It is possible to animate a single figure with Genesis?

otodomus

Dartanbeck said:

Awesome - you've got help. Sorry, I had no internet for a little over a week now. Thanks for WiFi hot spots, but I don't get to those very often.

Yeah, 3DAGE has it right. I just wanted to add that, it was almost sounding as if you wanted to use DAZ Studio at first. Like others have said, you really don't need to. But doing so can have some advantages in certain situations.

 

This is something that I had in mind at the first, I thought that would be easier to model my own figure and then apply the previous pose Genesis have, I see now that wouldn't be that easy and I think that the pose my figure needs is not so complicated and could be done entirely in Carrara.

However I am very interested in explore DAZ Studio, as i have seen many scenarios rendered there that claims a lot my attention.

I will bring back with questions working there.

 

otodomus

Friends, I am having a trouble here, I went to the vertex room to attach the vest to the model, and I had to separate the skeleton, but it was with a pose already, how can I fix to 0 the skeleton? Or I need to fix it manually?

 

 

otodomus

Sorry, I have fixed out, it was on the Motion tab, I entered 0 to the three axes right?

3DAGE

You can go to the Animation menu,. and select "Send bones to reference position". that restores the position of the bones, when they were attached to the model.

There are also some functions  to Memorise and Restore the figure poses,.

doing it manually from the motion tab works too,. but more work.

 

 

3DAGE

quick animation

Dartanbeck

That's awesome, Andy! Love it!

It's so cool how we can make expressions without even including facial features, isn't it? :)

WendyLuvsCatz

No you can in fact select anything and the hip and attach skeleton without loosing the weightpainting on other meshes

it is one reason I do stuff in parts if I can

you can also add bones for extra bits added and it will use the existing and extra bones once attached but the previously attached mesh will not unless detached but handy if you do not want that to like skirt handles.

3DAGE

HI Wendy :)

thanks for that info,. Nice to know you can attach multiple meshes to the same rig,.

I still like the method of duplicating the bones and attaching to clothing to make conforming clothing using Fit to,. that's cool to.

 

Thanks Dart :)

all done without any additional morph packs :)

otodomus

Hi 3DAGE! That was really cool! You have an excelent hand to animate, indeed.

You did it only in Carrara right?

otodomus

At this time this is my advance:

► Vest is now attached to the body and it moves along the rest of the body... Cool!

► Helmet is also attached to the head and when I rotate it to the left or right, helmet goes with it... Nice!

► The Group is now grouped again into an Animation Group, at this time I am not seeing two things:

1-Non Linear Animation

2-Pupeteer

I will take a look closer in those two options, and I also need to add some bones to the fingers as I want that the white guy holds a sign or a cartel.

Thanks everyone!

 

Otto.

otodomus

​A picture of the advance:

 

 

I really like how is it working!

 

3DAGE

HI Otto :)

Thanks,. and Yes,. all the animation was created in carrara,. by making keyframes in the timeline,. and then converted to NLA clips.

When you select the "Animaion group" in the Scene instance list,,.. you should see the tabs in the top right,. for "NLA", and "Controllers" (puppeteer)

See pic.

You can create a pose for the figure,. and use Puppeteer grid area, to save those "pose dots",. once you have a bunch of different poses,.

you can apply those poses to the figure at different points in the timeline to create some keyframes,. Carrara will create the motion between those key-frames.

there are also several different types of "Tweener" in Carrara,. these create the motion "between" the main Key-frames

See Pic

Keyframes can be moved around in the timeline,. and  duplicated or deleted as needed,. so it's easy to adjust the animation timing by moving keyframes.

Once you're happy with that animation,. you can create an NLA Master clip,. and Use that clip, instead of the keyframes.

If you look at the little "keyframe" animation of the "walk" cycle,. you can see that it's only one second long,.

When it's converted to an NLA Master Clip,. I have options to Loop that clip as many times as I need.,.

 

 

otodomus

Wow! I am understanding now what you were saying all these posts, and I am seeing now also the NLA tab, it was on the right I was looking for it at the left on the animation frame section, so if I messed up with one scene in particular I can save the actual pose and then delete that previous bad scene right?

Now how can I delete my current animation fame set?

3DAGE

Yes,. you can use the Puppeteer (Controllers) little grid area, to save pose dots, just get the figure posed, then click in that grid to create the pose dot,.

Once you have a bunch of Pose Dots in the Grid,. You can save that whole set of poses,as a puppetteer "preset". then you could open another scene, add your Figure,.  and Load up that set of saved poses in the Puppeteer panel. (there are two little grey icons in the top right corner of the Puppetteer panel,. which allow you to Save and Load presets

You should also save your "animation group" to the Browser,. then you can drag it from there into any scene you make.

When you click to "Create Master clip",... In the little "Master Clip Creation" panel,.  ..there should be an option to "Delete Objects Keyframes" ...that should be enabled by default,.

That will delete the keyframes (for your figure) from the timeline,. and create the NLA clip,. which gets placed in the "Clips" panel,. down on the Bottom Right.

You can also "load clip data" (NLA Tab) back into the timeline as Keyframes,. which you could edit or add to,. and then save as a new NLA Master clip.

 to delete any other keyframes you've made,. you can just select an delete them ,. (don't delete the keyframes on frame 0)

 

To get your figure to hold things,. you can do the same thing as the Helmet,. Just parent the object to the figures Hand,. (you can also make that Object invisible)

so,. if you had the figure picking up an object,. you'd have one object lying on the ground,. and one object parented to the hand but invisible,. then when the figures hand reaches the object on the ground,. you change that visibility to make it look like the figure is holding the object,. and make the one on the ground Invisible.

Magic.

 

 

Dartanbeck

That is one cute little model guy!

otodomus

I think that I have understood almost all of your last instructions, at this time I need to add some bones to the fingers that makes the figure hold to the sign in his hand and holds also other props. I will to adjust some of the shape of the hand too.

I have saved one pose and now I am seeing also the green dot at the grid puppeteer area.

This is the latest screen shot of the scene:

 

 

Forgive please the horrible logos those are my client fault  hehehe

 

otodomus

Dartanbeck said:

That is one cute little model guy!

Thanks friend!

 

3DAGE

Just thought i'd post some shots of the process of carrying an object, and then putting it down

The object is duplicated,. so that you can have one object on the floor,. and the other object being carried.

The object being carried by the figure,. is Parented to one hand,. in this example the right hand.

then you create a target helper object,. and partent that to the Object being carried,. and move it to where you need the other hand to be holding the object

you select that hand,. and ad a Track Modifier, and choose the target Helper object,.. which will. make the hand follow the position of the helper,. and since tht is parented to the object being held,. that looks like both hands are holding the object.

The Track Modifier can be enabled or disabled,. in the animation,. so,. when you get to the point where you no longer need the hand to follow the target,. you can disable the tracking modifier,. ...then animate the figures arm from there.

quick anim

 

otodomus

Wow! Hahaha that was really cool!

 

I need to learn alot...

otodomus

Andy, one question, how can I save my props that be able and ready to use by switching on/off at the time I needing them? The props will be: Gears, Metal Structures, Signs, et al?

Regards

 

Otto

3DAGE

Hi Otto :)

Since they're all invisible (until you need them) and they don't interfere with animating the figure,. they can all be in parented to the hand /s of the figure,.

If you saved your figure in a T pose,. with all the objects parented to the Hands,. then you could load that into a new scene,.

 then set up whatever needs to be invisible / visible, and add your animation

You could also just save your Props in the browser (my Objects),. and drag then onto the figures hand,. then set up the keyframes for Visible / invisibe.

it's important to realise that in the animation (posted above) the figure is holding the gear wheel in one hand,.. all of the time,.

but it's only visible until the (put down),keyframe,. and after that it's still there , just hidden.

 

wgdjohn

Otto... looking good... you've gotten me interested, finally, into playing with dem bones.

3DAGE... thanks for the tips and examples... I've only animated objects... this I learned from scratch without reading anything or having any help beforehand... just experience with a different program years before Carrara was born.

3DAGE

Thanks :)

I'm glad they're useful,.

I'm also self trained,. and got involved with animating things by necessity ...spinning logo's and stuff years ago,. ... then people ask for more complicated things and the learning begins from there. studying how things move,. and what makes those things move that way,. then trying to re-crreate that.

Making figures and rigging them in Carrara is really easy,.  as long as you're staying in carrara with it,. and once you get that you can do it all inside carrara, there's no need to go anywhere else.

Once you grasp "morphs", it gets even better,. since you can create expressions and then you can use the Mimic (plugin) to create automagic animation from speech or vocals

this was a little simple man from 5 years ago,.

otodomus

Thats great Andy, so you don't need to rigg the mouth and the rest of the face to get expressions? I'm curious...

3DAGE

In the Vertex modeller,. you can create morphs,.

You'd select an area of polygons, and create a "Morph area",. for example,. select the head and name the morph area "head morphs"

then you click the little button on the right, to create a Morph Target,.

A Morph target, is a different shape,. using the same vertices,. ..so,. you could move and scale the vertices of the head into any other shape,. Happy face,. sad face etc...

You can create lots of different morph targets,. and after you create them,. you'll see a bunch of Slider controls,. one for each morph target, from 0.00 to 1.00 ..full on.

In the vertex modeller,. you can also preview these morphs in "animation mode" ,

If you wanted to make Muscles bulge in your figure,. you could create some morph targets for those areas,. then use the Morph sliders to create keyframes in the timeline to animate the morphs

exactly the same way as you would animate the morphs in a Poser or Daz3D figure..

quick example: I extruded circle in the Vertex Modeller to make a simple cylinder,. then added a morph area to the whole thing,. and created some morph targets ,. same object,. different morphs.

 

wgdjohn

3DAGE said:

Making figures and rigging them in Carrara is really easy,.  as long as you're staying in carrara with it,. and once you get that you can do it all inside carrara, there's no need to go anywhere else.

Once you grasp "morphs", it gets even better,. since you can create expressions and then you can use the Mimic (plugin) to create automagic animation from speech or vocals

this was a little simple man from 5 years ago,.

Quite good. I'm curious is the eye blink a morph? Like "Eye Open" then "Eye Closed"?

 

3DAGE said:

In the Vertex modeller,. you can create morphs,.

Cool... sounds rather easy. I'll have to play around with morph targets. Neve stand in front of one... especially if someone has a loaded gun. :)

3DAGE

hi john

Yes the eye blink is a morph,.just one morph which is either open or closed, as needed.

:)

otodomus

Its very nice indeed Andy, congrats!

 

otodomus

And about the white worker guy my client is not wanting the animation, they only will want about 7 still images holding different props, in the beginning the idea was to have some similar of what you did in the last video, a man walking with one prop and then select another.

However the process you have taught me is very useful and I will do a simple animation to test what I learned.

Thank you so much!

 

Otto

3DAGE

Still's make life much simpler :)

you just need to pose the figure and place the Props where you need them.

Glad to help :)