Animation without animation blocks
jonathanokelley81
Posts: 60
in Art Studio
does anyone know of any of the tutorials in or out of the store that shows how to make animations with out the aniblocks that are sold in the store I cant find any thing that shows how to actually do your own animations. I get is using poses and puppeteer or aniblocks, and i get that all of the tutorial material is geared towards being advertisement for the store but it would be nice if you could find some material on creating something for your self.
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You can make your own aniblock with Puppeteer!
These links might be helpful to get you started.
I still have found plenty on walk cycles but I want to attempt something like specific fight moves I guess it would be something like CQC from metal gear solid but finding something that strays from a common walk cycle I even tried digital tutors but couldn't find much on starting animation as far as the mechanics "thanks for the links knittingmommy that gets me further than i was" I really appreciate it I tried some of the 3D artist mags I have they weren't much help yet
I've been working on a set of aniblocks so that I can recreate my son's kata in animation. All of what I've done for each movement has been in puppeteer and turned into an aniblock that I could then build into a more complicated series of movements. It works really well. The trick is just to figure out how you want to break down each movement into individual aniblocks and then join them together after into one bigger animation. For the karate moves, I split the top part of the body up from the bottom part and did those animations separately which makes sincing them up later on the keyline easier. I'm still learning, but I'm having fun with it.
Do you know or does anyone know if there is any mocap that works with Daz 3D, or would I have to import and possibly re-rigg characters for use in another program well not re-rigg but convert some how I know about Iclone, I know that this is the one advertised on the daz store and I am not so much a fan I tried it for a while and found it not so useful more a marketing gimmick rather than a actual animation suite I know that some of the aniblocks are mocap keys as advertised this is why I ask
When you import BVH files into DAZ (however they may have been created), you can edit the mapping.
- Greg
I'm not against genesis 3 I just won't use it for animation. For me it would be just easier to stick with genesis 2 and older generation4 characters that work with BVH files, aniblocks and mocaps. the problem is genesis 3 has not caught up in animation content and properly never will before genesis 4 is released.
Though hear is a question for you all? Aren't you tried to have a work around to make your older animation content files work like they use? . have you tried making motions files for genesis3? was it worth your time? how they turn out?
Oh sure Genesis 3 looks nice in a still render art form. My experience has been g3 is a real turd to work with in animation. sometimes newer/better is not better at all, but just harder to work with if your an animator. sometimes its best to know when your beat and stick with what you know. until things catch up with the technology at hand. I hand key frame content all the time, I have 11 Genesis 3 aniblocks I created when I was testing it for animation. and I can tell you. from my point of view genesis 3 is not worth the time for me to make motion files, because it would be the only character that can use them, which is silly when I have hard drives full of older characters and animation content that are all willing to use the same motion files with out any work around. when doing animation. the last thing you want is any more work than you need to get your scenes done.
Though I get it some people are into challenges, & some people are into BMSD and self inflicted torture as well. & I do understand that maybe that is all you can get in your content folder is genesis3 because you are so new to the game. Then want to advise you that you got a long hard road ahead making motions files to build your animation library/ and with all that work. the motion files you make will only work for Genesis 3. Myself, I tend to find simpler solutions to create animation not harder. So i'm waiting until genesis 4 is released and if it plays nice with Genesis 3, meaning the compatibility is not broken like daz has done with every other new character release. . then it would worth to start making motion files for g3 & g4 characters because you will have at least 2 characters that can use your motions files.. but putting in tons of work hand keyframing animation for one character mesh is so not worth the time from my experience.
But that is my opinion other opinions may vary!
PS I have some links to some great sites for motions files but I'm not allowed to post them in the Daz forum because they lead to other 3d stores Sorry
Ivy I totally agree that new isn't always better, do you know of any good books on general 3D animation as far as the basics that are not necessarily tied to Daz just animation its self? I am having a hard time with keyword searches, I can find some stuff but it is very basic but not anything besides walk cycles or expression. I know modeling well but animation is new to me, I haven't been able to find any books on amazon or at Barnes and noble I appreciate the previous post, thanks for the info.
Jonathan,
Realistic animation of people can work better using pose to pose as you can better focus on details. Cartoon animation can work using the active manipulation of bones or poses and the traditional squash and stretch can cover much.
These books can help you:
The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators by Richard WIlliams
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair
Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks
Going to Amazon and looking for animation books will bring up many more.
There is a heck of a learning curve with any animation software so daz is not alone in that aspect. the more powerful the animation software the steeper the learning curve. The only difference is with every new release of the daz studio software . Daz has broke compatibility with its older generation characters. where as other animations software does not.. that makes animating with daz studio much more difficult to work with every time there is a new product or software release By daz studio.
When Autodesk went to DRM cloud for their software releases. they did not break the file compatibility's meaning if you had Autodesk suite 2010 that all your models you made and BVH animation files that you create will still work with the Autodesk suite DRM cloud 2016 version. same as with blender, Vue.& poser
With daz studio every new release since genesis came out has broke compatibly with older content. you had to relearn and remakes animations files so that work with the new character mesh. Genesis 3 was the straw that broke my back on wanting to use it in animation. because it totally removed itself from older generations content
Now on information about animation and film making , I suggest before you spend money on any books it maybe worth your time and money investigate and to sign up for a paid subscriptions library to https://www.lynda.com it was the singel best thing i ever did to learn 3d animation. it has a a very large collection of information & videos on How too begin film productions and down and dirty techniques on film production & animation I started with this portion first https://www.lynda.com/Filmmaking-training-tutorials/1314-0.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=l1-US-Search-Vid-Filmmaking&cid=l1-us:en:ps:lp:prosc:s78:1314:all:google:mbm-film_production_books&utm_content=64897058346&utm_term=%2Bfilm%20%2Bproduction%20%2Bbooks&device=c
Now as far as books go . the first book I ever bought I found on Amazon and is called The Encyclopedia of Animation Techniques: A Comprehensive Step-By-Step Directory of Techniques, with an Inspirational Gallery of Finished Works
which is a great book to get you started. But there is more to animation that keyframing . there is Camera POV's and Lighting techniques, Film editing and Sound editing .. so for that I highly recomened getting a subscription to https://www.lynda.com
they have everything you will ever need to know about software and film production including animation
The good thing with the advent of G3, there are better and more natural pose packs. It's not too hard to set up your own animations pose to pose. The face bones in G3 help with expressions. It is bad that older files are not real compatible on their own as Ivy said. There's however a script that will convert G2 animations to G3 - YMMV, some may need adjusting - http://www.daz3d.com/animation-conversion-genesis-2-to-genesis-3
And one for converting poses from G2 - G3 - again YMMV - you need to do these conversions to the base Gen 3 figure, save them, and then apply them to your morphed figure. http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-to-genesis-3-pose-converter
Hi Kevin Sanderson
I have that script I bought it when it came out hoping to solve my motion issues with g3. I was rather disappointed at how much tweaking i had to do after I applied the conversion script, because the fingers on the hands, always seem to need tweaking and the sometimes the legs still did not work with certain ani-blocks & it does not work converted over the face ani bocls right either. and forget using it for BVH files . its a good tool for basic conversions of gen4 aniblocks , it just does not work on BVH and some aniblocks with 250 frames & none of the real-iilousion mocaps , so the best way to make motions files for g3 is to either hand keyframe the motions or if your lucky and h have a xbox Konetic & use the Markerless Mocap for Animation tools with it which captures motions for gaming so you can make your own mocaps and convert them to aniblocks for g3, which surprisingly works pretty good. its just costly as hell. for all the gear. But that is just my opinion
At the moment, I really prefer pose to pose. I've been tempted about the mocap, but that's a lot of data to edit from what I've read. This is pose to pose with some adjustments to the poses and expressions:
very nice Kevin,
I think I would consider pose to pose still hand key framing your motion files. I use a lot of pose to pose myself for short scenes, But for a 10 minute film its going to take you forever to make all the motion files needed. The street racing animation I'm just getting done is about 90% hand keyframe and its taken me 3 times longer than if i would have used motion files. so there are trade offs I guess depending on your patient level
Thank you, Ivy!
As slow as I move it won't make a difference! ;)
with all that and the limints on the questions we can ask here on the forum, does anyone know any tricks for matching daz amimation to live action video. I bought keymate and graphmate years ago but havent to date got a good grasp on how actually use them, this is due to lack of actual tutorial material when it comes to Daz studio. I have tried matching some live action sequences from movies i.e fight scenes but they are shakey at best this is the only route i can see using daz to actually animate anything orignal aniamtions anyway
Hi I agree with the general sentiment here that using genesis3 for animation is barely a worthwhile effort.
I only Do so for commercial animation product creation.
That said there is a FREE script to retarget Motion from earlier Figures to G3 that Frankly works even better than the paid one already linked earlier in the thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/109961/pose-and-animation-conversion-for-multiple-generations-of-daz-figures#latest
@kevin Sanderson
Pose to pose animation ,using puppeteer, is useful for certain situations where the character has their feet firmly planted and is stationary.
But for any locomotion or movement involving the feet ,
hand key framing in Daz studio is an exercise in futility.
Even with GraphMate & KeyMate
This because Daz studio ( like poser) Does NOT posess a proper IK solver for proper foot contact with ground planes.
One needs to learn the basic fundamentals of key frame animation using a Graph&keyframe editor
Daz studio offers both of these tools as paid addon.
However for realistic fight scenes one would need a ragdoll physics engine
particulary for the Hits & Falls
I used "Endorphin" for this sequence
I read through this book: The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4 by Paolo Ciccone. It's not brand new, so some buttons may not be where the book says, but it's not hard to follow along.
It has a section on animation, and goes through the technical aspect of animating in Daz Studio. Specifically, it recommends GraphMate and KeyMate, and shows how they work as well. It doesn't go into very much depth, but it's a good starting point. Others have suggested good places to learn the art of animating in general.
Here's a walk cycle I recently finished making using mostly KeyMate and Genesis 3: