Digital Art Zone

Glad to hear you are tinkering with Houdini and that FBX is working well between your apps. There are some new “First Steps” lessons about Houdini basics on the sidefx.com website:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=202&Itemid=361

The Rendering lessons may help you get started. If you have any other questions then please let me know. It is strange that the rendering is giving you so many issues. Like any app getting started can be a challenge but Houdini is well worth the effort (and Houdini jobs are out there for the taking which is good for all).

Robert

I absolutely love DAZ content, but I’ve been a little less than impressed with its animation software… neither DS or Carrara are strong, well supported packages. 

Is Houdini an option if I’m looking for strong animation software while using DAZ content, without a whole lot of trouble? 

Meaning… I can import stuff into Blender, obviously, but it’s a mess of re-rigging and playing with textures and simply isn’t worth it.

How about Genesis?  Can I fashion a character in DS and use it easily in Houdini?

djmulcahy - 09 June 2012 11:00 AM

I absolutely love DAZ content, but I’ve been a little less than impressed with its animation software… neither DS or Carrara are strong, well supported packages. 

Is Houdini an option if I’m looking for strong animation software while using DAZ content, without a whole lot of trouble? 

Meaning… I can import stuff into Blender, obviously, but it’s a mess of re-rigging and playing with textures and simply isn’t worth it.

How about Genesis?  Can I fashion a character in DS and use it easily in Houdini?

Carrara is well supported, but maybe animation not its long suit.

Poser does have PoserFusion, and PoserFusion is implemented in a few software packages on the market, and these allow importing of animated Poser / DS content.

Reallusion iClone and 3dxchange 5 pro may be your best animation option.
already imports and retargets Genesis easily, facial animation for Genesis in iClone is coming, not there yet.
I use Carrara mostly myself but iClone is probably the easiest animation program to use and the fastest.
and it also imports Carrara rigging through 3dxchange.

I cannot say Houdini strikes me as easy, FBX import is limiting in any program,
Carrara natively imports Poser content, the beta is needed for Genesis, a work in progress but not bad.

I’ve used iClone a bunch.  I enjoy its ease of use, but it’s pretty bare when compared to other packages.

And I’m not really looking for “easy.”  I use Blender a lot, and that’s not really easy. 

But I like animating, not rigging and modelling and everything else associated with it.  So ideally I’d like a powerful animation package that I can “easily” import DAZ (and Poser) content into.  I’ve been waiting for Carrara 8.5 for what seems like a year now, and I’m looking for other alternatives.  Blender is awesome, but, as I said, importing DAZ content is a pain, at best. 

I haven’t played with it yet, but I was under the impression that 3Dexchange 5 imported DAZ models, but at a very, very low detail level, and without the ability to do some basics, such as facial animation.  So they could be used, for instance, as background models but wouldn’t be good for any up close, detailed animations.  No? 

Didn’t mean to hijack the thread. 

I just saw the DAZ figure in the Houdini clip and thought maybe this would solve some of my problems!

well I am actually beta testing 3dx5 pipeline but cannot say too much on that yet.
Genesis imports quite well into iClone if you reduce texture sizes which you can do in 3dx5 too.
it will use all of iClone’s motions after conversion.
the facial animation has been promised as a free upgrade, I am waiting excitedly but do not know yet how good it will be.

Carrara is VERY easy for animation due to the detailed timeline where you can modify keyframes moving induvidual ones,  use tweaning tools such as oscillate, biezier etc etc you can do tracking etc with target helpers all sort of cool things,
and easy to bone and rig ANYTHING too!
(and as I said Carrara rigging imports into iClone via 3dxchange!!)
you just create a bone hierachy or use an imported BVH select it and any object lined up, go to animation and attach skeleton
no seperate domains on mesh, nothing!
too easy
rendertimes are my main issue but it runs rings around studio and Poser’s rendertimes
this is where iClone comes in!!!

I had not actually tried a Daz figure in Houdini yet.
was a Carrara and iClone figure in each case.
have now from studio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6RJzCs81E
needs retexturing

Houdini can do fantastic things but my head hurts every time I try to follow their training videos. It’s a lot of steps to to do things which is great if you need to make changes and tweaks for directors, but for individual artists, I don’t know. It’s great that FBX export is working right again in Carrara. But Houdini is harder to get your head around when you’re tired like I am when I get time to work on CG.

I was looking at the possibility of using Blender myself, but it again becomes a problem of getting DAZ and Poser content into it. I think much of what I want to do is possible in Carrara. I just wish we had more brainy people around figuring out how to do things in it to make life easier for the rest of us. The Carrara animation tools really are pretty good and are more traditional than the good aniMate tool for DAZ Studio (the full one, not the lite version) though it has some neat features, too. Puppeteer can get you some good starter animations going between poses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtFnC1a-pPY