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I see ,if someone who is willing to install a second OS or wait for a windows based plugin. you are suggesting pipeline of exporting a BVH bone rig from Daz studio and binding a mesh to it for necessary visual reference. learning how to animate it manually in Blender and exporting a BVH back to Daz studio and exporting it back out as Alembic.
Not impossible, as I Did similar by having an FBX rig of my G2 figures sitting on standby that I would import into Iclone 3DX and apply iclone motion before export BVH back to Daz studio before exporting MDD to C4D
However you really need to learn to animate a proper MHX or Rigify Armature in Blender to get decent animation with Ik & foot floor contact solving or what is the point of animating in blender at all?
That being the case, why not just use Diffeomorphic and convert to MHX where you can import/append some of your Daz animation/pose data including facial animation from Face mojo/mimic/anilip etc.
I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just saying that I've found a simple an rock solid way of animating using Blender's tools that imports back to DS perfectly. You are exagerating the difficulty and risk. Your pipeline depends on Daz's FBX export working, does it not? What is that other than a Windows based plugin, and further, made by a company that is a lot less responsive to users' needs than I, or Thomas, or Cinus is.
Thank you for validating as "not impossible" that which I've been successfully doing for the last two years.
Of course, that is the whole point, but I prefer Autorig Pro. Not because it is better nor worse, but because it's the first one I figured out that met my needs. I hope you aren't taking the example that I made in 30 seconds as the extent of what I envisioned. I just wanted to prove to you that despite your emphatic denials and diatribes about retargeting that I still don't understand, it does actually work.
Because even Diffeomorphic is not necessary if you just want to animate with good IK, with the intention of exporting back to Daz. Importing poses is not technically difficult and can be accomplished by parsing the pose's duf file and aplying the rotations. If I needed to do that, I would have written that script already.
No one is twisting your arm, you don't have to install anything you don't want to, or wait for any plugins from anyone (but for those that do, I've got a bunch of BVH tools animators other than you might be interested in, and some Houdini magic as well), but it seems like you are inventing objections for some reason, instead of being pleased that there's one more way available to us to get DS contect meaningfully into Blender (and back). Which you are of course free to do.
Hi Donald (TheMysteryIsThePoint),
I gotta say thanks for your continued BVH migration experiments and progress.
It also sounds like you're working on the possibility of doing a DS-Native version of your script, which would be greatly appreciated by all who are following a workflow that's similar to yours.
I find the apparent resistance to your ongoing and intriguing BVH migration experiments and efforts surprising if not confusing, as I see no downside to having another more direct DS to Blender (and back) bone animation workflow available. I also expect, given your track-record, that any of the mentioned impediments to this (currently experimental) workflow will be identified and addressed as time goes on - much like any utility in its nascient stages - if for no other reason than it's an interesting challenge, let-alone a useful end-result.
Even though I'm also using a DS <==> Iclone toolsuite workflow (IClone's tools nail my price-point/editing needs), I simply can't ignore the rapid advances going on in the Blender animation tool domain. The Blender tools are maturing to *my needs* at a much faster and relevant pace (as are IClone's) than those currently being re-worked in the DS environment, and Blender's rendering facilities are so much better for *my needs*, that these data-migration steps in the process are easily worth the trouble, plus-some.
I'm loving this idea you're pursuing - I *really* like your described paradigm of separating the foundational bone-animation (bvh, etc.) process from the meshed/skinned/morphed figure elements, so-as to really quickly get a solid core of clean skeletal motions in hand before wrapping and refining them with per-figure adjustments and the final skinned morph and dynamics animations that tend to be so app/platform specific. I believe if I can get the editing of bone-motions to work better (foot-slide, natural looking IK, etc.) without mesh distractions, that the required follow-on animation layers will only present that much better (resulting in less visual distraction and uncanny valley motion effects).
Thanks for your (and everyone else's) advice, thoughts, critiques, etc. relative to this effort. Perhaps you 'see' something that's not as evident to others, or relevant to their specific needs, and by your continued persistence, maybe the value you see will prove itself once it becomes less abstract/theoretical - like your sagan project has. I'm a believer, and hardly one to look for silver bullets at this point in life, so your efforts are being watched closely and appreciated.
(FWIW, I'm committed to working with the Genesis1 figure and would be willing to help flesh out the 'grunt-work' of bone-mapping or similar to help enable support for this figure if there is any per-figure differentiation required in your code-base. I would be willing to do this for other figures as well if it'll free you up to do the 'good stuff'.)
best, and thanks again.
--ms
Retargetting is only a thing when you are trying to apply a generic BVH or FBX motion file to a custom rig, where the bone names do not match up perfectly. Axis direction can be adjusted in most FBX imports using the import options, but only in software that supports all the latest SDK features. As I mentioned earlier, DS really doesn't seem to have all the feature support for FBX that Autodesk and other professional software does. Blender has much better support for FBX, especially with the addons out there to extend the features. The worst FBX support I've seen so far is in Poser. It's almost non-existent there.
You're spot on, again.
I don't understand why retargeting is even being mentioned. Neither do I understand why a method that doesn't depend upon anyone's janky FBX support isn't automatically better. BVH is to FBX as MDD is to Alembic: no, each doesn't have all the features as does the latter, but for the one thing it is meant to do, it does it in the simplest, most easily hackable way, eschewing unnecessary complexity. Which means it is less likely to be improperly implemented, and third parties can more easily write tools to manipulate files in that format; Even if DS's BVH importer were completely broken, it wouldn't be hard at all to write one that worked. That is a much better position to be in than trying to marry Autodesk's FBX SDK to DS's and having to understand a zillion concepts that have zero to do with bone rotations before being able to get to what is really important to you.
Thanks, @mindsong. I'll stumble forward. Soon I'll be posting the Diffeo HD exporter (which I don't understand very well, but @Padone says it is imperfect but enough to be useful), a DS Plugin "shim" which allows devs to unload/reload plugins without restarting DS to greatly speed up the development cycle, a plugin to fix the BVH files exported from Blender for DS, and a version of Sagan that knows how to create a separate scalp object to serve as the emitter for hair particle systems but is offset from the character's head by a configurable amount so that hair simulations don't become unstable because the hairs are emitted within the head's collision distance.
To be honest, though, I'm most excited about working with the guy I found on upwork who's going to see about figuring out how to do bonafide retargeting in the latest version of Houdini. I am very impressed with Houdini and want to take better advantage of it. God knows I love Blender, but Houdini is un-fricking believable.
all very interesting - and apparently multiple lifetimes of potential to learn, master, and tweak - not a bad problem to have, I suppose.
I've DL-d and perused Houdini, and was impressed as well, but ... haven't pursued it beyond that. Your endorsement of yet another option is both overwhelming and inspiring :^)
bravo, and looking forward to our collective future (w all who are involved).
--ms
@Donald(MITP) Apologies for seeming like a troll!!
I have a long history of BVH usage from my many years as poser user and have a bit of a bias due to its limitations I have encountered over the years.
You are indeed a true innovator willing to step in and fill gaps that others ignore.
Keep it up!!
@Mindsong.. Do you have CC3 pipeline? If you are using Blender for rendering ( and other native VFX features) are you using a direct CC3 FBX to Blender pipeline ??
I am curious if you are taking advantage of the action editor to store and re-use multiple motion imported from Iclone.
Also for those are willing to use Genesis 1-2, a direct Daz FBX to Blender work flow will allow you to use the Blender action editor for appending new motions after inital import as well including facial animation from Daz mimic etc. Blenders FBX importer will also import facial animation
No problem... that sounds like me and Daz documentation :)
ditto - but probably without as many callouses and scars as you've probably earned there...
now we're talkin'
I don't have the CC3 Pipeline, but I have CC3, 3DXpipe, Ic7 - all current. My export plan is either via alembic to blender, *or* to get the ic animation 'controls' back to DS for alembic. I'm not going to the IC CC3 figure-base (yet).
not yet... as per above. Migrating my mocap library would be a serious (painful) task too. But Blender's native mocap support is fleshing out nicely too, so the advantages held by the other platforms are quickly losing weight in my book.
Have you been able to get IC7 facial or body morph animations back to DS in any useful (reusable) way (fbx, etc.)? I always feel like each iteration of these transfers degrades the results, but its not a scientific conclusion, just a sense, based on how these conversions work.
To be sure @wolf359, you've been a powerful influence and inspiration to my own thinking and many of my key decisions - based on both your shared experiences and your animated productions. I see TMITP's work as a wonderful addition to our options, at a good time, brought with a wonderful attitude and generous spirit. I'm ever-curious what avenues you're exploring and what choices you'll make as we go forward.
And FWIW, a candid, critical, and experienced eye is a useful influence in any ongoing explorations.
best,
--ms
Not sure what this means, but it sure sounds good. From the "Blender's Big Projects for 2021" (emphasis mine):
Animation 22
Formerly called ‘Animation 2020’, but for prevailing reasons it could not start last year. The good news it that Blender Foundation received a big grant from AWS to invest in character animation tools the coming 3 years. We want to involve experienced character TDs from the industry (veteran Jason Schleifer is available), including recruiting top developers who are in for a challenge (recruitment starts Q2 ’21). Specs include work on speed (threading, prefetch, caching); Node system for drivers/constraints/deforms; character debugging tools; redesign armatures to work for mocap, controls and automated systems (muscles); multi-layer posing and allowing tweaks on top of caches; advanced interaction/selection (including widget-less posing, diagram views); and of course to be well aligned with USD. Let’s stop here!
Oh boy. Well, they claim that Blender will become entirely node-based for most things. Like Houdini. Shaders are already there obviously, and animation has an addon already for that but it doesn't include much for character animation yet. That will change. Also, modifiers will be node based, etc., etc
Sounds like BIG changes are going to start occurring faster than ever before. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but when you get millions of dollars in grants and donations, you better start producing some real fundamental changes in the software to show where that money is going, or you'll lose support faster than a politician with a prostitute. I think this will alienate a lot of first-generation users who were skeptical and hesitant to even upgrade to 2.8, but will certainly please studios and younger users.
Sorry... I don't have any renders to share but I am working on a long term animated project in Blender with Daz characters and haven't had many complaints exporting BVHs from Daz and retargetting them to the DazToBlender Bridge characters in Blender. They aren't perfect but pretty dang close. Though the corresponding muscle morphs are not as impressive as in Daz.
I'm not much for scripting but if you can get that negative value correction add on up and running I'll look forward to checking it out.
I baked an Animate walk into the Timeline in Studio and tried the FBX export route. I must have missed a step. Will try again.
Hey @TheMysteryIsThePoint! I would love to know if and when you're able to get this plug-in up and running, and anything I can do to help. I tried the files in your zip and your "fixed" file imported perfectly into Daz from what I saw in your Blender file, but when I tried to export your blender file myself as a .bvh with the settings you have in the attachment of zxy and clicked the box below in the export settings, my character in Daz moves her limbs like your animation, but she moves downwards instead of forward. I then tried setting it to zyx and she still moved downwards. I'm not sure if it's possibly the script you wrote for that one file to work perfectly, but I would love to see this as an option to animate in Blender and bring back into Daz. Please keep us posted if you decide to do something with this plugin idea.
And if it is commented on after this response with the attachments somewhere in the two pages, I apologize for not reading everything, just say hey keep reading if it is lol. I'm taking a fifteen minute break from a commission and just wanted to see what I've missed the past couple of weeks in the Blender forum since I've been MIA with this gig and the holidays and I've got to get back to work.
Thank you!
Hi, @benniewoodell
If I'm understanding correctly, what you experienced is expected. Daz and Blender use different coordinate systems and the "uncorrected" BVH file you exported yourself won't work because correcting it is more involved (slightly) than fixing the rotation order. The fix should work for all BVH files; the fix is that simple.
Also note that, mathematically, the transformation from Daz to Blender is not the perfect inverse of the transformation from Blender to Daz, so there's a different fix for that as well. I'm putting both "directions" into the plugin which should be ready within a week. It's just kind of a pain to port code from UNIX to Windows.
I really wish people were willing to install WSL and learn just a little bit of the command line, because I've got more BVH tools that work hand in hand and are much more amenable to a sort of "pipeline" where one applies more than one transformation to the BVH. You can say things like "take this raw walk animation, find the best cut points for a loop, trim it to just that loop, copy it 4 times end-to-end, and stretch/compress it as needed so that it lasts exactly 10.75 seconds" People bad-mouth BVH a lot, but its simplicity makes it extremely hackable.
In any case, sit tight, it's coming, and the best way you can help is actually by actually using it, testing, and reporting bugs.
Awesome, I am sitting as tight as I can :) This is something that I would use dang near every day as I'm just about finished prepping all my scenes and my actors are rehearsing their lines for my animated feature. So I'm right at the cusp of starting and I will let you know if and when I run into any issues.
And quite honestly, I'm totally willing to try anything if it'll make a difference. I don't quite know what WSL is, but I remember as a kid I never used Windows, I looked down on it and I did everything in DOS. So command lines aren't any issue for me, I just need to know what I need and what stuff I need to write down for future reference to type in the command line. Obviously if you have a simple plugin that doesn't require it, I'll gladly use it, but if it's too much of a hassle and say this is what you need to do, I'm in. Thank you so much!
Hi @benniewoodell
WSL is, since Microsoft apparently "loves" Linux now, what they call their technology that allows Windows to run, say, Ubuntu Linux in a virtual machine. That way, when I develop command-line oriented stuff, people can use it directly instead of my having to stop and write a Windows/Daz plugin. This is especially painful when the functionality doesn't require any Daz Studio technology in order to work, like converting BVH files. Instead of getting things to work on Windows and with a GUI, which I just hate doing inthe first place, I could be devoting what little time I have for fun stuff like this towards more functionality. But I don't think many people are willing to do that.
The thought of you using it for a production as cool as your last one is inspiring.
@themysteryisthepoint thank you so much for those kind words! I'm actually really blown away by the response that short has received. The feature I'm starting on is a thriller but it has many of the themes and undertones of the short as that's generally been my style of filmmaking over the years.
But I totally get the annoyance of having to do something that takes away from something else that brings you joy. I've never looked Linux but a good friend of mine years ago always raved about it. At the time I was a Mac guy so I never paid attention, but now I'm back to working with PCs and feel so far behind in a lot of stuff. Like I said, if you decide to forgo the windows version of your plugin, just let me know and I'll try and figure out this whole Linux thing. Thanks so much for all your time and effort, it's really appreciated :)
@mindsong I (and many,many others) have been exhiled from the forums for several days due to a glitch
Anyway for those using Blender for Character animation just be aware that you can store/append unlimited motions in the "Action editor" as long you separate them by Figure rig/generation( Mill4 for Mill 4) (G3 to G3) etc This an example of how I use the Action editor for my CC3 to Blender pipeline
For anyone who is interested,
I'm just about finished porting part of my BVH tools to Windows and added a BVH tab to Sagan, where the "BVH fixer" lives. I just need a little more time to figure out how to best solve the issue of Daz not exporting the character's root node, which causes the hip bone to become the character's origin in Blender, rather than that spot on the ground between the character's feet.
It's D&D time, so I won't finish it this weekend, perhaps by next weekend.
Awesome sauce, can't wait to check it out. Thanks so much for all the hard work. Have fun with D&D!
Hello https://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/3249816/TheMysteryIsThePoint, any word on your plugin/script? Would love to try it out! Thanks!
I've encountered some unexpected difficulty; DS seems to be inconsistent in how it exports BVH. But I'll keep at it; this is too important a capability.
Based on your skill/understanding, it may be worth doing your own exporter. Best I can tell, the DS BVH exporter was at one time an external PA addon and picked up by DAZ a long time ago, and hardly touched since. (Re-upping old code like that is likely a painful/touchy endeavor, so I cast no stones).
The current exporter generates some interesting results, and for a while wouldn't even re-import its own exports. Mappings are saved in the registry... Definitely a fragile relic that could use some refreshing.
Kind of like their Alembic exporter, but different...
best,
--ms
Hi @mindsong, that may in fact be what I end up doing... I don't understand how anyone could get wrong such a simple format, which is also the part that scares me into thinking that there's some hidden gotcha that I haven't encountered yet. I guess I'll soon know.
Given their recent official appreciation and investments in interoperability (well, data/product exporting), I wonder that this particular DS feature might not be something that would make sense to be open-sourced like the other plugins.
I guess we can ask...
"Hey DAZ devs, would you consider open-sourcing the DS BVH import/export code (and docs,if any!) so that willing and able 3D enthusiasts can make the world a better place? Please?"
best,
--ms
For clarification -
This WIP plugin's functionality is to allow for the clean export / reimport of BVH to and from Blender - to take advantage of Blender's animation suite?
Nothing in terms of converting std '2 neck bone / no twist bone' BVH files to something G3/8 compatible?
(Dont be so hesitant to release command line tools - heaven forbid someone learn command line competency and be better for it to use your script! See: OIDN denoiser)
@buryshe
I'm so sorry that I somehow missed your comment.
You are correct. The reason why it works, with no foot sliding, etc., is because it doesn't change the armature at all. It just uses BVH as a dumb transport from Daz to Blender and back, as is.
But... what you are talking about requires real retargeting, something that I and a really good Houdini hacker that I found are working on.