Digital Art Zone

I have been struggling a long time with this, but I am stuck. I want to use the Carnegie BVH files, but the hip keeps causing problems. There is something wrong in the translation and rotation values. A walk file is the most obvious (in my case 02_01.bvh). It walks much faster as he should be and has shaking rotation. These are my findings:

If I import as new skeleton, it is fine. It I attach to existing skeleton it is always wrong.
Creating a NLA doesn’t help.
I have tried various scaling (during and after import).
All other movements, besides hip, are correct.
The values of the keyframes between the imported skeleton and the attached BVH are the same.
I have used Victoria and the new skeleton from the imported BVH.
I have tried the hip and the non-hip-correction files.
If I import BVH in DS 3 and 4 it works fine. Besides the foot angle in DS3.
But when I export DS3 as BVH, I have the same problem (too much hip movement and rotation)
And when export from DS4 using Genesis, I have no hip movement at all and wrong rotation.

The thing is, I don’t understand where it goes wrong. The hip values in the original skeleton and after connecting it to a skeleton are exactly the same. If I select for instance both X movements from the hip in Graph Editor, they match exactly.

So I am wondering, is it even possible to use the Carnegie BVH files in Carrara without the hip problems. I could correct the hip problems manual for a walk cycle, but for the other kind of files, it would be very complicated.

BVHs are a hit and miss thing. Some work great some don’t work at all. I never know what to expect from a BVH so if it works fine I keep it, if it doesn’t I toss it.
You might try this to see if it can be fixed with it   http://davedub.co.uk/bvhacker/

For me they all miss. At least the large Carnegie files. Some have some glitches which causes spastic movements, but those can often be fixed. But there is somehow a main problem with the hip. The BVH is fine (also in BVhacker) and in DS they are fine most of the time. But somehow Carrara does something weird with the hip movement and rotation. It looks these are all exaggerated.

Try this. Import Victoria in Carrara. Import a walk and connect to Victoria. Import the same BVH again at the same scale at the same time, but this time as new skeleton.  Put them next to each other, if this is not the case. Let them walk. Victoria walks at least twice as fast with the same steps and she shakes.

they all work better in Daz studio and saved as a pz2 using the Poser format exporter to bring into Carrara.

Get back on this tomorrow Wendy. It was a long animation day. Not familiar with DS anymore. Took me a while to figure out how to export as pz2. Downloaded the plugin, but it is not here where it should be.

Got the first part solved. I can now export pz2 from DS. But how to import into Carrara. DS only exports pz2 and Carrara only imports pz3.

Why does this has to be so complicated? DS and Carrara are from the same family.

Pjotter - 12 December 2012 04:25 AM

Got the first part solved. I can now export pz2 from DS. But how to import into Carrara. DS only exports pz2 and Carrara only imports pz3.

Why does this has to be so complicated? DS and Carrara are from the same family.

If they had been developed together, but Carrara was developed by other companies not DAZ. Studio is DAZ’s baby. Probably has something to do with legacy code and one of the big reasons DAZ is trying to get their new format to work so you will be able to move things between Studio and Carrara.

But I was under the impression you could import pz2. I’m at work and can’t check right now. Wendy does this import/export stuff all the time so she should know.

I know, Wendy knows. I have a plugin to export pz2 from DS. I have a plugin for export pz2 from Carrara. And I can import pz3 in Carrara. That’s it, as far as I know.

just stick the pz2 files in your library under content/runtime/libraries/pose or for a non-Genesis figure above the scene tree under general is an import pose option, this option does not come up in C8,5 for Genesis, is also in other Carrara versions, in fact my only pose import option when I used C5pro so used to using it.

I have tried it. The animation is not transfered. Thanks for helping me out Wendy. But I give up.

does the pz2 work in Daz studio?
if not, then maybe you have not saved the animated range in Daz studio.
I import pz2 files this way all the time, esp from Mimic pro as Carrara mimic plugin will not recognize SAPI4 TTS voices so ot definately works which leaves the pz2 file itself as thelikely problem.

Tried a different approach. I don’t like complicated processes. So, just bought Animate2 and the first Aniblock looks fine. And with Animate2 I have more edit options. But thanks for the help. With buying also keyMate (don’t need it), Animate2 is 50% off according to todays mail.