The "Animators Assemble!" thread for Daz animation WIPs, clips, and tips
Auroratrek
Posts: 218
A thread for all things Daz animation (or just animation). Show us what you're working on, share tips and tricks, useful links, ask a question, or maybe just talk about what's inspiring you.
Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
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I'll start out by confessing that up until this week I used Poser for animation, even though I used the Daz characters (V4/M4), because I found the Daz animation tools too cumbersome. I recently built a PC, however, and moved over from the Mac, which forced me to construct a new workflow, since moving to Windows 10 made me leave some of my tried and true tools behind--notably InterPoser Pro and PoserFusion--but also gained me opportunities in the form of iClone/3DXChange. But perhaps the most important development (not to mention the most auspicious timing) is the new Daz Studio 4.12 timeline. With the new timeline, I think can finally cut Poser loose and work with the Daz characters in their native application, not to mention finally potentially access the Genesis characters, which I never got to work in Poser. Also, my tests with the PC-only 3DXChange have yielded the kind of retargeting of motion capture and stock motions to V4/M4 that I have been dreaming of for over a decade, so I am really excited to explore the capabilities and possibilities of my new Daz Studio pipeline (motion capture/3DXChange/Daz/Riptide/Cinema 4D)
Below is a test I did with an iClone motion, imported to V4 and edited in the new Daz timeline (hand movements, expressions, eye movements) and exported out to Cinema 4D via Riptide. The props are exported to C4D in fbx.
I've moved this to the Art Studio forum, where it should be less likely to get buried.
Okay, thanks.
That is some really outstanding work Tim..
What did you use? Kinect & Blender? Or something else?
Thanks! The software and hardware keep getting better, when you can get them to work!
In this case it's an iClone stock motion, but I do have an Optitrack mocap rig that I use for captures. I exported the Daz figure using Riptide Pro and rendered in Cinema 4D. Most of my work uses original mocap, like below.
Just a quick note to say I'll be watching this thread -- and that I'm a huge fan of Star Trek: Aurora. Better that Star Trek: Discovery by a country mile.
Pleasure to see you on here, sir!
Question: Have you tried (and hopefully succeeded) in transferring iClone motion to DAZ using the 3DXChange plugin?
I book marked this thread as well. :)
I have so many animations I created with daz it would hi jack this thread if i were to post them all , so I'll just start by post this one.
created and renderd in daz studio
Daz has long been heavily criticized for its animation ability, which has been a pretty solid sticking point. I know that the animation issues in the past are why several of my friends left Daz and moved onto other platforms. Now that Daz has updated its animation abilities I am hoping to see more pre-made animations for sale such as ballet dance moves, and simple idle animations, and daily life things such as simple sleeping, or eating. I have been playing with the animation ability, but the main issue I keep encountering is....
...THE LACK OF UP TO DATE TUTORIALS AND DOCUMENTS REGARDING THE PROGRAM.
Seriously I would love to see some more tutorials and guides by Daz and users alike regarding how to better create and use animation tools in Daz.
Interested to note Daz 4.12 has new timeline so I must investigate.Animate has some nice features but I was never comfortable with Daz Studio interface and am an ardent supporter of Daz Carrara which is an amazing program with great animation tools but sadly has problems with new generation daz characters because Daz are not supoorting Carrara anymore. God knows why - it really is great 3d application -
Anyways interested to learn what you know of Iclone as I have for a long time looked at it attracted by the animation tools but their software offerings are so confusing and add up as very expensive. However i just bought Character Creator and hope to get Iclone cheap somehow.
If you have CC3 pipeline can you tell me ,will it export animations made with iclone [ fbx] Or must 3Dexchange PIPELINE be used for that ? its so expensive !!
Love your 'Quest of the Key' is very good - Some neat things like the childs shadow - Like to hear why did you render in C4D ad not Daz - pros and cons?
Look forward to more of your posts
Here's a proof of concept trailer for an animated film I'd love to do sometime soon.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I can get the animations back in but thanks to DAZ studio 4.12 update I cannot render more than one frame in iray, so yeah that sucks
I will be in on this thread also. Usually my youtube channel is used for WIPs ( works in progress ) rather than finished pieces or trying out new products. But I am using Daz Studio exclusively for my animations. Here is a sample: Ship Sailing Out .
OK, that's good. I was wondering if Kinect was still used or not.
Thanks, Leonides! Yes, this is a motion out of iClone: Motion/02_G6 Motion_Heidi/Perform/Viewing mirror. I used 3DXchange to map the motion onto the Daz V4 bvh/skeleton. (Weirdly enough, for me it worked better with a V4 bvh/skeleton exported from Poser, and not from Daz, even though I imported it back onto V4 in Daz??) The hand movements don't come through, so I animated those in Daz along with the facial expression and blinks, along with a number of small adjustments, and used a sphere (made invisible) as a "Point At" object to direct V4's eye movements.
I was particularly impressed with how solid the feet are--no sliding!--and I got equally good results from my original mocap files from my mocap rig, like below. I never got feet this solid before--I usually had to hide them!
LOL--thanks Ivy--yes, you're very prolific! Perhaps we can use this thread mostly as a way to demonstrate tips and techniques, with the occasional project update. This animation is lots of fun, and I particularly appreciate the lighting and textures--they are the two things that 3D does better than traditional animation! (and now I've got that tune stuck in my head...
I'm hoping we can fill some of that gap here. When I further solidify my workflow, I plan to make a video showing the process, and I would encourage others to share their workflows as well.
The 4.12 Timeline is night and day compared to what it was IMHO. I have only used it this week on a few tests, but it was very intuitive and easy to work with right away.
It took me a long time to warm up to the idea of iClone-- it was difficult to really know if it would be useful for me, but Wolf spoke well of it, so I gave it a chance, and I'm glad I did. I can't speak for iClone or Character Creator yet (and not sure if they will be a major part of my process yet) but 3D XChange Pro is already one of my favorite tools ever. I bought an Optitrack motion capture system years ago, and got really nice captures (most of my work since 1/2 way through my first Aurora movie uses it), but importing the bvh into Poser or Daz always created foot-sliding, which was very frustrating since the original captures were so good. (I learned to just hide the feet as much as I could.) I even bought an old copy of MotionBuilder, and IKinema to try to retarget the motions to V4/M4, but both tools were way too hard to work with. 3DXChange, particularly where it works hand-in-hand with Daz figures--is a like a dream come true for me.
Honestly, for my purposes where I will mostly be using original motion capture bvh files mapped to the Daz characters, I probably could have been more than content with 3dXChange Pro alone--I wasn't sure what I need to get what I wanted, so I just threw up my hands and bought the whole suite, since I didn't want to find I was missing a vital piece. That said, it does look like iClone has some interesting animation and motion capture editing capabilities, so I will probably look into that at some point.
Thanks! (Tho Darla would correct you that she's not a child
) Cinema 4D is a robust 3D application with a fast renderer, and a relatively intuitive interface. I also build or modify a lot of the props and scenery I use in my animations, and Daz doesn't really have that kind of modeling capability. For instance, the mechanical monsters in this clip (below) combine parts of a model I bought on Turbosquid with original modeling, and rigged and hand animated in C4D. The characters are Daz and Poser figures (animated in Poser, since this was done a while ago). There are also lighting and atmospheric effects that would probably be difficult to do in Daz. Also, we use C4D at work, so I get it for "free".
Cool lighting and effects! Was this rendered all in Daz? Keep us updated on your progress!
That does! Do you know what they changed??
Nice! Tell us a little about how it was done!
These are all awesome looking animations. When I first seen this thread I thought, cool, I am going to add one of mine. But then I watched these amazing animations and realized how stupid mine looked and changed my mind.
Good job everyone, I look forward to seeing more.
Unticking Optix acceleration is ignored
Excellent Zombie movie.
Thank you, I'll keep you updated for sure! And yeah, everything here was rendered in Daz, all I did was putzed around with the contrast in after effects, but nothing else otherwise. I really love what you can do with this program.
We all start somewhere! I'm hoping by sharing work and tips we'll all get better!
This was great! How did you find working with Mixamo to be? I didn't realize you could use G8 characters with it. That might open up a whole new world of possibilities.