Bought graphMate and keyMate since they were on sale. Do I need aniMate2?
mayupolo
Posts: 20
in The Commons
Hi,
I am a bit confused because I thought aniMate came included with Daz Studio. Is it a slimmed down version of aniMate2? Can I still take advantage of graphMate and keyMate with the included version of aniMate?
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Its not required. But would be very helpful getting you off the ground running.. , these plugins will work anyway without animate 2 they are their own standalone individual plugins and you can use the daz native timeline but most people by animate2 first then the plugins :)
well you cannot edit aniblocks without Animate2 or bake them to timeline for dforce FBX, BVH export etc but if you are not using aniblocks you can still use the other tools with other animations such as keyframed ones, pose series, puppeteeer etc
Hi
you have made a good choice for animating in Daz studio
The graphmate plugin will give you much more control over editing your animation than the default
tools as it can change interpolation types and allow the copying and pasting of keyframes.
it will also show you graphically where the outliers are in a problem animation.
May I reccomend two extremely powerful FREE animation plugins
from "Mcasual"
The "decimate" plugin which culls the number of keyframe down to a managable number for editing with
graphMate (See pics)
And the "Cycler" script that will show every single morph or movement parameter
for every figure or object in your scene and enable you to create repeating motion automaticly
based on your min/max parameter in put without
having to keyframe the repetitions yourself.
A boxer hitting a speed bag ,Bouncing basket balls, jiggly bellies, trembling hands,complete body shivering
movment morphs on clothing and hair to fake mild wind dynamics etc.
all created automaticly for whatever range of frames you choose
You will find many uses for this free plugin.
Thanks. I will wait for aniMate to go on sale then. I figured most people would buy aniMate first but it was a good deal, 5 bucks for both plugins. :)
I can still use aniBlocks though right? I won’t be doing any heavy animating. I’m using Daz for visual novels with only a bit of animation here and there.
And thank you Wolf for the great advice. Will check those free plugins out!
I would still recommend getting animate2 like Wendy said you can't save or bake or create aniblocks without animate2 .
what's "bake" ?
That means you can convert the aniblock data to keyframes in the timeline. And I want to point out that Wendy and Ivy are wrong. You CAN bake aniblocks to timeline with the animate lite version. But you can't apparently save keyframes as an aniblock. However you can save them as an animated pose preset;)
@wolf359, Could you point me in the right direction for finding these plugins? Pretty please. Thank you.
maybe they added that since dforce was added as it previously was not the case
I owned the original animate and paid more for it than animate2 but had to update for DS4 because they removed that functionality, DS3Advanced actually had baking enabled I bought it for other purposes but with 4 the old plugin was no longer sufficient, one of several plugins that needed upgrading.
Not sure but I think it worked in 4.7:) I have that installed on a laptop so could give it a go... However I agree that you need animate2 if you're serious about working with aniblocks in DS;)
Hi
here is a link
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/
He has Many scripts
Download anything that looks remotely useful and discover
them at your leisure.
Hmmm how unfortunate it would be to go through all the that work of creating a walk cycle and not be able to save it as a aniblock that you could use in carrara or poser or sell or share as a aniblock set.. Its a real shame you can go through all the effort to bake a older generation aniblock to the animate-lite timeline, but you can't add any sub tracks so you can add correction aniblocks to make it work easier with new generations. Never mind us talking about being able to edit sub-keyframes to make refinements to the animations your working on without changing the whole aniblock . Your right who wants to bother saving & editing aniblocks when you got Animated presets you can't share unless the person your sharing with has the same assets as you. , who needs animate 2 when you got the fully functioning trial version of animate-lite ... Good Luck
Gently expanding on what's being said in here today - for future reference readers, and with some opinion. If you are going to do any animation longer than 10 seconds in DS, just buy the full Animate2, Graphmate, and Keymate packages (on sale...). You will also want the mentioned Mjcasual scripts, and you should donate a few bucks to him once you realize how great they are.
In the immediate timeframe (today) Animate2 should be on sale now if you buy (even a cheap) new release (70% off!). It lets you do most things worth doing in DS animation, along with the practically free Keymate and Graphmate tools for $5 right now, just do it.
Quick Explanation: The way DS works, you animate on what's called the 'DS timeline', and with the full payfor animate2 tool(s) you can 'bake' that timeline into aniblocks, and can do powerful aniblock things in the distinct Animate2 context (which relates to, but is different from the mentioned native 'DS timeline'), then you re 'bake' these results back to the 'DS timeline' where you can edit them further, and possibly re-bake them to new aniblocks, etc. With these tools, you go back and forth a *lot* between these two contexts. Odd at first, but you get used to it, and learn where the powerful features are available. With animate-lite, the reduced-feature 'Animate' tool version that comes free with DS, you can only go in one direction: from existing aniblocks (free or purchased) to the timeline, where you can edit things further, but you cannot bake/save these results (or any DS timeline that you like) *back to a new aniblock* unless you have the full pay-for Animate2 package enabled.
So, that said, with the base 'DS timeline' and 'Animate-lite' products, you *can* do a certain amount of (sort of) useful animation: not only can you bake *existing* aniblocks (free or purchased) *to* the 'DS timeline', you can also edit them (esp. w Keymate and Graphmate), and then you can also save them as DS animation 'units' in the form of 'Pose Presets...' and/or 'Scene Subsets', and merge them back into a scene later. But these presets (that are NOT aniblocks) will replace or your existing DS timeline when you do so. What you cannot do with these saved 'DS timeline' preset-units is layer, merge, blend, retime, split, join, etc. these animation sequences in DS without having/using the full Animate2 tool - you can only load these presets singly, and edit/save them singly from the DS-timeline. I hope this is sort of clear to new users thinking of exploring DS animation. It's kind of like fixing a car with kitchen utensils, where you might pull-it-off, but it's really not advised.
To be honest, it's mostly not very useful to animate in DS without the Animate2, Keymate, and Graphmate tools.
Like Ivy, I have them, I use them, and I recommend all three, but technically speaking, someone with a small animation task or experiment can derive *some* benefit from the base 'DS timeline' and editing tools alone. Given the available deals today, I would buy all three GoFigure tools, or at least the Keymate/Graphmate set for $5 if you think you'll ever animate in DS.
2c,
--ms
Are there any good tutorials out there for getting started with this animation stuff?
I got pretty good feed back on this.
https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio--getting-started-with-animation
With all due respect, what is your point? Are you adressing me or someone else? Hard to admit you can be wrong sometimes or what?
Hey, I even already have that bookmarked.
I already had KeyMate and GraphMate but not AniMate2. I want it.... but I feel like I should have some kind of... plan for it, given that it's going to cost $20 even on a big discount. On the other hand, KeyMate and GraphMate are pretty hard to start with in my recent experience. Hmmm..,...
well if you can bake aniblocks to the timeline without it, honestly I wouldn't rush to buy it, that was the only real reason I did, because it certainly was not always the case, I know how miffed I was already owning AniMate having to buy it when DS4 came out.
I actually don't use Aniblocks myself just the animations and nearly always baked and edited, the baking was the only reason I had to buy it.
Yes, what I said;)
Yup keymate/graphmate I couldn't do without!
Well this is not entirely true is it? You can make say a 300 frame walk for the lower body, then add a completely different movement for the torso, then add some arm movement, then some hand moves and top it of with a talking expressive face with independent neck moves, as far as I know that means working with layers. Then you can re-time all of those with keymate or graphmate and/or scale the movements and/or copy and/or delete parts of it and so on.
Yep I prefer not using aniblocks for a number of reasons, but each to their own I suppose. And I don't like to see false information being spread here in the forums, we should all be careful with what we present as the absolute truth,right?
yes you can save duf pose animations that only affect one or more body parts
I do this myself especially lipsync from the 32bit DAZstudio
its a matter of going through and ticking and unticking parts in the advanced settings in the animated pose save dialogue
you can also save lots of other information this way like visibility presets and UV sets
I am not getting into any discussions about the advantages of AniMate 2 simply as having owned it from early on using DS4 because I had to in order to bake aniblocks I have no idea what changes DAZ made to what you can do in DS without it since, I actually am not a fan of it truth be told but bought it out of necessity, I don't disparage people who do use it as everyone does things differently, I am more into using motion paths myself which DAZ studio doesn't do, iClone and Carrara do.
Alright, a little OT, but... put a gun to your head and which would you buy, aniMate2 or SimTenero Randomizer2?
And what's with the no spaces before the number?!?!?!?!?!?
indeed - I just jotted down some notes that I wish I had known a while back.
to that, I think we all agree - if we're doing much animation over a notable time period.
I can't argue, nor is there a need to. Clever folks can make these tools work in a way that fits their style.
It seems that Ivy sounded perhaps a bit more snarky than I know her to usually be, yet I agree that even without the actual use of aniblocks as a primary animation mechanism, it cannot be argued that they are truly a brilliant and handy way to quickly store and recall animation 'snippits' for quick 'sketching' and motion management - even if you don't use them as intended in a general animation workflow.
But to the original point of contention: DS can be used well as an animation tools as it's shipped, but gets better with graphmate and keymate, and better yet (to various levels) with the full animate2 package. If your time is worth anything ($), grab these tools when you can get a good price and start bringing meshes to life!
I hope this chatter gives future readers a better idea about how this all works for various folks. Stuff I wish I'd known a long time back!
cheers,
--ms
because DS4.1 you could not bake AniBlocks to the timeline
I paid for the advanced version and still could not before they made it free for all
and when they did was told AniMate the original version was not supported I needed AniMate 2 as it was a third party plugin
that is why I bought it
so obviously baking was added to the free DS4 at some point later but with the plugin installed had no way of knowing that being an early adopter so was not intentionally spreading misinformation
Well, whaddya know? Animate2 on sale...
I have animate2 full version and my usage of aniblocks is the same as Wendy's
But of course Like her I create most of my motion in
Iclone and export the BVH and make final tweaks and add facial animation& lipsinc in Daz studio
before export to C4D as .obj/MDD for rendering.
Also,as wendy Discovered ,you can share animated pose presets(.duf)
with nearly everyone as long as they
were created with the venerable GENESIS ONE
they will be compatible with M3,V3,M4,V4,Genesis 2, 3/8**
(**Minor tweaks as needed of course)
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/
So overall I would recommend graphMate&keymate first
with animate lite.
Well I got aniMate 2 with the heavy discount. :) So now I am all set. Just need to learn the tool haha.
Thank you Wolf359 for posting about the scripts earlier in this threaad! I've been teaching myself animation now this past year and am really getting the hang of it, but it sounds like some of the issues I'm having at times can really be helped by them. I just finally picked up graphmate and keymate yesterday, so this coming year is going to be even better for animation!
I wish I had more cash yesterday, there were so many great aniblocks I wanted for sale, I would have not bought anything the past month had I known that was coming lol, but I could only afford one and snagged the G8 man walking bundle.
Isn't it funny how people don't seem to read or only read what they want to see,.. , This was my first post. I totally stated you DID NOT NEED animate2 to use the 2 plugins aforementioned.
My second post was a recommendation that he should get animate2 even though its not needed.
Snarky:
Is when I am told my post is wrong & people are jumping to conclusions about what I said without reading the whole thread. anything said beyond my first 2 recommendations were just other people opinions . animate-lite is a trial version and you can not save, edit or stack aniblocks . so what good is baking them? .
But if people go back and read what I said which is all true . no offense.