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Thanks Ivy that means alot coming from you.
Obviously I am using the Dragonstorm script
but as you already know ,it is only a rough starting point
for motion retargeting to G3.
I sincerely want to support this generation with motion products..I do
However Despite the marketing hype about G3 being "more compatible with other industry standard programs"
the G3 rig is ..broken..sorry but it is
Sure the face bones offer a tremdous advantage in Maya or Unity for talking and face expressions
but there are confirmed flaws in the rig when imported into Motionbuilder.
Motionbuilder user "a-sennove: reports:
and a Daz employees response:
You see Genesis 3 is a "baked cake"
far too late to alter the recipe.
what is truly frustrating is its inexplicable refusal to accept its own custom BVH motion back in Daz studio
that we create in Iclone pro after loading & characterizing & animating G3 in Iclone.
unlike G2,G1 m4,v4,m3,v3,m2,v2 whom all take their Iclone created motion with only minor need for adjustments.
In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter whether someone considers Daz professional software or not, if professionals are in fact using it in any capacity in their pipeline. As an artist tool, Daz is incredible, if people are finding other applications for it that's great and maybe Daz might begin to cater to that market more down the road, but people who simply label the software without looking at it's strengths are doing it a dis-service in my opinion.
Again using the DSLR analogy. DSLR's were not amateur, or "non-professional" cameras, they were pro cameras that people discovered could be used for something else, and that something else became the main reason people started to really look at them. Sometimes you need to quantify your position. I was curious to know how many people were using Daz for animation, because the size of that market is going to determine how serious programmers are going to be in catering to that market.
I only really do stills right now. I am learning to do animation in DS, though. I've learned lots and it is fun to see what I have done come to life. Ivy is like my idol when it comes to DS animations. I love her Karate Girl series.
Yet, I see it as a "catch 22" situation; many serious animators don't use it because of rigging and other issues, and it's likely that DAZ (or the PAs that did the animation plugins) won't give fixing those issues unless more folks start using it for that.
this walk cycle was done by skamotion in poser
i have never seen a none mocap normal walk cycle done in studio thats decent
tried myself often
I LOVE using DAZ studio for animation! ---- and everything else. It's has a simple interface to use and as a formerly newb of the software one year ago, I've really just enjoyed the opportunity that the learning curve in DAZ3D is incredibly easy!
I honestly use DAZ primarily for frame stills in my comicbooks, but recently, I've been putting together an animated trailer in order to promote my comic on Patreon by using DAZ Studio for the character design, animation, and also in creation of my personal animated logo.
SEE YOUTUBE LINK BELOW:
I created this very short segment of animation 80% in DAZ Studio, 10% in Photoshop, and 10% in Roxio 10 Video Editor. It's not done yet, but I'm nearly 50% completed, thus far.
As a former "drawn by hand animator artist," I find that the animation timeline, graphmate, and aniblocks in DAZ are very simple once you understand the fundamentals of sequence and movement in animation.
The timeline of DAZ animation is similar to that of Photoshop, Flash, ToonBoom, and Anime Studio - so I personally was able to dive right in without having to get more than a few basics of understanding on YouTube.
I hope DAZ never removes the animation option in their software, because I'm hooked.
PS: I know that iClone and the animation pipeline from Reallusion are the 'way-to-go' as far as animation simplicity standards are, but why should I spend $600 for a ton of content, lose the time to have to learn a whole new program that I might be uncomfortable with, and otherwise spend my cash elsewhere to upgrade the seven million things I've got to purchase for THAT other program, when I can spend all my cash on DAZ and their seven million things here? <---- plus, I only need to invest in models, poses, textures, and a few lights here.
(Yeah, I know Reallusion offers free trials of their software, but I honestly don't have the time).
(((Blush)))
A great start to something bigger :)
Exactly the way I think one should look at it at this stage.
Btw. Those Karate Girl shorts are a lot of fun.
This is a fun animation I did a few years back, its is very entertaining , it starts out a little slow. but all done with in Daz Studio. effects and everything. tons of sets and products used. so I have them listed at the end of the fiim.
Zelda Raines & The Wizards Castle . HD Daz Studio Animation
How can someone starting out in doing animation with Daz3d with only having the animate lite that comes with the daz software? Is there a true beginners guide to doing animtaion?
I'm totally subscribing to you on YouTube. Your camera work is phenomenal in DAZ, and you're a very good teacher to newbies, like me, as I see your angles, timing, pan and zooms all being integrated into each shot/render sequence that you make.
*faints* OMIGOSH!
I can't get over your twelve minute animation on this thread! I'm positively dying of insomnia lately just trying to get enough footage time for a two minute trailer with music and such.
---mind blown---
I think DAZ has a freebie on this site somewhere. Check YouTube for more instruction. They always have something to help.
and while I tried to star with AniMate Lite, I found that in the end the easiest way to streamline everything by animating in DAZ is by purchasing all the full plug-ins: AniMate 2, GraphMate, and Keymate.
Dreamlight has a 70% sale on his animation tutorials in the Dreamlight flash sale today. I've watched a few of his vids for the basics, but what I found helped me the most in the end is to understand that everything in DAZ is a physical object that be can moved up and down and left and right. Even cameras and lighting become tangible objects that can be manipulated in a timeline to depict movement of some sort. (I've actually kind of happy over that one because I can make set pieces move and make the camera circle around my characters 180 degrees in realtime.
I'm a newbie animator in DAZ and I'm having all kinds of fun.
Thank you very much, that was a very nice compliment :) Ii makes me happy if I have inspired anyone to use daz for telling their stories. , the biggest thing with animating daz studio is knowing how studio works for still rendering. once you master those skills animation will come much easier. . learning to create render art require proper lighting, Camera POV's etc. which those skill are a must for animation. it also helps to have a good work flow and organization.
This was a older animation I did back in 2012 that YouTube killed my HD quality
Diane Dublin - Dragon Hunter
Our story begin with a adventurous Celtic girl who is seeking her dragon & fortune
Created using Poser & Daz studio. Software.
That was SUPER AWESOME MEGA COOL!!! Thank you ever so much for sharing, Ivy!
Your animations are definitely filled with a lot of patience and love, an artistic eye, and of course, lots of monetary investment into Poser & DAZ and compatible content per each program. I see so many things from the many different 3D sites (I guess those of us who live on these sites tend to recognize certain products and which sites they come from eventually).
I like your short animation stories. In some places you add some humor, which always adds a bit of unpredictability to the equation of a story, I suppose. I don't know, but I like the breif interlude. (I'm speaking of the frustrated Dragon Hunter Princess, but am also thinking of your Canada Goose video as I type this). Your stories are very original. (I wish my stuff was original, but I usually output mainly piggy-back fairytale fancomics with some sort of Gregory Maguire-esque twist at the endings).
Hey! The lava tends to give my computer hiccups (and sometimes the grass too) when it comes to speed rendering. Did you have any issues with speed during the making of this with in the cave scene and the field scene with the trees and grass? I have some of Dreamlights vids from way back to help speed things up by tweaking parameters... you'd think I use them, right? I've been using Ecomantics recently, which has saved me lots of headaches - but still, the Raytracing is not as nice (or accurate) with flat trees as it is with 3D ones.
Overall, I'm addicted to animating in DAZ. It's going to be hard to pull myself back to stills for a while. <--- You can tell I'm rendering an image series currently, as my system is too bogged down to do anything else, but I welcome the break. Setting up everything gets exhausting and takes so long. The end results are totally worth it.
When my trailer is done, if I can find this thread again - I'll share it here with you!
@ Aiijuin Graphics
It usually takes about 3 months for me to make a animation, . I have been making animations for for a few years so I learned early on how to modify scenes for quick rendering with better quality. Sometimes just something as simple as modifying a texture can speed up your whole render time for a scene. then there are lighting techniques you need to learn because the type lights you generally use for Still art rendering will not work as well for animation because they tend to give you longer rendering times . Its a lot of trial and error. I will render 100's of stills for testing lighting to get the best render times that will also give me the results I am looking for. so like i said its mostly trial and error. and experience from just working with animation over time.
The dragon hunter film is actual a very good HD quality film that does not appear that way on you tube for some reason, I have thought of uploading it to Daily motion of Vimeo. but all in all ,it took me about 3 months to complete the animations. I like to try to list all the products and content i use in a film this way it helps other like yourself to see what I used or have kit bashed together. Something else you will learn is Camera angles are your best friend. I try to make my camera POV give me the most bang for my buck where i can get 2 or 3 different shots with the same scene. and try to set up the POV for th next scene to make the animation appear seamless. . The best advice I can ever give someone is to make the stories you like to watch yourself. because if you do then it won't matter how long the film takes you will not be as sick of the long renders. I also try to leave my scenes with long renders, too render at night when I'm sleeping. My longest time rendering a flim was Karate Girl in the Dragon warrior , which took me forever ( 120 days) to complete because of the in programming FX.
Indeed this is the best advise and also @Aiijuin Graphics ,Dont worry about being completly original.
We have reached the point in human history where every story is going to be Derivative to some degree.
( Look at the latest star wars)
My Current personl project "Galactus Rising"
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/94651/the-official-galactus-rising-wip-thread#latest
,has major story elements that are lifted Directly from certain Marvel comic book storylines that I personally wanted to see as CG/3D animated films.
So instead of complaining that
"they" are not animating the stories I want to see, I decided to Produce the animated stories myself.
This is were having two computers is a real advantage as All of my Character animation is Done in Iclone,&Daz studio on my Win7 PC but ultimately rendered in Maxon Cinema4D on my Mac which often goes for days at a time
rendering out uncompressed targas.
While I set up the next animation on my PC
.....or goof off on Google+ or here at the Daz forums.....like i'm doing now
I've used it for both but mostly static images.
I am really enjoying all your animations, Ivy !
I'm happy you enjoyed them.. I have only made one test animation since i started using daz studio to make animations.
I did a Victoria 6 / Genesis 2 Female(s) SKAmotion High Heel Walk aniBlock Test. But I wanted to do something different than just a girl walking on a blank screen like everyone else does. so this was what I came up with trying to be creative.
Involuntary Obedience Training
I'm conflicted about this "can you make decent animation using Daz Studio?"
I can. And I'll say that with iClone or Carrara. I think any resourceful/ determined/ patience++ self-trained CG users can do it too. The main issue for "determined" sorts like myself, is hmmmm which one is more efficient for my chosen genre/ theme?
3D toons for kids, all possible. Pick any under $1000 tools and keep at it, if you're talented you'll get paid too.
If you had to use Daz Studio, however, make sure there's no bouncy pigtails or animals ears or cute floppy frilly skirts. Definitely avoid liquid, ocean waves or lightning. Forget about Roadrunne-ish character action or martial art or wrestlings or ballet or gymnastics, unless manual Transform param track by track clean up sounds like fun to you.
Sci fi in Daz, depends. As long as they're NPRs with no collisions or explosions or water or wind or moving hair or talking. Keep it non-serious too. Hm then what's left? Well, goofy cheesy non-action or GRAVITY-DEFYING sci fi toon is totally possible in Daz Studio. See Wendy's style.
My chosen genre, sitcom-ish with some silly dancey talky animals with feathers and humans with big ears and big dynamic hair is unfortunately full of animated actions. But I know what I'm getting myself into. MCasual is also a savior.
So back to the big Q:
Can Daz Studio help with BASIC BASIC animation needs, if only just accessorizing your stock actors using bought content?
How many steps to get your actors to land on the "Daz ground"?
How long does it take to do the simplest thing: hang earrings (or a lapel pin) on your Daz Genesis every changed pose?
The answer would make any intermediate animator go, WWWHHHHAAATTTT??? lol
In a Department Store and fashion-centered CG tool, a poor prosumer can't get a pair of earings to hang right without 230 clicks workaround!
All it takes is a simple attach-then-sim live physics operation. Available in iClone/ Carrara/ Poser by default...
Live physics makes complete sense with a tool that labels itself a Character Posing and Object Manipulating tool! All earings or nose rings or danglies are balljoint pre-fab or dynamic-enabled by PA vendors, etc. Prosumer just have to press button and yay, everything hangs and bounce properly! How FUN is that?
Or is fun not what DS is about?
It's odd, 2016, Daz Studio is still edgy in renderer, product design, and even GUI, but stuck in my great grandma's idea of dynamic efficiency.
That's why I occasionally worry that one day Daz Studio will also go the way of the dodos like Poser, once an animator's fun tool now a wasteland of last gen frozen-pretty-doll collectors who'd spend hours tweaking ONE FRAME POSE in one spot, and then 3 hours rendering ONE shot.
Typically, animators deal with hundreds of frames per session, and 30 seconds one frame. There's a time management gap here! Are we moving forward or stuck in a muddy workflow with clay like hair morphs pretending to be dynamic?
But I'm keeping my faith because I see the positive signs that there are more and more dynamic hobby animators beginning to appear in the Daz scene!
Animation tools improvement = more fun posing dolls and arranging trees and making art, instead of much ado about 1996 era earring concerns!
.....
I'm thankful though, now that official Daz3D video channel in the last 6 months features like, 80% animation focus! Why thankful?
The excuse of "Daz Studio is meant for stills not animation that's why we're so lacking in the animation basics!" is no more! Yay!
So keep up this kind of action oriented convo!! Do the dance! <<<~
~>>>
That's the spirit!
I want to see more stories, told through a still frame or 900 frames.
I will use the most inspiring and efficient tools to get there... $30 or $3000, it still has to be fun!
230 clicks to hang sexy amazing awesome earrings the right way, or fake dynamic hair manually, decidedly not very fun!
I would not have ever called poser "a fun animators tool"
as its IK solver is actually worse than the primitive IK"pins"
in Daz studio,
This is because posers IK is All or nothing
in that if you use IK at the begining of your animtion to pin the characters feet for a stoop or squat motion, later down the timeline when you turn off IK it will ruin any lower body animation by tryin to repin the figures feet later in the animation. This fatal malfunction still exists in poser "pro" 2014
The real issue here is development costs and ultimately the cost
vs feature set for the aspiring animator.
Daz studio: -$0 USD
Keymate (Dopesheet):-$20 USD
Graphmate:-$20 USD
aniMate 2 (Full version)-$60 USD
and assuming a person insists on using Genesis 3 lets throw in Dragonstorms G2 to G3 retargeting
script for experienced users who have invested in Graph& keymate as you will need them to fix those frames where G3 inevitably refuses to obey the Dragonstorm script:-$25 USD
Also lets throw in the very basic, but usable ,Cloth dynamics script from" rendo" that allows us to use our own non"optitex"meshes for basic draping and work for animated characters in DS-$10 USD.
DAZ studio has basic lipsinc for speaking characters but its 32 bit version only and no phoneme editing options so lets add Mimic live for -$50 USD
So for $185 USD total we have basic Character animation with decent motion creation and nonlinear motion mixing,key frame editing, a spline graph with auto clamping, basic cloth dynamics and export to major industry standard formats such as MDD+.obj and FBX.
But alas you have no actual character physics options or dynamic hair and the foot pinning Ik system in Daz studio is basicly rubbish for animation purposes
ALL of the above mentioned THIRD PARTY additions can easily be made USELESS by updating your Free Daz studio Core application or even moving to the next genration figure just as the aniMate2 is not usable for genesis 3
Still ,consider that you do not have to model or rig anything
and could theoreticly get started on your animated visual story telling with the included "starter essentials" and whatever freebies you harvest from "ShareCG" and other sources.
Also if you do own a "high end" Program like C4D,
you can treat that $185 USD outlay as an investment in a pretty decent& versatile premade Character/creature/android resource addon for C4D or Lightwave etc.with animated figure content imported from Daz with relative ease.
Poser 11: $500 USD(non sale price)
Spline graph editor included but not updated since 1996 has no Clamping function requiring manual solutions to correct splinegraph "over shoot"
Keyframe pallet or "dopesheet" included but again not updated since 1996 and very poorly designed for access to mutiple animation channels
Animation "layering" system very primitive for adding motion on top of existing motion
but not useful for true nonlinear motion clip creation and reordering.
Includes a rigid body bullet physics engine for destruction& object collapse types of animation.
Includes a soft body Simulation solver for "jiggly part" animations
Includes a Cloth dynamic engine with Constraints for pinning parts of clothing and can Do hybrid Dynamic/conformed clothing items.
Includes Dynamic hair but IMHO not very realistic when animated.
Animated figures can be exported to FBX but no viable option for dynamic cloth and hair exportnot sure if Bullet or soft body simulation can be baked for export
to other programs.( citation needed)
Includes "talk designer" lipsinc program for speaking poser native Characters
There was an optional Ragdoll physic plugin for poser
( p6-p2012 era) it is quite good and I still use it for my work today- $50 USD.
Advantage; ALL of the above features of poser(excluding the ragdoll physics plugin )
will never become nonfunctional by updating poser, as they are part of the poser core application.
Consider that you do not have to model or rig anything
and could theoreticly get started on your animated visual story telling with the included poser content and whatever freebies you harvest from "ShareCG" and other sources.
Iclone Pro& 3D exchange Complete pipeline bundle-$1026 USD (nonsale price)
Currently has every animation feature listed for poser/Daz
(excluding poser dynamic hair)
But implemented in a far easier and user friendly way of quickly building motion for charactersboth native and imported rigs
Includes a proper IK solver for hands and feet contact and path walk system capable of walking figures up& down hilly terrains
REALTIME charcter motion feed back while creating &editing
New Character creator tool for creating custom Characters
with body and facial morphing& Skin options exportable to Other industry standard programs and Game engines
Direct import of Daz genesis 1 & 2 models for animation retargeting
Direct import Maya human Ik rigs for animation retargeting
Direct import AutoDesk MAX bipeds for animation retargeting
"Spring effects" for animal tails etc.
and contraint physics for dangling items etc.
Kinect mocap plugin for human motion capture
Particle & smoke effects (NPR).
Massive built in library of ready to use motions and physics props
Also each Character loads with built in set of programmed behaviors & actions via right click contextual menu.
In conclusion: if one is willing to Stick with one version of Daz studio for a while to avoid "update breakage"
The $185 dollar investment in a Daz studio based animation pipeline is the better Value for the beginner looking to start telling stories straight away ,considering features one could get by price comparision to the others listed here.
That's assuming people are willing to pay full price.
What I paid for those referenced programs:
Keymate - $5.99
Graphmate - $5.99
Animate2 - $17.99
Animation Conversion G2 to G3 - $17.37
Cloth dynamics script from Rendo - $7.20
Mimic Live - $17.98
Does anybody happen to have any idea exactly how Blender and Daz were used in conjunction to produce an animation like Jesús Orellana's "Rosa"?
http://www.blendernation.com/2011/11/22/rosa/
Twerking at the Beach - Back view
rendered in Poser pro2014 , animated in Flash pro cs5 saved as GIF
twerking on the beach - front view
rendered in poser pro 2014 - animated in flash pro cs5 saved as gif file
Awesome!!!
Indeed there always seems to be a sale
in fact the complete Iclone pipeline I mentioned can be had for $698 USD at the moment.
The only reason I listed the full retail ,non sale, prices was
so people can make a fair value comparison based on the features offered at full price.
and even then the Daz studio (with my listed options) is still the best value for the animation features one would be gaining
IMHO
So... are the Draagonstorm scripts necessary to animating in DAZ?
Animation Conversion Genesis 2 to Genesis 3
Animation Conversion V4.2 to Genesis and Genesis 2 Female
If I have aniMate2 and some of the basic GoFigure aniblocks and a few other aniblock packs, such as:
Figuring I'll end up getting GraphMate and Keymate, but wondering if the Draagonstorm scripts are necessary or only if I want to use G3.
I'm also trying to sort thorugh mcasual's script library and see what is helpful there. Helpful tips in all areas are appreciated! Seems like every time I turn around there's something more to learn!