Animating V4 & M4 in Carrara without BVH or DAZ Animate

Restif

Hi,

I am beginning what I expect will be a long project that will involve extensive animation of V4 and M4. I don't want to use premade animations but key them myself.
I've used target helpers to help 'Pin' feet to the ground for, say, a walk cycle and it helps but I do get frustrated at it.

Does anyone here have some experience with manually animating V4 in Carrara and perhaps some suggestions, tips, opinions, or thoughts of encouragement for proceding on this course?

Always interested in hearing from you all. Thanks

JoeMamma2000

Wow, that's a tough one to answer. Without knowing your background and skill level and purpose and goals for the animation we can only guess at stuff that might be helpful.

I'll assume your main interest is in what software to use and how to use it, since that's what most people here seem to care about, not necessarily in the techniques to make good animations, which is a whole world unto itself.

Not sure I can offer much encouragement in that area, because animating with Carrara is going to be a chore no matter how you slice it. It has very rudimentary tools compared to other software out there, so it's gonna be a long and tedious slog. Especially if you're somewhat new to animation, which it sounds like you are. Some animation apps have a long list of features to make the animation process more automated, using advanced rigging controls and the like. Carrara doesn't.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's gonna be a lot tougher.

My only advice is this:

1. Figure out how to break your animation into short, simple sections. If you try to animate an entire movie on a single timeline in a single scene you'll go insane. It's a lot easier to make very short scenes, which, say, correspond to a 'shot', and then compile the rendered video together later in post production. The shorter the better.

2. Use NLA's if you got 'em (I'm not sure what versions have it...). Try to re-use clips, too.

I could give a whole bunch more advice, but I have no clue if it even applies to you.

Kevin Sanderson

Joe is correct, but if you're the Restif who posts the adventures of Adrea and her friends over at Renderosity, you are a long way there since you are already doing a good job posing, lighting, composing your shots, etc. It will be a tough road animating. I did recently see a French user's video on YouTube where they use Puppeteer in Carrara as a kind of work pad in setting up the poses and once a decent motion seems to work, creating keyframes from those poses. It all seems like it saves some time than actually doing everything just on the timeline and trying to fix errors there.

Restif

Thanks for the ideas.

Yes I am the Restif who has done the story Keepers of Wrath with Adrea and lots of other renders over at renderosity.

I am familiar to a degree with rigging, as I have done some in both C4D and Lightwave, may inevitably do this all in Lightwave. I've not had a lot of time in the past to devote to animation but I really am determined to work on my short animation.

There are so many disciplines that go into a full animated production, even my short animation. I think if I could get my characters rigged in Lightwave, for instance, I would love to use that. Lots of learning to rig properly. That, may well be a long term goal.

I am fairly familiar with Carrara having used it for years and I agree, it is tough to do Character Animation in it with V4 and M4, but I think it is possible though tedious.

I intend to take each of the scenes form Keepers and create a short animation of it, eventually, getting the whole story animated. Yes, it will take years.

I've come up with a story board for the opening scene with will be around 2 1/2 minutes, broken it so far down to 24 shots, but I expect to refine it. I am working on environments/sets and trying to determine the methodology for working Character Animation.

Then it is practice. So I am always very interested what other suggestions and tips are.

Kevin Sanderson

You do good work! If you use Lightwave, I've heard the tools are better in the latest, but there still could be some use of messiah that would help.

Here's the YouTube video I mentioned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNE7dvUK6s

Restif

Thank you!

I always liked Puppeteer and think it look like it would be helpful! thanks for the link!

Dartanbeck

Personally, I truly enjoy character animation in Carrara. Perhaps because of my lack of experience in other software.
For stuff like walking, climbing stairs and the like, I imagine where the hip will be at my specific point in time - and then work in the rest.
Say I want to walk from here to there.
I ask myself how long it would take - sometimes I time myself doing it myself.
Okay it took about 2 seconds. So I set the timeline at two seconds and move the hip of the character to where it should end up.
Going back and watching the grid lines on the ground, I begin stepping ahead in time from the beginning until I get to where the foot will stop touching the ground - or there about - and pose that thigh, shin, foot and toe into the appropriate position.

I'll work through like this for one foot until I get a motion that pleases me before moving onto the next foot...
but I like to get that far with the other foot before moving any further down the timeline.

Things that are easily overlooked - so you can pay close attention as you go:

People don't normally walk in a smooth, perfect line. The hip rotates in most directions and constantly changes its distance to the ground - perform these rotations and translations (up and down) with the hip before spending too much time with the leg/foot poses. This is the big one for making a believable, natural walk.

Climbing stairs has even more variation in the directional smoothness along the line from point A and point B. This requires that you grab the hip and pull it back toward the starting position as you work your way up the stairs. This way he or she will speed up as they push their thigh to launch their body upwards and slow down as they cushion the transition from one thigh push to the next. Heavier people might add even more up and down variations, as well as an overall drag to the motion.

Keeping these few simple reminders in mind as you go, I'm very confident that you'll love animating in Carrara.
The sequencer is your friend!

More tips:
Select keyframes in the sequencer.

- Press 'Alt' and drag the selection = Copy all selected frames - it pastes them when you let go of the left mouse button.

- Press "Ctrl" and drag the selection = scales the selected keyframes along the timeline. Drag Right to put more time between the selected frames, or left to shorten the space between them.

Fenric Pose Helper: I bought the Pose Helper of Fenrics that allows you to export Poser Pose files and it helps tremendously for me. You can save to PZ2 various poses that you've made and add them later on down the timeline.

Also, don't be embarrassed or too proud to try loading in an aniBlock or animated pose to get an idea. Like learning new Shader techniques in Carrara, "Taking apart" what someone else has already done can greatly increase your perspective on the subject.

Hope this helps - and... as I am one who is fairly new to character animation in Carrara... I look forward to hearing about how it goes for you.

Restif

Thanks Dartanbeck those are great suggestions. I will definitely try them out as well!