Animator Friendly TIMELINE

alondan

* Dear Moderator: I wasn't sure where to post this suggestion, but it's for DAZ3D in general (plugin or built-in)

Hello all, 
I'm trying the latest version of DAZ3D again, thought I'll see some new improvement on the Animation timeline part.......

Unfortunately that part stay the same for many years, even with Animate2, KeyMate & GraphMate plugins... it is HELL to animate with.

Compare it to the Dope Sheet on Blender for example, which is much easier to FIND any keyframes by selections, CHANGE or TWEAK keyframes.

The current way DAZ3D works with animating on the Animate2 panel for example is hard to manage keyframes.
If I want to delete all Morphs keyframes for the Mouth and Tongue for example but leave the other morphs... it's so hard to do, it's almost manually work and sometimes I found that it's not deleting all the keyframes (I make sure to select TRSV for all keyframes available).

 

If iClone improved their Timeline , I don't see why DAZ3D shouldn't:
Another example is the iClone 7 timeline, it is very friendly and easy ONE PANEL, just like in Blender you can use other menus and panels as well but MOST of the animating job happens in the main TIMELINE.

It was a problem animating in iClone 6 (I know it because I did a short original cartoon with it) and it didn't have a GRAPH EDITOR so the was no way to use interpolation. I had to struggle and try my best to animate this thing to look decent and it wasn't simple because of the tools that were missing.
in iClone 7 they have a new graph editor so I could animate easily, everything animated manually and it was my very first animation in iClone.

Here is the short I "tried" to animate manually as explained (it was hell without Graph Editor and interpolations) but still, you can see the results I got.
Just imagine what an amazing epic thing I could make in DAZ3D and IRAY! :)
​

BACK TO DAZ3D!
Please... we need to make DAZ3D more Animator Friendly, let's get rid of the old tools and make one NEW TIMELINE together.
I'm not a programmer so I can't help in this way BUT! I am a professional animator (2D Animator and 3D) and I see the potential of DAZ3D,
I strongly believe that it's still the best Character-Friendly software.

I WANT TO HELP:
I'm ready to take on my part and test every single Prototype / Experimental version of a new Timeline, so I can help to Design it, Comment and guide the programmers and make it actually HAPPEN!  I'm one of those who animate WITHOUT motion capture and I can do MAGIC if I'll only have the tools, that's why I push myself to help the developers of DAZ3D to actually make it work!

If nobody will mention how important the ANIMATION and NEW timeline tools for DAZ3D, we will stuck for few more years with a great render software that can't animate easily, let's change it together! let's make DAZ3D be more Animator-Friendly!

I'll also be happy to provide animated sequences of characters (non capture, clean keyframes, easy to manipulate) once we'll have a better tool.
A great content will be open it's gates and I want to help make it happen.

Thanks for reading this, if any of you know a DAZ3D team member who can contact me about this all thing, I'll be happy if you can show it to the right person from DAZ3D so it won't just stay as a suggestion on the forums.

Thank you for your time,
Sorry about my bad English.

jakobrh

I support this

wolf359

The majority of Daz studio users only render still images.

If you insist on hand keying everything, then Daz studio is not a good 
choice for you because it does not have a proper  IK solver & hand /Foot
contact system like Iclone or Motionbuilder.

I use Iclone pro ,Endorphin and Daz studio (with  animate2 keymate graphmate)

I understand the importance of learning to hand keyframe
but being a purist about it will only slow down your creating
the scenes you wish to create.

alondan

I must agree with you on this Wolf359, the IK/FK is working in a very un-friendly way unlike in iClone (I didn't try Endorphin)

But still I can animate manually (because it is the most close thing to what I do for years as animating 2D Animation frame by frame) the results are totally different compare to hyper-realistic motion capture data. and that's what I aim for and that's why I still hope that DAZ3D will consider to add a better timeline, I have the feeling that more people would like to see a modern NLE timeline with all the needed tools in one panel built-in DAZ3D.

My question to you:
I saw many tutorials from Daz3D to 3DXchange to iClone.
BUT! do you know if it's possible to animate Daz3D (Genesis 8) in iClone and than BACK to Daz3D render in IRAY? (PBR is nice, but it's not IRAY).

Workflow idea (is it possible?)

1 - Create your DAZ3D Genesis 8 morphed final character 
2 - Export from DAZ3D to (whatever format that works with the right settings)
3 - Import to 3DXchange and Apply to iClone
4 - ANIMATE! the character in iClone.
5 - Export from iClone / 3DXchange back to DAZ3D.
6 - Render in DAZ3D using IRAY.

It doesn't have to be Iclone to animate, if you know any other solution that can do the job and get back to render in DAZ3D Iray it would be great.

The only timeline or should I say Dope Sheet that is the easiest to animate with is in Blender, but the current Import / Export plugins I used are for render inside Blender Cycles which is not what I'm looking for.

It's too many steps, I would love to animate the characters inside DAZ3D and just render, but as I said... it's hell (I can ignore the IK / FK issue)
the timeline itself is hell to work with and handle keyframes even with KeyMate and GraphMate which are.. "almost" there) 

Thanks ahead!

wolf359

"My question to you:
I saw many tutorials from Daz3D to 3DXchange to iClone.
BUT! do you know if it's possible to animate Daz3D (Genesis 8) in iClone and than BACK to Daz3D render in IRAY? (PBR is nice, but it's not IRAY).

Workflow idea (is it possible?)

1 - Create your DAZ3D Genesis 8 morphed final character 
2 - Export from DAZ3D to (whatever format that works with the right settings)
3 - Import to 3DXchange and Apply to iClone
4 - ANIMATE! the character in iClone.
5 - Export from iClone / 3DXchange back to DAZ3D.
6 - Render in DAZ3D using IRAY."

You can import a G3 or G8 figure into iclone as an FBX exported from Daz studio
and retarget Iclone motion to the DAZ figure and export as BVH
back to Daz.
This is  how I use Iclone with the Genesis 1&2 figures

However you cannot get the animation data for G3/G8 back to Daz studio.
Daz Changed the bone rigging in G3/G8 for no logical reason

SO Genesis 3/8 is not recognized by the old Daz studio BVH importer.
so any externally created motion data for G3/G8 cannot be used back in Daz studio.

alondan

Thanks for the answers wolf, I appreciate it.

I guess I'll just keep fighting animating manually within DAZ3D current tools, it's not easy but I get very good results.
I can only hope for a better Timeline, hopefully like the Dope Sheet in Blender which is the easiest Non-Linear 3D animation tool I've worked with.

I don't understand why Genesis 8 is not universal standard, it's very hard to control IK/FK for very simple task such as grabbing the hips and just make the character either jump or sit down... even for Stills it doesn't make any sense to me, I can still animate but it's so much harder and not user-friendly.

I wonder if they can... if they will decide to change the Genesis 9 ?   or maybe on Genesis 3 / 8  update for a universal standard human-IK rigs.

I don't know if any new features / changes are on the way to the upcoming DAZ3D version updates, but so far after I didn't use it... I didn't see many changes on the animation department and I know that I'm not the only one who wants to animate in DAZ3D (with all the respect to stills).

Maybe if any DAZ3D team member will see this thread, I'll be able to help in the development and test the tools as I offered.
I would love to help DAZ3D get better in the animation department, so here I am... waiting for somebody to see this and let me join the trip to make DAZ3D even better! :)

Daywalker Designs

Most folks that do still renders don't even do their own posing, so it doesn't surprise me much that there hasn't been much improvement in animation in DAZ Studio.

alondan

daywalker03 said:

Most folks that do still renders don't even do their own posing, so it doesn't surprise me much that there hasn't been much improvement in animation in DAZ Studio.

I understand that, but what I'm saying is why not open the doors for people who like to animate in DAZ3D.
If they'll redesign the timeline, it will encourage old users and newcomers to pose and animate, so why not.. the basics are already in the software :)

Richard Haseltine

wolf359 said:

"My question to you:
I saw many tutorials from Daz3D to 3DXchange to iClone.
BUT! do you know if it's possible to animate Daz3D (Genesis 8) in iClone and than BACK to Daz3D render in IRAY? (PBR is nice, but it's not IRAY).

Workflow idea (is it possible?)

1 - Create your DAZ3D Genesis 8 morphed final character 
2 - Export from DAZ3D to (whatever format that works with the right settings)
3 - Import to 3DXchange and Apply to iClone
4 - ANIMATE! the character in iClone.
5 - Export from iClone / 3DXchange back to DAZ3D.
6 - Render in DAZ3D using IRAY."

You can import a G3 or G8 figure into iclone as an FBX exported from Daz studio
and retarget Iclone motion to the DAZ figure and export as BVH
back to Daz.
This is  how I use Iclone with the Genesis 1&2 figures

However you cannot get the animation data for G3/G8 back to Daz studio.
Daz Changed the bone rigging in G3/G8 for no logical reason

SO Genesis 3/8 is not recognized by the old Daz studio BVH importer.
so any externally created motion data for G3/G8 cannot be used back in Daz studio.

I thought I had pointed out to you that there are entries relating to bone assignment in the chnage log that suggest this is going to be fixed in 4.10.x .x(whatever it is released as).

Richard Haseltine

alondan said:

daywalker03 said:

Most folks that do still renders don't even do their own posing, so it doesn't surprise me much that there hasn't been much improvement in animation in DAZ Studio.

I understand that, but what I'm saying is why not open the doors for people who like to animate in DAZ3D.
If they'll redesign the timeline, it will encourage old users and newcomers to pose and animate, so why not.. the basics are already in the software :)

You do need to remember that Daz has limited resources, they can't possibly add every good feature request and have to prioritise. That doesn't mean aniamtion will always be neglected, we have seen PowerPose get soem much needed attention with the recent builds and - as I noted above - there has been work on BVH import according to the Change Log but it does mean that things may take a while to reach the head of the queue (unless a PA or developer takes them up in his or her own time, as has happened with some things).

alondan

Richard Haseltine said:

alondan said:

daywalker03 said:

Most folks that do still renders don't even do their own posing, so it doesn't surprise me much that there hasn't been much improvement in animation in DAZ Studio.

I understand that, but what I'm saying is why not open the doors for people who like to animate in DAZ3D.
If they'll redesign the timeline, it will encourage old users and newcomers to pose and animate, so why not.. the basics are already in the software :)

You do need to remember that Daz has limited resources, they can't possibly add every good feature request and have to prioritise. That doesn't mean aniamtion will always be neglected, we have seen PowerPose get soem much needed attention with the recent builds and - as I noted above - there has been work on BVH import according to the Change Log but it does mean that things may take a while to reach the head of the queue (unless a PA or developer takes them up in his or her own time, as has happened with some things).

Just to be clear, it could be my bad English... but I didn't mean this thread to sound like I'm complaining, not at all... I'm trying to help in any way I can, but since I'm just an animator and not a programmer, the only way I could help is what I suggested, help testing very early in-dev prototype of utilities/plugins if and when they'll start working on just to help get direction since I'm really deep into animation (that is what I do for living btw, I'm a pro animator).

So once again, I apologies if this thread or anything I wrote may sound like a complain because I really enjoy DAZ3D and hope to get more involved with the community as well. :)

wolf359

"I thought I had pointed out to you
 that there are entries relating to bone
assignment in the chnage log that suggest
 this is going to be fixed in 4.10.x .x(whatever it is released as)."

You referenced a cryptic passage in the change log about
the BVHmport "reverting to previous behaviour when encountering
unsupported blah.. blah  blah".

 Until I see this nerdy mcnerd technobabble translated by Daz to specifically
clarify that the DAZ BVH IMPORTER WILL RECOGNIZE  BVH FILES
CONTAINING THE BONE HIERARCHY OF THE GENESIS 3/8 MODELS.

I shall continue to refer to the>>> current state of the program<<<< 
when other animators ask about importing motion Data
Not some crytic speculation about future versions not yet in release or even pubilc beta.