Y motion of the object to make the bounce seem more realistic,.
but ,.. since carrara has "Bullet" physics, which can more accurately create a bouncing object,.
this modifier may become less used in the future.
but,.. this "Bounce modifier" is not what you're looking for.
Jiggle would be my choice right now,. we just need to help you get it up and running.
Q: What happens when it crashes,.?
Any error messages ?
Also, info about What system, and OS, may help.
Meanwhile,..
Here's a couple of pages of introduction / explanation, and simple tutorials for the Bullet Physics in Carrara 8,
It's not as up to date a it should be but it should cover the basics.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7907045/First_step_Physics_C8.pdf
Hope it helps :)
For what it's worth I was able to get fun results with Jiggle in C7. One of the biggest issues I discovered is the use of the painted maps. As you would expect they are the same as the UV maps for the figure, and where your figure uses multiple maps (like head and body, etc) the plugin will move the wrong areas because of these overlapping maps.
The plugin has a solution where you define an area of Jiggle with another object (like a sphere), so for instance each breast might be painted to jiggle and then you add one or two spheres over the breasts to make sure only they move... Only the parts of your mesh that are inside the defining spheres will jiggle.... Add another sphere for a heavy belly, etc... The modifier has a panel for selecting this object...
The Manual for Jiggle was very complex, but keep at it. Once it makes sense it was very easy and actually quite fast to calculate. Very small settings were best because the mesh tears with too much jiggle. When painting the map, try gradients to create falloff zones to transition between Jiggle and non-Jiggle areas.... But you may be correct about Poser morphs or using magnets. Jiggle was never intended to be a full-fledged plugin, that's why it was free, I believe.
Jiggle did not work in the rendernodes as I recall.... I have not tried it in C8.
You also had to change the preview interface to show every frame when playing the timeline.... I believe that is true with all modifiers as they don't have keyframes, they calculate based on the previous frame.
HI Irony 3D :)
One question,.. Are you loading the V4 figure from your poser runtime folder, using the Carrara browser ?
or,. are you saving a poser file and then opening that in Carrara.
One of the first parts if Sparrowhawke's PDF tutorial, mentions that figures Need to be loaded using the carrara native content browser.
Imported figures will not work.
Other than that,. I've no idea why it would crash carrara like that.
I'm Using Carrara 8.1.1.12 (last official update ) and I believe that was also the version I used to render the test animation.
I'm on PC, Win7 Pro 64bit with an Nvidia card,.
Using Jiggle for the first time can seem like a complex task, but once you've read through it, and followed the text to make a test scene, then you'll realise that it's pretty simple to set up a figure and get jiggle working, just using a target helper object, and the Weight maps supplied.
When you compare this to a full (physics based) solution, to calculate bounce and recoil then you;'re looking at a different level of calculation time, and a completely different set of parameters and options.
Jiggle is an elegant and simple solution which works instantly, without calculation time
Of course,.. as an animator , you have the option to manually animate the jiggle using the figure morphs,. or magnets, if this plugin isn;t working on your system for some reason,
Have a look at Ska-motion's animation (for sale) which are created using the figure Morphs,
http://www.skamotion.com/home.php
As for the points about the Manual not including any information about Bullet Physics,...
Bullet is Still in development, and it has changed (how it works) and where the components and options are located within the GUI.
If you've looked at the PDF document I posted earlier,. you;ll notice that there are (amendments and additions) to the information, which have been added to update the document, to reflect those changes,. I've updated that document several times.
So,. Bearing that in mind,...
Any information about physics, which was included in the manual for C8,. would have been out of date, and would be confusing, very quickly after it was added.
This is Still the main reason that new features of Carrara, which are Still in development, are difficult to add to the manual, and that makes releasing a manual harder to do.
If you have any issues with using physics simulations in Carrara, I'd be happy to help, and there are several other users here who have explored physics, and, I'm sure, will be happy to help.
Hope it helps :)
I am loading from a Pz3 imported into an empty scene. Perhaps this might be the cause of the problem. I will try it without importing and see if that helps. Also, a question, once the jiggle is added, shouldn't it be visible when the animation timeline control is set to play? Or is it something that only shows up once rendered?
I'll let you know how the runtime load works...or not. Thanks!
HI :)
Yes, it shows up instantly, once you've gone to the end of your animation, and set the Jiggle progress slider to 100%
If you go back to the start, and scrub through the time-line, you'll see the deformation instantly on screen. then you can adjust the strength, scrub the time-line, and see how it looks, and repeat until you're happy.
:)
What goes in the option: Jiggle>Params>ANIMATE MASS????? The manual explains everything else, but not that...at least not that I can find. It goes on about the target mass, which I get, set up, attached to chest bone...anyway, I'm wondering if this might be my problem. I tried selecting CHEST there and still get the crash. And still, nothing jiggles.
HI :)
You don't need to have any animate mass object selected,. it's an option, like Zones, unless you're using zones, you don't need them set up.
Once you set the Target Mass,. and you set a key-frame for the progress at the end 100% , it should be animated and visible as deformation when you scrub the time-line,
In a real simple set up,. you would load V4 into the scene,. then add a target helper object , positioned in front of the chest area, then you parent that target, to the figure's chest,.. and select this target is the "Target Mass".
You would add the Weight map for the figure,... or ... forget the weight map,.. and add a sphere which you can use to define the area that should Jiggle.
once you've done that,. you can add an animation to the figure,. which will move the figure and the (target Mass) helper, which will give the Jiggle modifier, some motion info to to work on.
The last part should be setting a Keyframe at the end of your time-line where the Jiggle process is set to 100, on the last frame,..
and 0 on the first frame.
at that point , you should have Jiggle set up and working on the figure, and deformation should be visible when you scrub the time-line.
You can Move the Target mass helper, so that it's in front of the figure,. which will give it more movement relative to the figure,.
the closer it is to the figure, the less movement it will have.
Hope it helps :)
Ah, I finally got it to work. Thank you for the more direct instructions. The manual was blowing my mind. So the Animate Mass, as it turns out, is what was locking Carrara up on me. I was assuming CHEST would go there or the target mass again. Couldn't conceive why there would be an option left unused...and it wasn't explained in the manual very well. But yeah, that was the problem. I am getting jiggle and flop now, but also it seems to be affecting the bottom of the right arm...not the left...just the right. I tried using a better and more accurate weight map, but that only helped a tiny bit. And also, the breasts seem to move together in relation to the single target mass, I'm supposing. So can or will they move separately in their own physical manner...or are they forever linked to the one target? I'm just wondering if this is the animation I'm using or not.
HI Irony3D:)
You can add another Jiggle modifier to the stack, , and set up another target helper, so that you have two targets.
you can move the target helpers to Each side, to give it each jiggle more effect.
You can also add a Sphere, or a couple of them, and use those sphere's as Zones,.
If you're getting distortion in other parts of the body,. ..try using a Zone object ,. (anything inside the "zone" should jiggle)
use the Zone fall-off to soften the zone effect.
You can also use "Zones" without the need for a Weight map,. so you could place zones wherever you want jiggle,
as long as you add another Jiggle modifier , and a target helper, for each zone.
:)
THANKS! I did not know if that would work or not. I had thought of it, but didn't know if the plugin would support multiple items. I appreciate your help with all this. Hope you write the next manual for the jiggle plugin!
:0)
Have a great weekend my friend!