Loving Daz Studio!
Dartanbeck
Posts: 21,219
Running Carrara for over ten years, coming into Daz Studio to animate has been a nightmare of a challenge.
There are many basic things that even ancient software does that is Still completely absent or just set up wrongly in Daz Studio - and that's really frustrating.
That said, Linday's Classic Long Curly Hair with dForce and Iray made it clear that I had to figure this out. So I've been working at it.
Well, it's clear that "Animation" has very little priority at Daz Development. I wish they hadn't bought out KeyMate and GraphMate from GoFigure because I'd buy them and improve my life a bit. I absolutely Love aniMate 2+, the paid version. Never tried the free version since aniMate 2+ was one of my first purchases along with the aniBlock convertor for Carrara. Speaking of Carrara, what an animation Beast! Animating is as simple as thinking about what you want to do. Carrara just does the rest for you. Enough on that.
Since I simulate on all of my main character's sequences I like to leave 30 frames at the beginning before the actual motions take place. This is my "Settle" zone where I can also add poses to change how the simulation behaves by frame 30, the first frame of the animation.
It absolutely kills me how often I accidentally forget that I'm working in such strange software that "Delete" doesn't work on key frames! Argh! Hate that! Okay, I'll stop.
It also kills me that, if I don't go back and change that first key (after deleting eveything else between frame 0 and 30) to "Linear", Daz Studio's TCB tweener might send the joints so far out of whack that I have to force quit and lose whatever I haven't saved yet. Argh! Again... a bummer, but I'll get over it.
I'm all by myself here. I don''t have a team or a crew. Just me. So I buy aniBlocks and animated PZ2 files - as many as I can get my hands on. I use these motions for parts of them, then I tweak the animation to be more inline with what I need the character to do. In Carrara this is simple because the timeline is so functional, complete and simple. For Daz Studio, I knew that aniMate rocks, so DS has to be able to Rock as well. Hmmm...
Daz Studio software is Amazing. What they've achieved with this since its first release is mind-blowing. The release of 4.0 with the Content Creation Tools (CCT) bought and built into the main program was a major game-changer - right along with the incredible Genesis platform for figures. Stunning!
Being a Carrara user, I went into it with the use of Daz figures from the start. Remember me saying that it's just me? I can model, rig, UV Map and texture, but I don't want to do that for my figures. I want to animate them.
Since DS 4.0 came out, and Carrara got Genesis Compatibility, I started using Daz Studio a lot more - using the CCT to "ready things for my work in Carrara", so the actual main use of DS wasn't even part of the equation for me. Never really got to know it. Being an animator, when I would try to delve in, it was a very short journey. I was content never upgrading my figure beyond Genesis 1... G2 tops. Genesis 2 figures aren't entirely supported in Carrara, though it's easy to get them working pretty well other than Auto-fit, which I really like to use a Lot.
So when I was grieving about the horrendous animation department in Daz Studio, the main thing that kept my trying was that darned hair!!! I Love that Hair!
It finally occurred to me to stop trying to animate as if I was in Max, LW, Modo, Maya, Carrara or any of the other animation apps out there. Daz Studio simply lacks far too much to resemble anything close to such a smooth and simple workflow. So what does Daz Studio have beside really cool hair and a really gorgeous render solution? Well... it has Everything needed to make Figures from the ground up, minus the modeler - and Hexagon and the DS bridge to and from it can certainly handle that task. It also has incredible tools for making everything that goes with those figures from the ground up - again, minus a modeler.
In Carrara, I would load an aniBlock and delete all of the key frames that didn't fit with what I want my character doing, and store the remaining key frames into an NLA (non-linear animation) clip (Carrara's version of an aniBlock). Then work out the rest of the body's motion either by hand or from yet another aniBlock's data. Then I'd use the graph editor to fix issues with joints due to my character's shape, size... whatever.
The blending of various aniBlock data can be done nearly the same as how I did it in Carrara, except with a bit more run-around. Bake to Studio keys, delete stuff, save as new aniBlock - Save.
But adding Daz Studio's Content Creation Tools to the mix was a real breakthrough! I went to town making dials on my figures that allow me to alter motion clip data without deleting any keys! Many times the 'correction' or change in a joint's rotation is something that can be done once at the start of the motion, and the change corrects every frame past that - unlike doing the same process at the starting frame on the joint specifically, which would require a similar change to each and every frame thereafter.
So I call these Anim + dials. I have a heaping slew of them now!
Beyond those crazy animation woes, I absolutely love the rest of Daz Studio! I love how I can change my interface on the fly. That's really freaking cool! It took me a while to start getting more used to using dials instead of handy manipulators. I do really wish that the manipulators in Daz Studio worked as functionally sound as they do in Carrara. I have no clue why so many basic things found in all other software has to feel and behave so broken in something as special as Daz Studio.
I mean, in Daz Studio we can load Victoria 1 clothing and make a permanent fit that works well on just about any other figure there is. And we can do it without having to go to school about it. That's freaking Special! But don't you dare hit that Delete key just because you just selected a key frame!!! And don't expect to find a command that will snap the origin to the center of the selected object. And don't go looking for handy, time-saving tweeners (like oscillate, noise, etc.,) or handles to adjust the curve. But you Can load in a character, hit render, and see beautiful SSS, refraction, reflection, transparency along with a plethora of other amazing options that Daz 3d and their PAs build into these beautiful material shaders! Kudos!
These wonky-crazy ways to animate in DaZ Studio (and the above listed complaints) no longer feel as much like a burden to me anymore, Just a way of life that I'm getting used to.
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Comments
I bought the Genesis 3 and 8 Face Controls and made a whole slew of Anim + dials for that as well. Love it!
So my new Rosie 7 has Genesis 8 facial rigging (product above explains how to do that) with full FACS controls along with a whole plethora of Anim + dials that I made for facial expressions prior to getting that.
A few frame from the conversation I just finished animating and am rendering now:
Looks really nice. I'm new to Daz and just trying to wrap my head around it myself. Look forward to results like these. :)
RE: GraphMate and KeyMate:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7945466/#Comment_7945466
I know. I was all excited about that. I've seen instructional videos from Daz vendors that recommended them for their product and those features shown are definitely Not in Daz Studio.
Cool, thanks!
I'll be getting some good workflow information articles and videos in the near future at my site, Dartanbeck.com
Right now it's a wealth of info about Carrara but I'm going to expand it big time for my recent couple of years with Daz Studio. While it does take a very different workflow, the similarities emerge as we get more and more used to doing things that Daz Studio likes.
The combination of dials I've made myself, using ERC Freeze before getting the FACS Face Controls, along with all the new ones I made for the FACS system, my Genesis 3 figures are quite expressive and fun to work with in that regard.
I'm going to be switching to Genesis 9 when I can, but it's still a bit out of my reach to get all the stuff I need to make that happen.
Here Rosie's telling a sad story
I've learned a lot about making control dials in this adventure. When I get to the write-up, you'll see incredible benefits to working in Daz Studio for your animations.
We can even write animations to dials.
Instead of maneuvering all sorts of various shaping morphs along with pose controls and joint rotations to get a good "Breathing" animation every time I need to do it, I simply store the whole process into a single control dial that goes to extremes, so I can really control the outcome due to the sensitivity of the dial - all set up and changeable on the fly.
With the help of my Anim + dials, I can run a generic idles aniBlock and use my dials to have her sit cross-legged, style her hair or lower her goggles over her eyes directly in the animation, so the hair and such simulates beautifully right along with it. Of course, I've created "Wearable" helpers for that as well. I am eager to share how this all works. Hmmm... anyone have some time they could sell for a really low price?
Which features are you missing, maybe a screenshot from one of the videos? I'm not an expert, but possibly someone might be able to find where a missing feature or two is hiding?
Love your stuff, by the way, looking forward to your instructional posts.
-- Walt Sterdan
Pretty magical that, besides her dForce Car Wash Girl tank top and headband, her costume is made for Victoria 3! Complicated Eve. The goggles and neck bands too. The beautiful, antique bastard sword is from Aeon Soul's The Legend, which I absolutely admire. Everything Aeon Soul makes... bravo! I'm really feeling the same about Linday. It's quite obvious that Linday put a Lot of time, research, and a whole pile of tests and tweaks into this hair. The advice given that comes with the product is absolutely invaluable to get started. As Linday says: dForce was not meant to be used this way so it requires a special way of working. I find it to be more than worth the extra effort on my part - and it gets better and better the more I try new animations.
Linday also makes something that just blows me away with glee: Animation Four Wheeler Template with the Addon: Car Chase AniBlocks for Animation Four Wheeler Template, which was made to work perfectly with Stonemason's Urban Sprawl 3.
The base product is worth its weight in gold on its own. Plenty of maneuvers for four wheelers to go through with a slick and simple process that works with literally Any four wheel vehicle one might dream up. It even hooks up to the steering wheel and animates its turning with respect to what the car is doing.
The Addon widens this whole thing to something truly amazing. I bought it long before I actually had Urban Sprawl, thinking that I could likely make it work with other city environments. Well, before I even tried the car chases, US3 went on sale. I begged Rosie and she let me grab it.
Okay, trying not to spoil anything, Car Chase 1 lead car gets bumped into a bit of a spin - landing it into a curb, where the front wheel bounces realistically as it hits the curb, then the rest of the car very naturally jolts into its spin out. So very cool - especially that it hits the curb of US3 perfectly!
The camera aniBlocks are awesome too! The example spin-out I just mentioned looks really cool in Camera A, which is like a movie camera trying its best to follow the chase through the city. Another camera resembles being in a helicopter as it tries to keep track of the pursuit. There are several camera animations for each of the three car chases which each are set up with aqnimations for two cars in the chase.
Urban Sprawl three block presets come populated with Stonemason's cool lower resolution vehicles, which really add to everything. The Sprawl is nicely complete and very resource friendly. I mocked up some animationd for some of his vehicles to be cruising around in my base scene that I've set up for filming these chases.
Now I'm going through the intense endeavor of Cyberpinking Urban Sprawl 3 - the whole layout that I have, which is all five city blocks, plus six full instances of them placed strategically around to keep any view from being devoid of building in the distance. So I'm using the Car Chase cameras to help me know which areas need to most attention.
Early in the process, so far I've only been using stuff from Polish's wonderful Cyberpunk Back Alley Bundle. I say Bundle because, although most of what I'm adding comes from only the Neon Signs pack, that pack also adds populated items to the other libraries set up for the bundle. So I'm using bits from the whole bundle.
Amazing how it's coming to life. The Back Alley Bundle has so many different signs that my whole first area of this immense city had very few duplicates. I used Daz Studio's Instancing Nodes to make more of everything as I moved on to other parts of the city. After more than half a day yesterday, I got a Lot done, but still have a lot to do.
I have also made groups of Predatron's LoRez people who do poverty-stricken animations among each other. Walking, Talking, or just Living. Storing these as Scene Subsets, complete with their aniBlocks (I bake their animations to aniBlocks for this purpose) so that I can jump the entire group to different parts of the city before the camera comes around - at which point they can be entirely different people playing entirely different animations. But they don't have to since they're only seen as a fast car goes whizzing past - and the camera's following that car!
With a little extra effort on my part, it's incredible how much of this stuff I can fit into a scene while keeping within the 6GB limit it takes for me to use my RTX cuda cores in the Iray renders - making them ultra-fast to render.
Here's a quick test render - eleven seconds - the steering wheel is animated through Linday's system mentioned above, so I animated Rosie a bit to reflect. Rather than using one of Linday's cameras, this is an in-car shot
Since I made that video, I've redone the materials for the car's interior. This is Kook'nFat's Nemesis car. Love it!!!
I've added a few things from Nightshift3D and edited the materials for Iray a bit. The wheels are one of the sets that Linady includes in the Animation Four Wheeler Template, though he also includes instructions (YouTube) for adding any wheels we want.
My Anim + control dials make these sorts of animations much easier than it would have been otherwise. We'll get deep into that soon.
I have to go play drums right now. I was trying to think of which videos had that in there when I wrote the post, but I just can't remember right now. I already have it in mind to look for one - so I'll report back when I find one! :)
I'm really glad that you're interested in this stuff. It's been a l o n g journey for me so far - and to switch from Carrara to Daz Studio at this point meant that I had to start over from scratch. I still Love my Carrara 8.5 Pro - I really do! But I'm also very relieved that all of this time spent learning Daz Studio has been a real game-changer for me.
So after I get going on the Daz Studio side of things, I'll also be doing a bunch of stuff that takes us back and forth between Daz Studio and Carrara to make the movie even better.
I love this stuff - and I Love Daz 3d and their incredibly talented Artists (and that includes the whole team - coders, staff... everyone!). They made this whole journey possible and a lot of fun!
That's why you'll see a lot of "Thanks Daz 3d" writings from me! :)
I like this slice of life about DAZ and the journey with it. I am one of the "unorthodox" users of DAZ as I use it mostly for animation with MMD and XNALara models (converted in Blender).
The posing tools in DAZ and its auto IK implementation is really useful for my workflow and allows me to animate something really quickly - which is just a girl driving a car.
DAZ scripting has allowed me to extend DAZ as the main tool for the above workflow and automate many things - I highly recommend learning it (really just Javascript). Otherwise other 3D tools make up for it, like Blender (for 3D conversion and mesh editing) and Cascaduer (more complex animation).
I'm always tempted to look at some scripts. I can't write code, but I can edit it sometimes. Use exsisting code to make something new, sort of thing.
I have a growing collection of helpful scripts that either get added to DS or I pick them up along the way. Very helpful and useful indeed!
My working habits probably differ from many other folks. It's fun to see how everybody sets up their interface to best fit their flow.
After watching Jen Greenlees' Learning Daz Studio - Basics (which I really like!) I've learned a lot about Studio's interface. I always knew how to dock and rearrange, but she has some other really useful ideas, tips and tricks in there that really helped me get myself set up how I like to work. Thanks Jen! You ROCK!!!
For example, some tools for me are just fine left behind the Window > Panes menu. Just open them when I need them and close them back down. Other things that I'm using all the time, I like to have docked. I also enjoy how easily we can resize certain aspects of our docked panes, like divide the vertical area in two to have separate toolboxes, arrange the tabs on the top instead of the side... all kinds of possibilities that are fun to play around with.
I used to have GenX2 docked at the bottom with the Timeline and aniMate 2+, and just drag that whole panel up when I'm using it.
But I realized that:
Same with Alberto's ABAS (animated textures system)(Love this thing!!!)(used in the demo image) - I find it to be a nice, smooth workflow to simply open it through Window > Panes, use it, then close the window until next time.
On the right (image) we can see a very small portion of my Anim + dials. This image shows only a few of the main body Anim + options that I like to keep together in this large category, then I also have Anim + menus within Hands, Head and Legs sections (within the Pose parameters menu) for more options related just to those parts. Some Hand, Head, Leg and Foot dials also reside in this main group - I set it up for what was convenient for my workflow.
The Hip rotation dials were a recent addition to set the facing of Rosie at the beginning of the actual animation for simulation purposes. I rarely need those but when I do they're really quite handy and quick to use. The "Posture Shift" controls adjust the rotations of the central rig between the head and hip. With these the head and hip parrallel relationship in space doesn't change, though translation along X and Z do occur. In better terms, if she's looking at something, no matter how we dial any or all three of these postures, she'll still be looking at what she was before. Also the hip remains completely unaffected, so they work across walk cycles nicely. I made these first to correct joint rotations that look great on, let's say Victoria 4, but not on Rosie 7, for example. But I've discovered since then that they are incredibly useful for many things, like shift a car, getting the right 'sit' in a chair or simply adding a bit more movement.
The Hand poses we see in this image are not the hand controls I normally use. These result in a simple, quick hand pose to remedy having no joint rotations on the fingers at all. But the Hands section has a much more robust hand animation system.
On the left we can see the structure of Rosie 7 Cyberpunk's stored base file.
"Cyberpunk Samurai" is the name I've given the costume. That listing in the Scene is a group containing all of the conforming clothing and the bits that are attached. Since conforming cloth has the same rigging structure as the figure it's conformed to, I was able to attach the Sword Node from Aeon Soul's The Legend to the harness clothing item she's wearing. This makes it easier to disable things for simulations and other situations when needed. We can also see that the Tank Top shirt isn't in that group. It is included in the Wearable file but is kept out of that group to be more efficient when I run it through dForce. The Face Controls are part of Rosie 7, so that's not even part of the Cyberpunk Samurai at all. Nor is the hair or headband.
Looks great but I would bomb out to Blender for animation, with Diffeomorphic. I mean if you're going to invest time in learning that would be priority number 1 for me.
That turned out to be highly successful for me, except that I lost patience trying to get this type of hair to work in Blender. I could make Blender hair that was curly and long (but didn't look as good), but the animations weren't going very well at all.
I seriously love what they've done to Blender in recent years. But since I've got this thing going so well in Studio, I simply don't have much of an urge to start over learning new software again. If I could start off (like I did in Studio) with something that works, but just needs tweaking and learning, that's entirely different.
Before switching to Studio ("switching isn't exactly the best term here) a friend and I tried feverishly to be able to get a workflow for simulating it in Carrara, but we never did get it. It was then when I started to realize how much I absolutely Love Iray for character rendering. Love It!!! The renders you see from me are very low quality by Iray standards. I barely give it a chance to compute. Yet I'm loving the results when I composite the clips together in Fusion and add some artistic expression... so fun.
This hair is wonderful (special to me because it does such a great job of looking and behaving like the real Rosie's (my wife) hair) and I haven't seen anything close to it yet - not for simulation/animation that actually looks good in motion. The closest thing I found was my own Carrara dynamic hair, which I also really like if it was more stable to render smoothly. Shader-based, it tends to twitch due to the curliness of it.
Here's my Carrara hair
Well, this one focuses more on how I made the hair
And here's the corresponding article
Dynamic Hair at Dartanbeck.com
Okay, I looked up a tutorial on GraphMate and KeyMate and they are definitely not what I thought they were. I think that everything that they were have been nicely added to Studio's "Advanced" portion of the Timeline. Compared to Carrara, LW, Modo, Max, Maya and probably any other animator, this is still very clunky.
Basically we're able to move keys around and delete them. See their curve in time, too.
Just take a peak at only some of the new features that were added to Carrara 8.5 Pro's already powerful graph editor:
Adjusting Amplitude, Timing and Scaling in the Graph Editor
See the little handles on each selected key in there? In Carrara we can grab one and alter the way the curve either comes into or goes out of the key - which is whatever joint is moving.
Each key has a handle going in opposite directions. They are locked to each other by default. We can "break" them and control each side independently.
Why is this important?
Have you ever had to add a bazillion tweaks between two keys because the result from the tweener was undesireable? These handles make it so that we can help out the tweener - tell it how we want each key to behave. This is a lot faster than having to set new keys at problem frames, but more importantly, it helps to make the whole motion more natural, unlike the jitters we get from per-key corrections.
That new marquee selection box is Amazing! When we drag a selection around a group of keys, the diferences in height and width along the timeline form a dashed 'box'. We can grab one of the edges and drag it to change the overall peek of the selection. That's tough to put to words. Say we grab the top edge of the box and drag it down, and those keys raise and lower the arm. Dargging the top edge downward will reduce the final height of the arm, and it will automatically smooth every key that's in the selection uniformly - so we don't have to delete keys.
It's quite often that we want to keep motion data intact. For other times, say we have a really glitchy BVH, we can ask Carrara to automatically smooth out our timeline according to certain input from us:
Using the Carrara 8.5 Animation Filters
After working in Carrara for over ten years I'm very spoiled. Almost the entirety of Carrara's interface has helpful animation helpers and automatic functions. Modifiers with built-in animation-use parameters, special FX primitives like fog, fire, clouds. Nearly every portion of a material can simply be animated. I mean... why not? Carrara's trees have wind and leaf rustle animation setting built right into the modeler.
Carrara's built-in tweeners (more available from free plugins)
Daz Studio Tweeners
Also, like Daz Studio if we start opening the hierarchy of our characters in the timeline we see keyframes for them, but each joint has more than one place where a tweener exsists - example X Rotate, Y Rotate, and Z Rotation, and then there's translate and morphs, etc.,
Unlike Daz Studio, in Carrara we can grab one of those keys while the rest of the hierarchy is still collapsed - even if that selection has keys for every joint in the figure, and do what we want with it - here and now. No fiddling around opening everything until we get to an actual single key. That might sound like a mouthful of nonesense, but it makes a Huge difference! There were a lot of times when I wanted to change the timing of various motions. No problem. I grab all the keys where I want to speed up the animation and Ctrl/drag the keys to the left. Dragging to the right slows them down. Alt/drag copies and pastes them when I let go of the left mouse. Fast. Fun. Simple. Powerful!
Explode modifier! Yeah!!! While not a perfect thing for ILM workflows, this little wonder gives us a set of parameters on when and how we want to blow up what ever is recieving the modifier! Gravity strength, velocity, size of bits, do they rotate after blasting apart? And that slider that's found Everywhere in Carrara: Completion. So we can even animate the effect going back and forth between exploding and reversing, if we want.
Man, I love Carrara!
But here I am - and I'm now loving Daz Studio too! It just gives me headaches. But Carrara's fully capable of doing that too! ;)
Something that folks should know about Carrara - if they've never tried it:
From the very first concept of making it, the goal has always been to make it powerful like LightWave, but with a simplified, easy to use interface. These guys were working for Metacreations at the time when Metacreations had Poser and possibly Bryce.
Deadlines caused them to release it before it was ready, giving it a rather poor start. Metacreations decided to scrap it. One of the leaders of the team formed a new company: Eovia, and bought Carrara and released a finished version: Carrara 1.1
I have a fun little History of Carrara as well as the text from a promo for Eovia's first release under their banner.
Before Daz 3d took Carrara in, Carrara 5 Pro could open and use Poser/Daz 3d figures through the use of a plugin (I believe it came with Pro) called TransPoser. Daz acquired Carrara and their first release was the incredible Carrara 6 and 6 Pro. Carrara 6 didn't need TrasPoser anymore, for it had its own Poser Runtime environment built in! I believe 6 was also the first release with Carrara's very cool dynamic hair.
Carrara 6 is also the oldest version of Carrara I own, but never installed it. I bought Figures, Characters and Avatars, by Les Pardew (then sold by Daz 3d as a paperback) which came with a copy of Carrara 6 Pro and Hexagon along with a nice bunch of Daz goodies. At the same time I bought an upgrade to Carrara 7 Pro, and Carrara 8 Pro was nearing completion, and they had a deal: Buy Carrara 7 and get 8 beta now and the full version upon release. I still feel like installing it on something to see what 6 looked like.
When I started using Carrara 8.5 Pro beta, I could no longer use Carrara 8 - I loved the changes so much. Bummer to see it go into netherware. I hope some day Daz 3d decides to dust it off and put it back on the slab! :)
Okay - enough of that. Back to Loving Daz Studio!
Special Thanks to all of you out there making helpful tutorials. Those things really help! Sickleyield, esha, Jen Greenlees, RiversoftArt, Alvin Bemar, Jay (WP Guru) Versluis and others...
...and let's not forget Daz 3d! For they make some awesome tuts!!! (I wish they didn't remove the cool legacy videos from public view though. Those made for a cool time capsule!)
Thanks So Much!!!
Love Ya!!!
I've never used Carrara, but it looked like it was pretty powerful. Thanks for putting this presentation together.
TCB is, in fact, just a Bezier curve, but the T, C, and B coeficients give a slightly more intuitive way of determining the control points. It's also the same as the velocity handles found in better animation environments; they also just compute the control points with the most intuitive notion.
Nice work！
@Dartanbeck Really nice work. the simulation looks really good . The only problem i get using dforce hair in animation is that after about 180 keyframes or around the 5 second mark on the timeline of simulation in the animation the hair looks as though its falling out. like the character had chemo or something. which is very noticeable in a couple of my animations. I have not found a solution for it yet on why it looks like it falling out i've been playing with the gravity settings and stuff. which does seem to help run the simulation longer. Though if you set the gravity to lightly the hair goes everywhere. like a bad day in a hurricane.. but it seems the longer the animation simulation runs using long hair the worst the effect of hair falling out becomes. a good example of this effect would be in open scenes of this animation.
That's been my experience anyway. But I lovein what your doing keep up the good work
@Ivy
That example video is from years ago. That's Carrara dynamic hair, which won't fall out on you ;)
This is the dForce hair I'm using now. It's not strand-based so it doesn't fall out either. I love this hair!
Thanks! I still don't like that I have no control over its behavior. Sometimes I feel that my animation could improve if I delete some keys, but doing so sends the joints in impossible directions and DS freezes.
But animation, no matter what software one uses, is filled with obstacles. We just overcome, right?
Enter my new solution... the Anim + dials!!! :)
So, if anybody's interested, I'm using dForce on the hair and the shirt and VWD for the soft-body physics with my own custom (much more subtle) movement settings.
Thanks Crosswind!