Professional animation tools!
Fantasyart3D
Posts: 59
I have Animate2, KeyMate and GraphMate, and I would say these modules are a real pain in the ass! GraphMate relies on the outdated TCB, and there are no bezier controls in the graph. For each graph you need to position and zoom yourself to the keys, and it's very common to lose them and crash Daz when they turn to be negative. In KeyMate you need to scroll for hundreds of values until you find the key you want to work with. And Animate2 is the most obscure of all. There's no Undo and you can really lose your entire work if something is wrong.
I know that the top priority for Daz3D is selling characters, but I would suggest DS team a more professional approach to animation, maybe something more similar to Blender or even iClone. And modules fully integrated to DS. I think you would certainly open new markets for your product.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Just an example: after zooming, the keys are grouped and I can't zoom out without losing the focus.
I agree about graphmate , there needs to be a "reset view" option
Like all other animation programs.
The reality is that if you want Professional Character animation tools
you have to$$ invest$$ in them.
You paid Zero Dollars for Daz studio
and $20 each for graphMate & keyMate ( when not on sale)
Asssuming $60 for the full version of aniMate 2
your total cost was $100 USD.( again assuming no reduced sale prices)
And you have the ability to export to all of the major formats
to render in other free programs like Blender or unity or unreal
and import BVH Data as well as .obj files for clothing & prop creation
I have Iclone Pro pipeline, I use it to retarget imotion to Daz genesis figures
If you get the basic version of Iclone you pay $200 USD
no import/ export and the graph edtior will be an additional $100 USD
So you are already at $300 USD with no ability to use any genesis models or Daz content
unless you buy the stand alone Character creator 3 pipeline app for another $200 USD
Your are at $500 USD
or you can forego the Character creator 3 pipeline app and buy the Full animation pipeline bundle
for $550 USD
its gets more expensive from there depending on if you want to use a mocap suit etc.
Or you can use Blender for Zero USD however it will be alot of work to get you Daz content int blender
with fidelity.
I understand your point, but we could say we have "professional" character posing tools on Daz Studio. PowerPose for instance is integrated to DS and it works fine, it's a great tool. All we need is a good update on these graphMate/keyMate tools.
I have Fluidos and it's an excellent plugin, even superior than fluids simulation from Blender. And it's USD 40.
Maybe an export plugin to Blender would be a good solution, like DazToMaya from 3dForAll. But I'll consider the iClone full package soon.
Thank you.
Have a look, if you have not already, at mcjTeleBlender3 - https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjteleblender-for-ds1-2-3-4 - and/or Thomas Larsson's Daz Importer - http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/daz-importer-version-13.html.
I find the latter has better results for getting a posable figure(s) into Blender. It's had some updates to work with Blender 2.80 beta. Not sure about the status of mcjTeleBlender's compatibility with 2.80 beta.
Thank you. Already tried these plug-ins several times. Mcj does not export morphs. Thomas Larsson's is good, but imports some characters with issues, and you need to reduce the "verbosity" level of the importer in order to bypass them.
Still waiting a good update from GoFigure team. Come on, guys!
Carrara does not support generation 7/8 (Not everyone has an aversion to post 2004 characters...) they completely abandoned it...
Daz has acquired the rights to Graphmate & keyMate so an update is possible
"Gofigure" stills "owns" aniMate2 and sadly they seem permanently MIA.
I am given to understand that there is a user created kludge /hack to get G3/8 into Carrara
however I can see why many would not want to invest in a program that is clearly at a developmental
Dead end.
I have Carrara Pro 8.5 and never used it. Maybe I should take a look.
Can't understand why Daz team doesn't incorporate these advanced animation features into Daz Studio.
Thank you!
You are welcome! The animation tools in Carrara are fantastic. If you are after professional animation I suggest Phill's "Animation in Carrara" course (keep an eye for March Madness sales). It helped me a lot to get started. What I like about Carrara is not only it's powerful animation tools but also the ability to use oceans, fire, clouds, landscape, particles, physics, etc with my scenes. By the way, if you like animating in Daz check out this new script you might find useful. It's a real time saver and works like charm.
That's a little sacrifise I'm willing to make in favor of making better looking animations in shorter time.
I personally don't mind as long as the program works as it is and it will very likely to continue to work for decades.
It is a shame KeyMate never had alignment or auto zoom tool... As for extra animation tools you need to google "daz plugins" see if you can find anything out there!
Has anyone else noticed that Gofigure3d.com is back up? Still old info on the site, but the copyright is for 2019. Should we get our hopes up?
In any case, I'm with the OP 100%. The fact that Daz is selling a plugin that basically doesn't work with the past 2 generations of content is extremely frustrating, especially when serves such an essential purpose.
Maybe DAZ3d will surprise us all and release DS 5.0 with professional animation suite, real time physics/collision options, mesh manipulation brushes and so may other things we've been asking for, for so long. Or am I delusional?
I would be happy if these things were available as plugins which were bought separately form the DS program.