Motion Capture in Carrara

Scarecrow

I used ipisoft motion capture to do this.

argus1000

Is this Knect 1 or Kinect 2?

Scarecrow

I used 4 ps3 eye cameras, they were only $7 each on amazon.

Dartanbeck

Very cool work! Was retatrgeting the animation data as easy as ipisoft makes it sound? Anything else you might want to share about the experience?

Argus1000 had quite a thread going on about this stuff shortly after ipisoft released that stuff. It looks really cool.

Scarecrow

It really is quite easy. I couldn't get ipi to work directly with Carrara though.

So once you've created your animation in ipisoft follow the insructions on their website to import it into Daz Studio. Then just create an aniblock from studio keyframes, save the aniblock to disc. Then open Carrara and import the aniblock with the aniblock importer. This works great for Genesis and Genesis 2 and I assume it'll work fine with M4 and V4 but haven't tried them. The only problem I ran into was with an original figure like Mestophales' Brute X. I originally intended this animation for Brute X. The animation imported into studio just fine, but I tried several different ways to transfer the animation over to Carrara with no luck. So I switched to the Infernal Behemoth and it works just fine with him.  (maybe even better because of his oversize arms)

Also the animation was not edited in either studio or Carrara. That's how it looks straight out of ipisoft. I would recommend it to anyone that's interested, I'll be diving in more myself. This is for a music video for a friend, Xoe Fitzgerald the time traveling transvestite.

 

Scarecrow

The most important thing I found for getting good results is having a large enough space that is also somewhat light colored, I hung some cheap paper painting drop cloths to cover some glass and darker colored areas. Adequate lighting is pretty important too. I also got better results on the arms when I wore a long sleeve shirt with a T shirt over it, so your arms are a different color than your torso. That how ipi tracks your motion, by the color difference between you and the background. So light colored background and wear dark colored clothing, they recommend green, blue or black.

Dartanbeck

Sweet! Thanks for the added info!

So there's no retargeting? I thought ipisoft's original promos talked about retargeting the animation data to the appropriate figure to be used... or do you just do that directly during the mocap process?

Scarecrow

Dartanbeck said:

Sweet! Thanks for the added info!

So there's no retargeting? I thought ipisoft's original promos talked about retargeting the animation data to the appropriate figure to be used... or do you just do that directly during the mocap process?

The process goes like this. Open Daz Studio and load the figure you want to transfer your animation to. Now go to the File menu, choose export and save as type .bvh. 

Now in ipisoft once you're ready to export, all you do is click on the export tab and you will see a drop down menu with different skeleton options and one that says import from file. Import the bvh you saved from daz studio. There is the option to choose which bones are assigned to which, but I didn't have to change anything in there. Then just click the export animation button and ipisoft saves a bvh file that is compatible with that figure in daz studio. Really simple process.  

 

Scarecrow

Creating the animations is not difficult either. Record your motions and then it's just some processing time for tracking and smoothing. You may have a few "tracking gaps" that you have to go back and fix. Places where maybe your hand went out of frame and couldn't be followed so the arm goes into some other position for a few seconds. They're pretty easy to fix. Then if you wish you can refine the tracking, it's basically another round of processing that gets it more precise. Then there's jitter removal a necessary but very quick bit of processing. After that you're ready to export. 

Scarecrow

Calibrating your camera setup is the most technical thing you have to do. The only thing that makes it a little tricky with the ps3 eye cams is they don't have any way to be mounted on tripods so you have to use double sided tape and or clamps and things to get them on a stand. Just be careful and make sure they don't move once you've recorded your calibration video. 

argus1000

Scarecrow said:

. The only problem I ran into was with an original figure like Mestophales' Brute X. I originally intended this animation for Brute X. The animation imported into studio just fine, but I tried several different ways to transfer the animation over to Carrara with no luck.

 

Did you try to save the file to DUF format and export it to Carrara, instead of using the aniblock importer?

Scarecrow

Yes I did try that, no luck. 

Dartanbeck

No bother. I like the aniBlock approach. With the paid version of aniMate 2, we get some sweet tools for working with existing aniBlocks as well as baking from the timeline, etc., so I enjoy that part.

It all sounds really wonderful... all of it. I'm a tinkerer, so the camera mounting won't be an issue. 

Thanks for all of this info! Much appreciated!

Scarecrow

No problem, I recommend getting your ps3 eye cameras or kinects or whatever you're going use first. (I went with the ps3 eye cams because they were so inexpensive on amazon, and I guess they can be more accurate than the kinects.) Then download ipisoft and you get a fully functional one month free trial! After playing with it a few times I decided it was worth paying for.

Scarecrow

Also I think saving to duf would work fine with genesis characters, it didn't work with Brute X because I think his rigging just doesn't load into Carrara the same way it loads into studio. The motions still come through, it's just not right, his arms get twisted behind his back and he's floating up in the air and stuff like that, I'm over it at this point.

Dartanbeck

Try this if you have Poser (any version will do):

Load Brute X into Poser. Go through and apply as many pose files as you can, MAT, INJ, etc.,

In the end, set him up how you'd like him as a default figure - the default Brute X that you'd like to load into Carrara, in a default (zero) pose

Now save him back to the same place as a slightly different name, like Brute X2 or Brute XC, or something... just don't go replacing the original is all.

(One could renamer the original instead though)

Now try your aniBlocks on this newly stored version in Carrara. 

This is a "Fix" that I would go through for figures that didn't work correctly in Carrara. I don't remember anymore exactly which figures I had issues with - it's been a long time. But sometimes I think just the way a CR2 gets saved into Poser originally might have something to do with how differently they might work in Carrara - not sure... but it almost always worked for me.

Scarecrow

I don't have Poser...

Dartanbeck

I haven't updated since Poser 7.

I never use it now. It does have some useful tools, if you ever see an older version on sale at Amazon or something. But I cannot speak for the worthiness of the latest or a Pro version. I just like the walk designer (much less, now that I have GoFigure's aniBlock walk kits) and some of the Pose Saving abilities and other tiny bits of it. I don't mean to sound as if I don't like it... but having Carrara makes it worth a LOT less to me now. But in truth, I really like Poser - especially if I didn't have Carrara. 

Well... perhaps there's a way to open the CR2 file in a text editor and look for something strange? I would totally suck at that! LOL I wouldn't know what to look for!

Anyway... I suppose I should get Brute X for Genesis then instead of the original mesh? I kinda like the face on the original better ;)   Maybe I'll try him anyway and just animate by hand if I have to(?) we'll see. I've just recently scored quite a few Genesis 1 shapes and textures as well as grabbing some M4/V4 textures (works on Genesis 1's Basic Male/Basic Female respectively) which add even more to my monster-making abilities with that figure. Genesis 1 really rocks for making creatures! :)

Scarecrow

Yeah aside from this issue of transferring animations from studio the original Brute X works fine in Carrara, hand animating is no problem. I just looked at the Brute X for Genesis and I agree I like the original better. Anyway I think my friend that I'm doing this for likes the infernal behemoth better...

Scarecrow

I really like the original Brute's textures.

Dartanbeck

Yeah, I have all three of the Genesis 1 Daz Monstrosities. They work really well for adding incredible changes to any monster I wish to create. Somethimes I collect them (Genesis character products) just for the textures, other times for the shapes, and often for both. Carrara's Texture room lets us find all manner of ways to mix and match those textures!

So that's where I might prefer the Brute X for Genesis - being able to mix in other morphs, if even just slightly. But then to be able to auto-fit gear to him is like magic!

Daz3d really came up with something when they've created Genesis and the Daz Studio 4+ system! I love it! 

Hmmm... if I get some cash before the Brute Xs go off sale, I might just grab both of them - perhaps some of the original's awesome accessory products as well!