Animate2, Graphmate, Keymate

Orpheus13Orpheus13 Posts: 274
edited September 2017 in The Commons

Hello all,

Are these really useful or can everything in there be made as well with a bit more time and effort ?

Also, do you need Animate2 for the other 2 ? Which ones would you recommend ?

Oh, and are they compatible with Gen8 ?

Thanks

Post edited by Orpheus13 on

Comments

  • RuphussRuphuss Posts: 2,631

    for animation all 3

  • I use Daz to render multiple variations of the same scene, so putting each such variation in its own frame means I can render all these variations as an image series. Keymate is an absolute necessity for this use, in my opinion. I don't do actual animation though, so I can't offer much of an opinion on the other two plugins.

    Keymate is absolutely compatible with Gen8. There's no reason why it wouldn't be.

  • Ruphuss said:

    for animation all 3

    You mean you recommend all 3 ?

  • Yes all 3 are good, but if you need them depends on your usage of DS, what do you create with DS, still images, animations ?

    animate2 is for using aniblocks and doing NLA animation (you allready have a limited version of animate2 in DS), the full version allows you to export MDD files and so on.

    keymate is for working with keyframes (with or without animate2), copy, delete move and so on

    graphmate lets you play around with the curves (the interpolation curves between keyframes), very useful for fine tuning the animations.

     

  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 734
    edited September 2017

    Be aware that pose-to-pose animation doesn't work in DS no matter what plug-in you buy. AFAIK nothing makes keyframes on all a figure's pose parameters at once, so in consequence many adjustments you make in one frame can have ripple effects that go both back and forward in time. Trying to make an animation of a character walking up stairs made me pull my hair out. UPDATE: As it turns out, I could be wrong about pose-to-pose animation being impossible.

    AniMate2 is for using and adjusting premade, looping animations, if you can find ones you like. It does not come with Genesis 3 or 8 AniBlocks, so if you use new characters, don't expect to find it useful without further purchases ~>:-( .

    KeyMate and GraphMate are extremely helpful. GraphMate might seem like it doesn't work at first, but you just have to carefully hover your cursor over the parameter you want to inspect, avoid "touching" any other parameter as you move the cursor into GraphMate's window, then use GraphMate's scale and drag tools to find the parameter's curve in the window.

    Finally, if you do use AniBlocks, be careful when using characters that have been scaled either up or down. See https://download.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/180196/solved-using-aniblocks-with-scaled-characters for a work-around to make looping AniMate2 animations work correctly for scaled characters.

    Post edited by Inkubo on
  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 11,139
    edited September 2017

    Also, Animate2 doesn't seem to play well with Genesis3 or Genesis8 characters.  Applying the Lycan "walk-in-place" sequence (that works perfectly fine for G1 and G2) makes G3 and G8 appear as if they are hanging by the neck and spasming their hands & feet. surprise  Great for a western bad-guy hanging scene but that's not my bag. frown  I'm (not so patiently anymore) waiting for an update to Animate2 or its sequences. cryingangry

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • Inkubo said:

    Be aware that pose-to-pose animation doesn't work in DS no matter what plug-in you buy. AFAIK nothing makes keyframes on all a figure's pose parameters at once, so in consequence many adjustments you make in one frame can have ripple effects that go both back and forward in time. Trying to make an animation of a character walking up stairs made me pull my hair out.

    Select all bones, create key frame

     

  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 734

    Select all bones, create key frame

    Really? I hope so! I'd be delighted to find I was wrong about this.

  • Ok that's very helpful guys. I was wondering about those AniBlocks, and I definitely don't want to buy any set. I also need compatibility with G8 and a bit G3. And yes, for animation and stills.

    So I think I'll get Graphmate and Keymate, and leave Animate2 alone !

    Thanks !

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133
    edited September 2017
    Orpheus13 said:

    Hello all,

    Are these really useful or can everything in there be made as well with a bit more time and effort ?

    Also, do you need Animate2 for the other 2 ? Which ones would you recommend ?

    Oh, and are they compatible with Gen8 ?

    Thanks

     

    Hi friend,

    I create animation with daz studio all the time.  All 3 mentions tools above are very useful but not necessary if you render your animation one key frame at a time. and construct them in a video editor to create animation as most animations studios do.. The Daz built in Puppeteer works really great for creating animations sequence &  save as aniblocks for future use.  when rendering animation. fore my preffence  I  tend to render & save to AVI instead of Individual PNG's series, for faster film editing.  So to make  that job easier in creating animated films . I recommend you first get  "Animate 2" timeline editor,   its old but still very powerful tool for animation.  Animate2  has all the basic functions of Graph-mate and Key mate plugin, it's just not as refined, and those needed functions do not not come with the pre installed Daz default animate-lite.  I found most of the time I can get away with with just using animate2 as my animation editor . So I pretty much rarely need to use key-mate.  But i do use graph-mate a lot to redine my motions curves, to help me bend my animation motions like a ball being thrown or a car skidding around a corner for those type animations.   I started out using aniblocks mostly, but as your skills grow, you'll find hand keyframing animations will give  better results to supplement the aniblocks.

    BTW There is no right or wrong way to making & creating animations, everyone has thier own style. you'll need to find  what works for you. ..the main thing is really get to know the daz studio software & how it works . once you learn that, the animation part comes easy,  Buy one plugin at a time, really learn how it works and then if you need another plugin or something more powerful , then invest in what you need then.. Genesis 8 is not compatible with older aniblocks, there are a few new ones showing up on the market. But you will pretty much need to build a new motion library for Genesis 3 and V8 in order to use aniblocks for them

    There are some very helpful people on the daz forum that are good in creating animation using daz.  they are hard to find because daz does not have a animation forum and the threads get scattered buried quickly.

    Also please beware of those negative people telling  you that daz sucks and is not good for animation and not to waste your time.  .  I found after 8 years of creating animation with daz most of those people who are full of advice, but don't have any animations or tutorials to show of their expertise  on what they are talking about, are full of hot air. Trust me on this, It really just takes knowing how to use daz studio software & how works  so you can apply it to use it for animation.  that and a good film editor. Ha!

    Good luck friend... Here are  some of my animations  created using just daz studio for creating and rendering it

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,750
    edited September 2017

    " I found after 8 years of creating animation with daz most of those people who are full of advice, but don't have any animations or tutorials to show of their expertise  on what they are talking about"

     

     

    indeed!!
    I find this very irritating particularly when such people declare some animation task to be 'impossible" but have never posted a single link to any animation they have created with Daz studio or any program for that matter.cool

    Post edited by wolf359 on
  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133
    edited October 2017

    Very true Wolf. I try to give those people a little credit. & believe that it was easier to complain than actually figure out the problem they are having.

    I look at animation with daz studio as a puzzle, some things are easy to do some things not so much. I have had scenes take months trying to figure out how to make it work in daz,   I'm not an expert thats for sure, but i do love puzzles... So if you know the Daz software limits  you can solve about any issue that arises when making an animation. sometimes it takes using a third party software or plugin to get it accomplished. that is why a good film editor or FX plugin like after-effects is helpful.  The one thing it really takes for making any animation though is "patients". which now days most people seem to lack.

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • rames44rames44 Posts: 329

    Valuable info, @Ivy.  So, just to clarify: Like others, I've seen complaints in the forums (fora? ????) about animate2 "not working" with Genesis 3 and later. To clarify, the tool is fine and can be used to animate G3 and G8, and to save and load aniblocks created specifically for/with G3 and G8, it's just that the older aniblocks don't transfer to the newer figures?

  • InkuboInkubo Posts: 734
    rames44 said:

    Valuable info, @Ivy.  So, just to clarify: Like others, I've seen complaints in the forums (fora? ????) about animate2 "not working" with Genesis 3 and later. To clarify, the tool is fine and can be used to animate G3 and G8, and to save and load aniblocks created specifically for/with G3 and G8, it's just that the older aniblocks don't transfer to the newer figures?

    Yes, that's right. There are G3 AniBlocks you can buy. I don't know of any specifically for G8, but perhaps someone else can tell us whether the G3 AniBlocks work or mostly work on G8.

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133
    edited September 2017

    The biggest issue I been having with gensis3 and V8 is the bone structure, even when I hand keyframe those characters, the IK is so broken its not worth the effort,  any aniblock I make will be limnited to just genesis 3 & v8 figure when I have thousands of characters meshes ..  Rule of thumb, older genration ani blocks & BVH files work for most characters vicky3 thru genesis2 both in poser and Daz studio.  . Motions conversions scritps to turn older aniblocks to V8 & G3 is more work than its worth. and they will never work in poser.  so really for v8 and g3 its best just to start over &  build a new motion library just for those figures.. . Posermocap has some g3 aniblocks in the store. and at rendo there are a few artist making  Runway models aniblocks..   its properly be best just to hand make them if your going to learn o anmate genesis 3 or v8 to learn how the bone structure works.

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited September 2017

    aniMate2 working as an NLA also lets you easily build up your characters motions using layers, so you can have more complex animations...doing different things at the same time.

     

    Post edited by Kevin Sanderson on
  • jaebeajaebea Posts: 454

    I don't use Gen3 or 8 for animation in Daz either.  And for manual animation, I use the timeline with KeyMate and GraphMate.  GraphMate has become my best buddy and don't think I could animation in Daz without it!

     

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    Ivy said:

    I create animation with daz studio all the time.

    Good luck friend... Here are  some of my animations  created using just daz studio for creating and rendering it

    And I just want to say @ivy got third place in the Renderosity Animation Contest. Way to go Ivy!!!!!! I loved the plane animation! 

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133
    Novica said:
    Ivy said:

    I create animation with daz studio all the time.

    Good luck friend... Here are  some of my animations  created using just daz studio for creating and rendering it

    And I just want to say @ivy got third place in the Renderosity Animation Contest. Way to go Ivy!!!!!! I loved the plane animation! 

    @Novica, Thank you very much, I'm happy you enjoyed.    Its a Iray animation & can be seen on my youtube channel for anyone that maybe interested. :)

  • I'm not really following the argument that in order for a complaint that it is impossible to animate a thing in DS to be valid, the complainer must produce an animation in Daz of the thing they find impossible to animate.

    I would love to know how to animate a G3 figure e.g. using a hula hoop while keeping their feet in place on the ground instead of sliding around and 'vibrating'.  As far as I can work out, this is impossible - the feet will jiggle around even when pinned at both ends.

  • TooncesToonces Posts: 919
  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    Ivy said:
    Orpheus13 said:

    Hello all,

    Are these really useful or can everything in there be made as well with a bit more time and effort ?

    Also, do you need Animate2 for the other 2 ? Which ones would you recommend ?

    Oh, and are they compatible with Gen8 ?

    Thanks

     

    Hi friend,

    I create animation with daz studio all the time.  All 3 mentions tools above are very useful but not necessary if you render your animation one key frame at a time. and construct them in a video editor to create animation as most animations studios do.. The Daz built in Puppeteer works really great for creating animations sequence &  save as aniblocks for future use.  when rendering animation. fore my preffence  I  tend to render & save to AVI instead of Individual PNG's series, for faster film editing.  So to make  that job easier in creating animated films . I recommend you first get  "Animate 2" timeline editor,   its old but still very powerful tool for animation.  Animate2  has all the basic functions of Graph-mate and Key mate plugin, it's just not as refined, and those needed functions do not not come with the pre installed Daz default animate-lite.  I found most of the time I can get away with with just using animate2 as my animation editor . So I pretty much rarely need to use key-mate.  But i do use graph-mate a lot to redine my motions curves, to help me bend my animation motions like a ball being thrown or a car skidding around a corner for those type animations.   I started out using aniblocks mostly, but as your skills grow, you'll find hand keyframing animations will give  better results to supplement the aniblocks.

    BTW There is no right or wrong way to making & creating animations, everyone has thier own style. you'll need to find  what works for you. ..the main thing is really get to know the daz studio software & how it works . once you learn that, the animation part comes easy,  Buy one plugin at a time, really learn how it works and then if you need another plugin or something more powerful , then invest in what you need then.. Genesis 8 is not compatible with older aniblocks, there are a few new ones showing up on the market. But you will pretty much need to build a new motion library for Genesis 3 and V8 in order to use aniblocks for them

    There are some very helpful people on the daz forum that are good in creating animation using daz.  they are hard to find because daz does not have a animation forum and the threads get scattered buried quickly.

    Also please beware of those negative people telling  you that daz sucks and is not good for animation and not to waste your time.  .  I found after 8 years of creating animation with daz most of those people who are full of advice, but don't have any animations or tutorials to show of their expertise  on what they are talking about, are full of hot air. Trust me on this, It really just takes knowing how to use daz studio software & how works  so you can apply it to use it for animation.  that and a good film editor. Ha!

    Good luck friend... Here are  some of my animations  created using just daz studio for creating and rendering it

    Thats very interesting Ivy, I'd always assumed you rendered out image sequences rather than avi!! I went the opposite way after having a lot of trouble exporting avi i switched to image sequence which i found more flexibility with if having to make adjustments across only a few frames and not having to re render the whole sequence. Like you say though, we each find our own workflow :) As an editor though, I'd heartily recommend HitFilm, the Express version is free and pretty powerful with some great effects and compositing tools.
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,750

    "As far as I can work out, this is impossible -
     the feet will jiggle around even when pinned at both ends."

     


    Hi it seems that you have at least actually attempted this hoola hoop animation task
    Validating your opinion based on your actual experience.

    And yes those" pins" are  'unstable " and nothing  like a true Foot  hard contact system
     like we have in  Iclone for example.


    The problem is when blanket assertions are made as though they are "facts
    Like saying :"until they added those extra limb bones to G3 it was "impossible"
    to do a pidgeon toed walk"

    or "Too bad Daz studio cant do a bouncing breast animation"

    Thses are two things easily achieved  ,which indicates to me that  whomever asserts
     them to be "impossible" with Daz studio  has  never even attemped them personally.

  • wolf359 said:

    "As far as I can work out, this is impossible -
     the feet will jiggle around even when pinned at both ends."

     


    Hi it seems that you have at least actually attempted this hoola hoop animation task
    Validating your opinion based on your actual experience.

    And yes those" pins" are  'unstable " and nothing  like a true Foot  hard contact system
     like we have in  Iclone for example.

    True, and that can throw off someone that's expecting "pin" to anchor the foot in place, instead of it holding the foot in a relative position throughout the animation sequence.

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133

    I'm not really following the argument that in order for a complaint that it is impossible to animate a thing in DS to be valid, the complainer must produce an animation in Daz of the thing they find impossible to animate.

    I would love to know how to animate a G3 figure e.g. using a hula hoop while keeping their feet in place on the ground instead of sliding around and 'vibrating'.  As far as I can work out, this is impossible - the feet will jiggle around even when pinned at both ends.

     

    KA1 said:
    Ivy said:
    Orpheus13 said:

    Hello all,

    Are these really useful or can everything in there be made as well with a bit more time and effort ?

    Also, do you need Animate2 for the other 2 ? Which ones would you recommend ?

    Oh, and are they compatible with Gen8 ?

    Thanks

     

    Hi friend,

    I create animation with daz studio all the time.  All 3 mentions tools above are very useful but not necessary if you render your animation one key frame at a time. and construct them in a video editor to create animation as most animations studios do.. The Daz built in Puppeteer works really great for creating animations sequence &  save as aniblocks for future use.  when rendering animation. fore my preffence  I  tend to render & save to AVI instead of Individual PNG's series, for faster film editing.  So to make  that job easier in creating animated films . I recommend you first get  "Animate 2" timeline editor,   its old but still very powerful tool for animation.  Animate2  has all the basic functions of Graph-mate and Key mate plugin, it's just not as refined, and those needed functions do not not come with the pre installed Daz default animate-lite.  I found most of the time I can get away with with just using animate2 as my animation editor . So I pretty much rarely need to use key-mate.  But i do use graph-mate a lot to redine my motions curves, to help me bend my animation motions like a ball being thrown or a car skidding around a corner for those type animations.   I started out using aniblocks mostly, but as your skills grow, you'll find hand keyframing animations will give  better results to supplement the aniblocks.

    BTW There is no right or wrong way to making & creating animations, everyone has thier own style. you'll need to find  what works for you. ..the main thing is really get to know the daz studio software & how it works . once you learn that, the animation part comes easy,  Buy one plugin at a time, really learn how it works and then if you need another plugin or something more powerful , then invest in what you need then.. Genesis 8 is not compatible with older aniblocks, there are a few new ones showing up on the market. But you will pretty much need to build a new motion library for Genesis 3 and V8 in order to use aniblocks for them

    There are some very helpful people on the daz forum that are good in creating animation using daz.  they are hard to find because daz does not have a animation forum and the threads get scattered buried quickly.

    Also please beware of those negative people telling  you that daz sucks and is not good for animation and not to waste your time.  .  I found after 8 years of creating animation with daz most of those people who are full of advice, but don't have any animations or tutorials to show of their expertise  on what they are talking about, are full of hot air. Trust me on this, It really just takes knowing how to use daz studio software & how works  so you can apply it to use it for animation.  that and a good film editor. Ha!

    Good luck friend... Here are  some of my animations  created using just daz studio for creating and rendering it

     

    Thats very interesting Ivy, I'd always assumed you rendered out image sequences rather than avi!! I went the opposite way after having a lot of trouble exporting avi i switched to image sequence which i found more flexibility with if having to make adjustments across only a few frames and not having to re render the whole sequence. Like you say though, we each find our own workflow :) As an editor though, I'd heartily recommend HitFilm, the Express version is free and pretty powerful with some great effects and compositing tools.

      I prefer to edit videos created with avi for a number of reasons if the scene is a quick render with little effect in it I try to do them in avi. But I use both image seuences and AVI,  If I have a more complex scene, I'll edit them in PNG image sequences . I use Adobe premiere for my film editor because I can bridge Photoshop, Aftereffects, Soundbooth without having to leave the film editor. But Hitfilm is great and you can get  for free. :)

  • tomhbwctomhbwc Posts: 24

    Hi, sorry for necro-ing a 3/4 year old thread, but I was curious if anyone knows if graphMate is available for Mac computers? I've searched for a definitive answer on the subject and have come up with nothing.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    tomhbwc said:

    Hi, sorry for necro-ing a 3/4 year old thread, but I was curious if anyone knows if graphMate is available for Mac computers? I've searched for a definitive answer on the subject and have come up with nothing.

    I use kemate/graphmate on a mac, no problem;)

  • I need a little help with Graphmate and reading some of the posts here, I might just be doing this wrong. So, I'm trying to copy a selection of keyframes in Graphmate so I can copy it threw out the animation cause the character will be repeating the same action over about two minutes. Problems is, I can only select about ten of the parameters, like translate and rotate, but the characters also use a handful of other morphs further down the list. How do I select the morphs I need, if necessary all the morph, so I get all the lines I need in Graphmate to do a true copy of the character? Because of the way Graphmate work, if I scroll the morph list down, I will lose the other selections above.

    Thanks.

     

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    I need a little help with Graphmate and reading some of the posts here, I might just be doing this wrong. So, I'm trying to copy a selection of keyframes in Graphmate so I can copy it threw out the animation cause the character will be repeating the same action over about two minutes. Problems is, I can only select about ten of the parameters, like translate and rotate, but the characters also use a handful of other morphs further down the list. How do I select the morphs I need, if necessary all the morph, so I get all the lines I need in Graphmate to do a true copy of the character? Because of the way Graphmate work, if I scroll the morph list down, I will lose the other selections above.

    Thanks.

     

    IMO the thing you're trying to do is much easier with keymate, bcause you can collaps or expand the tree as needed. So you can select and copy/paste a single keyframe containing all the translations and morphs without having to select multiple parameters in the parameters pane. If you want to use graphmate, you need to drag the mouse over multiple parameters to select them, which can be tricky. You could mark the parameters as favorites to get them all in the same list. But yeah, the keymate UI is better suited for this task;)

  • Ok, thanks. Will pick up keymate asap.

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