Motion Capture and Daz3d currently?

GoblinMarketStudio

So if one were going to try to animation with Daz3d and motion capture, what would work best currently, say under $1000?   There are new types of solutions not just suits now, like the webcam based Mocap4all or the VR based ones, like Animotive.

I was wondering what people have tried and what works?

No one has really asked about this since 2021, so I thought a new thread might be in order.

wolf359

What generation of Genesis would you be targeting?
 

It does not matter what EXTERNAL solution you use from some  new video to AI process or traditional “mocap suits”
You will need a software that can retarget the captured/generated motion to whatever genesis rig you use and EXPORT a BVH back to Daz studio.

Right now your options are Reallusion Iclone/CC4
Autodesk Motionbuilder
Autodesk Maya
There is a new monthly rental mocap library service called “HEAT” that has said they will “support” Daz but I am Not sure if they will offer to retarget your self created mocap from AI ,videos or suits etc.

WendyLuvsCatz

there are many threads on bringing in mocaps to DAZ studio

that is the biggest hurdle

wolf359 and others have some solutions, the PA's use MotionBuilder by Autodesk which costs a lot!!!

all my own solutions use V4 and M4 and conversion to later figures

it's up to DAZ if they want to make an easier pipeline but I suspect it's not as profitable as selling motions

Gordig

WendyLuvsCatz said:

the PA's use MotionBuilder by Autodesk which costs a lot!!!

I haven't used any actual mocap within Houdini, but it does have really powerful tools for retargeting animations. I've adapted a bunch of Mixamo animations to G8, for example.

GoblinMarketStudio

wolf359 said:

What generation of Genesis would you be targeting?

Gen8 would be the most likely.  I have converted several 3d scan based figures to gen8

cain-x

Look into Cascadeur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs_dL6L_OaA

Dartanbeck

I love this post by Wolf in another thread:

wolf359 said:

Blender is affordable Daz inc supports it.

https://www.daz3d.com/blender-bridge
 

Maya - $1,875/year or $235/month - stop paying, stops working

iClone - $599 - not too bad if this license includes the ability to export motions back to Daz 3D figures easily

Autodesk Motionbuilder - $3,180/year or $400/month - stop paying, stops working

Houdini - $1,995 perpetual + yearly maint ($995) NODE LOCKED (whatever that means - didn't feel like finding out) - not bad if you make money using it

Carrara 8.5 Pro - $286 Perpetual - Currently for Daz + Members (time of this writing) $65 Perpetual - Lacks support beyond Genesis 1, partial support for Genesis 2

For clarity on costs

Blender FOSS/ GPL-$0 literally becomes your personal property for life
AutoRig pro -$40 purchase  with lifetime free updates.

Rig any biped humanoid in minutes also supports quadripeds, mechs tentacled aliens etc etc.
Industry standard HumanIK control rig for both manual key frame animation and
Built-in mocap retarget system with presets to import motion data from: 
Mixamo
Rokoko (suits)
perception neuron(suits)
Deep motion
Reallusion IcloneCC3/4
unreal engine skeleton
Unity,
Daz Studio
MB lab
Xsense (suits)
Wonder studio AI (Video to mocap )
and manual remap motion datafrom any biped without a preset such as poser, endorphin online free BVH archives  etc
and save custom preset for later reuse.
Also has ability to trigger joint control morps
if you take the time to sculpt them in blender.

If addon developer quits or dies and new Blender version breaks any older adandoned addons
ALL previous versions of Blender permanently available for  redownload at Blender website.
unlimited multiple version of blender can be run on same computer with ZERO conflicts 
removing any fear of updating to new version.

Built-in Pyro and Fluid Dynamics engine (mantaflow)
also animated VBD Smoke& pyro import from FREE version of Houdini Apprentice(Perpetual)
Film production quality Cycles Unbiased render engine will work with NON NVIDIA GPU computers
even CPU only machines with intel integrated graphics.( slower of course)

Realtime Viewport EEVEE render Engine both have cinematic motion blur.
Fully supports Windows Mac & linux
Two  FREE  Daz figure and content importers direct from DS content library  for Daz native content inside blender with material conversion for Cycles & EEVEE (Diffeomoprhic & Daz to Blender)
  

Actors in StarWars video below are a mixture of Daz genesis 8 figures and free models from sketchfab 
ALL rigged & animated with ARP in Blender. 
Daz figures retains facial lipsync import ability from Daz mimic,Anilip2, pose recorder or 
facemojo.
For sale in the Daz store https://www.daz3d.com/shop
Any Blender animation can be converted  to nonlinear motion clip that can be blended & layered with other clips

Don’t have the  $40 for Auto Rig pro?
use FREE Diffeomorphic and Blender native rigify control rig
and FREE Rokoko and /or Exp kit retargeting addons.
Making your total costs ZERO 

 

 

cain-x

Nice breakdown.

To add - AccuRig is free (auto rigging tool) https://actorcore.reallusion.com/auto-rig/accurig

Using CATS Blender plugin (also free) to convert any rigged character to pmx format (think MMD, using mmd_tools). Then import into DAZ using MMDImporter plugin by shinokawa. Some textures may get messed up (since DAZ does not support textures with transparency/alpha) but that's always the case when moving between 3D apps.

Gordig

Dartanbeck said:

I love this post by Wolf in another thread:

It's pretty inaccurate about costs, though, because both Maya and Houdini are available for much less than he cited. Maya Indie is $305/year and Houdini Indie is $269/year. The requirement for both is your annual revenue is less than $100,000, and if you're making that much money off your work, you can afford the full versions anyway. This isn't an argument for or against any particular program, just pointing out that he's being lazy with the facts. If you want to use Blender, go ahead and do that. If you want to use Maya or Houdini, they're much more affordable than he wants you to think.

edit: and Carrara has been available for much less than $65, if that's something you're interested in.

wolf359

just pointing out that he's being lazy with the facts. If you want to use Blender, go ahead and do that. If you want to use Maya or Houdini, they're much more affordable than he wants you to think.

@Gordig
FYI, I forgot to put the Maya ,Houdini,Iclone pricing
in quotes as those full prices were originally posted by Dartanbeck

in this thread: 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8549021/#Comment_8549021
Seemingly to compare their costs to using Daz studio to animate.

I actually have Both Iclone and Maya,even an older C4D R26, along with Blender and  the free Houdini apprentice.
This is which I gave such a detailed list of Blenders features to highlight
that it was NOT a truly fair comparison to mention those expensive apps from Autodesk & SideFX as  character animation alternatives to Daz studio, without mentioning Blender which is a far superior/cheaper Character animation alternative to Daz studio even with the $40 Autorig pro addon when you factor in the $61 dollar cost to upgrade to the “full” version of AniMate 2 not to mention needing the various “bone minion”bundles and everything else mentioned in Dartanbeck’s Daz studio methodology. 

 

Dartanbeck

Gordig said:

Dartanbeck said:

I love this post by Wolf in another thread:

It's pretty inaccurate about costs, though, because both Maya and Houdini are available for much less than he cited. Maya Indie is $305/year and Houdini Indie is $269/year. The requirement for both is your annual revenue is less than $100,000, and if you're making that much money off your work, you can afford the full versions anyway. This isn't an argument for or against any particular program, just pointing out that he's being lazy with the facts. If you want to use Blender, go ahead and do that. If you want to use Maya or Houdini, they're much more affordable than he wants you to think.

edit: and Carrara has been available for much less than $65, if that's something you're interested in.

Yep. That was me shopping them on the day I made that post. I got the pricing straight from their websites.