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Anyone who animates in a single program/environment is a masochist. I've been doing animation since the 80's and I can tell you that there are *NO* packages that "do it all" so well that other packages are not necessary. The #1 big trick is to use a render engine that is available for all of the packages that one uses. For the moment that remains RiSpec (Pixar's Renderman or 3Delight -- which exists for most professional and hobby packages) while some PBR render engines are starting to expand past one-or-two supported packages. Although, this seems to actually be reversing to a degree with package companies buying up render engines to tie to their own systems (mentalRay and Arnold as examples).
The two other common methods are: to use custom actors with rigging that can be recreated in the other packages so that any work done "externally" can be imported back into the primary package with minimal effort to be rendered; or to render pieces other than main components in the external packages and composite the results into the main (this is mostly used for VFX where the main package(s) cannot handle the necessary features).
The methods for the latter VFX can contain a condition where the main components are used in the scene, but are either "made invisible" to the camera but the effects are still applied (lights from explosions applied to the 3D actors for compositing), or the main components are rendered on separate layers than the effects that are applied so that the layer(s) containing conflicting rendering details can be omitted. One can see this procedure in many of the "how this was done" featurettes included with feature movies. Note how the lighting is actually applied separately from the main rendering process (see this: https://www.awn.com/animationworld/breaking-down-cars-3 for an example of what I am talking about. Search for "Directing Animator Jude Brownbill" and then look at the following frames shown. From frames 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 highlights what I am talking about here)
Kendall
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfwqKBga5yAhH2JRobc0DSQHEE1iy0K9d
a rather impressive series done entirely in DAZ studio but again using V4 and M4
and yes there is a lack of people using just DAZ studio and Genesis onwards, Genesis a few exist and some Genesis 2 not a whole lot of 3 AFAIK
Ivy and others have stated 3 is too unsupported with Aniblocks etc on this forum to bother.
Others like me use Genesis 3 in iClone etc but not DAZ studio.
Wendy, jaebea got a test pz2 file from the f-clone guy and it works with G3 and G8 as it works with the face bones in those characters. You do have to buy the software to activate it to use your own camera. Kinda stupid to offer a demo since you can't test it. He did drop the price in the past couple weeks. It does not work with the older characters lacking face bones.
jaebea wrote: I have played with it and couldn't get it to work. After badgering them repeatedly, they came up with several different versions and finally I was able to get the face to work. Unfortunately, the trial will not allow recording so how in the &#@$ are we supposed to find out if it works? The sample pz2 they sent doesn't work on Generation 4 and Genesis 1 models, only moves the eyes and mouth on Gen 2 but fully works on Gen 3 & 8. I let them know!
I am not rushing into it though, will wait and see what DAZ does and got better things to throw money at but yes will watch what others learn. TY
Thanks, all! I'll continue to look into Daz.
Yes you are correct I only use daz studio when i make & render my animations.i use to use poser & daz, but now daz i just use daz for animation.. . though I do use adobe Photoshop cs5 sometimes for post and promo work. & premiere pro cs5 to do my film & sound editing. but the scene building and rendering are all done in daz studio.the hard way. keyframe by keyframe ...lol
Well that's pretty cool--but this process is frustrating for those of us who use DAZ for aniamtion -- each new figure leaves us behind, especially sicne they don't create any new workable blocks for the figures..
Same--Daz is supposed to have a multiplicity of uses, but for those who wanted to animate in the program we wind up severely limited with new figure.
This is what I was afraid of. I too was hoping that G8 will be easier to animate than G3 -- ME TOO I was excited but when I tried to apply an aniblock it was wah-wah-waaah try again. SIGH
I'm also starting to get into animating through Daz and it's not easy.. the aniblocks thing is frustrating. If I accidentally hover over the wrong one it can ruin the models pose, I'm not even sure how and why!
These may help... with aniMate... these are all different videos from DAZ
And this may help if you're not using aniMate
I haven't heard anything more about GoFigure making G3 and now G8 compatible with aniMate.
I've asked GoFigure a couple of technical questions and future product qestions in the past, over 4 years ago and they didn't answer then. I don't think I expect them to answer now. However, as PA(s) they must still be taking their cut of sales.
Unless DAZ 3D has started their own system in house (which they'd about have to start using an MIT or Apache license oss solution) or licensed a 3rd party plugin I don't think you can expect changes.
What if you just made a FBM morph that changed Genesis 8's A-pose into a Genesis 3 compatible T-pose and applied that morph to the character before animating?
Actually you don't even have to do make a morph. Bring the feet in 6 degrees and the shoulders up 45.5 degrees, go into the joint editor and back the joint rotations and Genesis 8 will be almost completely compatible with Genesis 3 poses and I would think animations (I don't know for sure since I have no Genesis 3 aniblocks).
'm so with you on this subject and waiting since 2010 and before.
Animation of daz figures should be very easy to do in dazstudio (and not only with bvh imports,momently to much time is lost with tweaking or incomplete IK system) it has to be a full character studio, with the included constraints, collisions of figure/figure fiure/prop object, and a complete IK system to animate well.
i've experimented with motionbuilder in the past, could choose for the iclone 3d exhanger path, try out the old carrara, fun but to much time waste (oh yeah it's d*e*a*d soft) but after al those years since 2005 and experimented in ds2 when the first great plugins appear like pantomime...
it all seems started well when ds4 was launched and then strangly it all fell down and the good improvements evolution sheme dissapear... the daz team changed in the years and accept of content the software evolution felt down.
the first good improvement in years was the step to iray render gpu render, the next step expanding powerpose to the main figures and face (another commerical eye, as this could be perfectly done to G3)... Now 'm waiting to see all other changes in animation, dynamics, collisions, section and friendly export between other software.
A complete figure that doesn't need any Zbrush tweaks anymore as collisions could solve the problems in realtime when figure bends a chair, wall or other figure.
Studio as a closed platform system is the baddest move they could do, make it open and easy import/export.
I've seem V8 jumped on, but now holding off, seen M8. I found the pro bundle of V8 very weak in content, and now the same 's happening with M8.
i'm more interested in the software evolution now then any new G8 gaddget of content.
The problem, as I see it, is that there wasn't as widespread acceptance of the Genesis figure (Genesis 1) here as there was at other stores, and that reduced the funds available to maintain DS, Carrara, Hexagon and Bryce as they should have been. This resulted in Carrara getting a partial update to match what DS had as far as support for Genesis and Genesis 2, but only minimal improvement to DS and almost nothing for the others. It took G2, and to an extent Iray/G3 to make up for lost time. Now we may get the improvements desired with respect to animation, though it would be nice to have more documentation to teach folks about other things like posing of figures as well.
Anyone try this yet? https://www.mokastudio.com/index.html It looks easy.
I've had this website bookmarked for the last month. I don't see how this can help Daz users, though. The problem is once you get your G3 or G8 figure out of Daz, how do you get them back in? FBX is broken. BVH is a pain (for G3 and G8). And once you get them out of Daz, why in the world would you want to take them back in? That being said, I love the potential of this posing software. When I have time, I will give it a try.
Could somebody be a bit more specific as to what the problem with BVH is? Is it that the quirks of G3/G8's bone structure won't let BVH data be produced externally? Or that appropriate BVH can be prepared, but that DS isn't currently capable of getting it imported? (My programmer "Spidey Sense" has started to tingle... LOL)
If Daz were really serious about world domination, then they would make animation and dynamics a very high priority. If we could make Genesis 8 move without so much rigamarole, then everyone interested would upgrade. We would be almost as flooded with amateur animations as we are with amateur stills.
I can't speak about that program specifically , but FBX exported from motionbuilder works for G3/G8 motion. The imported mesh might be broken in some versions of DS, but the motion is perfect when transfered to the target figure in DS (you're just using the FBX as a container for motion).
Common reasons to go back into DS would be:
1) Free iray render engine (not everyone has access to 3rd party render engines, or wants to learn blender or cycles)
2) Higher quality mesh/ all properly working morphs and features . Before you say "oh I can just subdivide in program x,y,z" , the results are quite different when using something like maya, or max, or c4d, than the internal DS subd. Also, not all morphs work properly in FBX (part of the reason for some of them is the subd and lack of LOD in DS exported FBX) .
BVH files have missing joints (abdomen and pelvis for a couple of examples) and there are other problems, and have been for years. I really think, since I've learned FBX does not also work from drzap above, that your best options for G3 and G8 without going to another program are to actually animate with the tools in DAZ, or use pose-to-pose. With the new Pose Blender tool that's in the store you can actually adjust and blend poses (ones you've made or store bought like the ones by i13) to be more easily useful in doing to pose-to-pose animation. GraphMate and keyMate are still useful tools for that to adjust what motions the computer in-betweens. You can save animated poses without the aniMate plugin.
I am well aware of the reasons for using Daz Studio for animation (in spite of its imperfections), that was a litte joke. With my DaztoMaya plugin, I am having a little problem with the lack of JCM's, but it is still worth it to get my figure out of Studio. You say you have success with importing G3 figure animation from Motionbuilder? Can you direct me to some tutorials? I have MB, I don't want to use it, but if it will allow me to do what you say, it may be worth the effort.
I am a big fan of pose to pose animation, but pose to pose alone is not enough for me. If I can find a way to consistently get mocap files in, that may be a game changer..
BVH files which are properly retargetted to the G3/G8 skeleton have all the joints - that's not the reason for problems. That's one of the "jobs" of retargetting software like webanimate , motionbuilder- to take the motion from a source skeleton and transfer it to a target, even if the bones/joints are different. They map and solve the motion to appy to the target skeleton. It's the DS importer and exporter that are broken. Even exporting a motion that works in DS , and reimporting it's own BVH doesn't work when joints/bones are properly mapped. A properly retargetted BVH for G3/G8 that works in other programs, doesn't work within DS. The keys aren't being placed correctly. But they know of this problem, and a fix is reportedly coming.
Its only worth it if you *need* to go back into DS. If base mesh and different subd results are "Ok" for your particular task, then by all means don't go back in. Unfortunately, the only way to get "perfect" results (full resolution, HD morphs, all morphs working correctly) is to "bake" to obj/mdd export or alembic . But this means you lose your skeleton and rigging.
I don't know of any tutorials for this specific workflow. I mentioned the steps in another thread and another user eventually got it working. Don't be afraid to ask questions because I assumed the other user had it figured out when he was actually stuck on some things.
There are some tutorials on characterization for G3 in mobu. That's actually a very important step if you want mobu to work for you; instead of you having to do a lot of work for mobu. The solving and retargetting can reduce the amount of work enormously if you set it up correctly .
But the basic steps:
The FBX has been prepared properly. I find FBX2013 works best for interoperability between all programs in shared pipelines (not just mobu). Especially important if you're working with other people / other programs involved. Some key things to remember are to strip excess animation layers non essential stuff, delete all rigs etc.. Bake it down to a skeleton (I prefer to keep the mesh but it's not necessary) . Export an FBX2013 version from the python menu . The same FBX export works fine in maya/c4d etc... But the mesh is messed up in DS 4.9, but not earlier versions...go figure. But it doesn't matter, you're just using the FBX as a container for motion - and that has worked for all DS versions since G3 (I think 4.8 ? )
When you import the FBX into DS, ignore what it "looks" like because mesh is broken in the DS FBX importer now. Save as a animated pose preset. Then on your target figure unlock nodes and disable rotation limits on the target's nodes before merging the pose preset
People make a lot of fuss about the "twist bones". But the twist bones actually don't do anything special within DS for G3/G8 , they are actually only there for weight map reasons. The values are linked between the twist and bend bones for arms & legs. ie. If you enter a twist value for the twist bone, it's actually the same value in the joint above in the bend node and vice-versa. This is true for all three x,y,z rotations of the linked joints
The potential problem is when using other programs - they may interpret the bones , offset and linking differently as separate bones with unlinked attributes, yielding different results than within DS. But there are various workarounds in other programs if you wanted to mimic DS type joint rotations. Mobu does it automatically - you don't solve for the twist bones (they are zeroed out) , the x,y,z rotation is actually placed into the bend above. (If you really needed to, you can force it by locking the twist bones, for example if you were having problems in mokastudio, you might have to do that). That's the reason why you need to unlock nodes in the DS target figure, so when the pose preset is applied, everything works automatically, the keys are automatically mapped to the bend . There is no manual configuring maps like BVH or anything like that, or manually copy pasting into channels, it's all automatic and WYSIWYG between mobu and daz.
Ah, that was a great explaination, thanks. Animating in Daz Studio is convenient in cases I want to take advantage of the built in corrective morphs and poses. Iray lacks many of the features I need for completely working in Daz, but its good to know how I can get motion capture in if I need it. I'm building a motion capture studio to produce my films so this part of the production is very important.
pdr0, I must've missed your post or we cross posted. Glad to hear about FBX, and thanks for taking time to post all that info. Drzap, a mocap studio will be a great tool!
I use .obj /MDD to get my genesis figures to Maxon C4D for rendering
It does not matter that I lose the rigging because all animation are previsualized
with openGL renders from Daz studio before backing to MDD
thus there is no need to have to repose them in C4D
The beauty of MDD is that I can send over new MDD files to a previousy exported
mesh as long as I dont change the vertex count by switching clothing etc.
and of course I get my full SubD level details in the mesh.
Hi
I am makinng animation feature film and looking for Daz 3 D animators for the same
Pl contact me immediately with your profile details
email: [email protected]