character animation --- help ... how do i get rid of sliding feet ?

squirrely

hi all,

i'm trying to do some character animation in daz 4.5 but keep running into sliding feet issues

i got the key and graph mate plugins ... but they're not helping with the issue as far as i can tell

here is what i'm doing ... maybe someone can help me figure out what i'm doing wrong or how to solve the problem:
i was trying to attach a file where i did this ... but the forum neither lets me upload .duf nor .zip file ... weird

add a genesis figures to your scene

at frame 0 pin translation and rotation on both feet
go to frame 4
take the hip and move it down a bit so that the character crouches

now scrub through frame 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4

the feet will dip down below the ground in frame 1, 2 and 3

this is what i want to prevent

the feet should stay in place inbetween the 2 keyframes at 0 and 4

how to keep the feet in place ?

looking at the transforms i only got rotation (bend, side-side and twist) ...
but i also need access to x,y,z translate on the feet

any help would be much appreciated

thanks
frank

squirrely

just tried the same with michael 4 ... thinking it was maybe a genesis issue

but it's got the same problem with m4 ... feet go through the ground

in m4 i've got ik-rFoot and ik-lFoot ...

but even if copy frame 0 keyframes for the ik translations to frame 1, 2 and 3 the feet do not obey and still go through the ground

what gives ?

squirrely

and it gets even weirder ...

in poser9 if i turn on ik for the legs m4 does the correct thing

the feet stay in place during the crouch

help ... is daz studio 4.5 broken for character animation ?
please say it ain't so

wancow

Can you post some screen shots of what's happening?

And have you tried pinning the feet?

squirrely

wancow said:

Can you post some screen shots of what's happening?

attached in order
see in the frames were the character moves into the crouch that the feet go under the ground plane

And have you tried pinning the feet?

yes ... i pinned the feet in both translation and rotation right away up front
they are kept in place at frame 0 and 4 ... but not in between

thanks
frank

wancow

edit:

I see the problem... the trick will be to figure out how to get the XYX translation of the feet to show... with IK enabled, that should be visible.

I don't see it, and I can't figure out at the moment how to turn it on...

squirrely

i just want to do a simple jump

the character crouches and then jumps up ... that's it

i started from scratch ... just my keyframes

so did you follow the steps i outlined in my first post ?

1. add a genesis figures to your scene (also add a plane so that it's easy to see when the feet penetrate)
2. at frame 0 pin translation and rotation on both feet
3. go to frame 4
4. take the hip and move it down a bit so that the character crouches

and the feet did not penetrate into the ground like it shows in my screenshots ?

did you do anything else ?
turn on something somewhere in daz studio ?

thanks
frank

wancow

sorry frank, didn't know you were on... re see my post as I edited it. In Poser, when you have IK on (at least in vesion 6) you have XYZ translation of the feet and hands visible. I don't see how to enable this in DS... but it has to be possible. That way you can lock the position of the feet, or at least manage it.

As soon as I figure it out, I'll post it unless someone beats me to it.

squirrely

yeah ... still at the computer :)

that's what i figured too

i did try it in poser with ik enabled the feet ... i haven't seen anything like "enable ik" in daz studio
i googled for it a while back and what came back pointed to the pin'ing of the translate and rotation ... so that's why i tried it

looking forward to see if someone can point me in the right direction

with the feet misbehaving like that it's hard to do good character animation :-S

thanks
frank

kitakoredaz

Hi,, you may need to adjust hip Y translation about 1,2,3 frame.
to keep your foot fingers on ground .

and I do not pin rotation of foot, but use on Toes and Big toe.
if your foot can not rotation,, you can not clauching,, I think ^^

after set the last key frame,,
need to check hip y translation in graph mate about each key frame,
you can adjust curve.

(so I love key mate, and graphmate,, it can simply adjust and check about each node parameter,,)

and sorry, if It can not help you at all ^^;

ReDave

You could try switching to linear interpolation in keyMate.

info a385

Have you tried checking for older keyframes (left from an earlier pose) further on in the timeline that may be influencing your new animation?

dtamm

I've learned one trick to help with this. You have to map a key to next frame. Meaning I hit a key and it will got to the next frame.

switch to the active pose tool
Get your foot where you want it.
Click and hold the foot with the mouse(don't let go)
Hit the next frame button (that you mapped) on your keyboard
Slightly wiggle the mouse left one pixel and then right one pixel. The foot should be exactly where it was last frame.
Hit the next frame button (that you mapped) on your keyboard
Slightly wiggle the mouse left one pixel and then right one pixel. The foot should be exactly where it was last frame.
Hit the next frame button (that you mapped) on your keyboard
Slightly wiggle the mouse left one pixel and then right one pixel. The foot should be exactly where it was last frame.
etc

squirrely

thanks for all the comments

re: kitakoredaz
looking at your screenshot the character goes onto it's toes
that's not what i want in this animation
i want the character to jump straight up ... the power for that comes from the feet solidly on the ground
wrt hip rotation see below

re: ReDave
from what i can tell the interpolation mode won't help
reason is that i need the translate tracks on the feet ... but those do not exist ... i only got rotation
the feet do not rotate ... so the interpolation mode has no effect

re: info
there are no older keyframes ... only exactly these

re: dtamm
this is similar to what i ended up doing
i went to frame 1, 2 and 3 and move the feet back into place
the issue with that is that it's quite difficult to get the exact same position for the feet
while i do have the translate tool available in the viewport since there are no translate tracks in the keymate and graphmate translating the feet actually affects the rotation tracks of the legs
which propagates all the way up to the hip and basically does what kitakoredaz suggests ... but automatically
the other issue of course is that i have to do manually what a proper leg ik system would do automatically

i'll try a few other motions next ... among them a walk cycle

but if in all cases the lack of proper ik leg support causes this kind of issue then i think daz studio is limited in it's use for character animation

btw:
i've also tried in carrara ... and there you need to manually create ik targets and have the feet use them
if you do that the feet stay in place properly ...
but the rotation of the ik targets is very funky
they should be flat relative to the ground but need to be rotated sideways

i'll post more when i try out the other motions

kitakoredaz

IMO,, I think,, ds Pin tool and pozing tool with IK just mess up the pozing when hope precise positon of the node.

so not rely on. manually adjusting each node by rotation, and use symmetlly if need,
then set key with root genesis, or record the current poze by pupettier.

make some keys by using each node rotation,,
after that adjust the positon of the hip on the keyframe .then record it.

(How I make good pozing, and keep positon, on the few key,,
I must need to apply new key between current keys, to adjust interval pose,, and postion.
but only use hip translation to adjust positon.)

I have strong desire,,ds programmer gave us (or only me? ^^;)
,real tool pin or, strong instant glue for keep node postion and work with pozing tool.

it seems just broken tool for me,, to keep precise positoning.

mCasual

that's precisely the object of my old mcjAutoLimb script

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjautolimb

there's also mcjKeepOrient to stabilize the feet orientation once the feet position is stabilized

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjkeeporient

and for cases where the feet or the hands are attached to something that moves, there's mcjHoldOn
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/mcjholdo

1MoreThreadDeleted

I wish Daz would fix the sliding feet with something more robust. Pins just dont work. If you pin the ankles and move the waist down the feet are the first thing to move (jitter). This is one of the last obstacles to do doing CA in DS without having to fight the system. I am excited that we have keymate and graphmate, but then again daz did not bring us these nice addons Gofigure did. I would not expect anything different for daz studio for the foreseeable future. Maybe DS v5 will have a more robust ik/fk system. lol

Thanks Casual for the information. I am off to see how to use your scripts.

kitakoredaz

Mr Casual :lol:

I know,, your so good tools ,, then hope to try all.(about some tools I have downloaded already,,
and thank you much!!!
I often check your tools , topic,, and study.

but I have not still full knowledge about DAZ sutido basic tools about animation and pozing.
and product plug-in.

so I think it is better for me,, first try animation tools daz offer ,,.
then will learn and use your tools to improve my work.

(but I must need your tools ,,to prevent some problems,,,
eg more than 180 degree rotation problem,,
if I set rotation 720 degree about shuft, and set the key,, ,,ds parameter change.
so the animation can not work as I hope. so I may need your tool.

I changed interporation type to Linea about the keys by key mate , so it can work,,
but when I bake the timeline to aniblock it can not work,, ^^;,,

(I have not found when use aniblock and set rotattion more than 360 degree,,
so I think,, about not rigged figure, may need to use daz timeline, then use aniblock only for figure? )

and I know you offer good tools to correct the problem.

but sometimes I afraid,,
if it can not be used with ds 4.5,,, and compatibility problems,,
so I have not tried your tools many,,, )

texjones

The feet digging into the floor was one those things that aggravate about Daz. when I had Mickael from standing to crouch down to his knees, his feet would dig into the stage. I tried all kinds of ways around it. SO, the only other thing I could do was make the camera a little closer to him to hide the feet and follow him down, and also when he stood back up. Apparently, Daz doesn't understand how the ankles move in pivot when the legs bend down. The only other possiblity is to use the squat pose from the Gym Poses. Trying to animate freehand (without presets) in Daz always makes it look like they're floating, plus the fact that the muscles don't move as they should with the joint movement. SO the only other thing to do is use a preset pose, and re-work it to how I want it.

Tjeb

Or... try another approach. Download a few .BVH files from cgspeed. There are a few jumps in the more than 2000 files. I tried them with Genesis and they looked pretty good. Though Genesis was doing the opposite: floating a few inches above the plane, but that was easily corrected. And I agree with texjones: do what Hollywood does, film is all about 'make believe' just try another camera-view. mCasual's camseq script does a great job.

refsocrd1_aefdbd2b3a

providing simple solutions to difficult problems.

skip the scripts, do things the easy way.

First, turn off limits on the feet.(yes the ankles will break slightly)
second pin both rotation and translation.
third, set a key frame at the 0 position, and depending on speed(daz defaults at 30fps), add another for the final position.
For the average person, that should be at about the 10-15 frames( 1/3-1/2 second), put it further out if you want slower descent.
fourth, add additional key frames to correct for the push through.(daz's ik is sometimes a bit gak'd)
In my quickie test, i added 5 additional keys. Simply pulled genesis back up.
This worked with or without IK on.

One problem i saw here was using too many key frames too close together.
When using key frames, as I stated above, one at the start, and one at the end position. Then add as needed to correct problems.
It's easier to add a frame, then to have to modify several.(learned that from:jeff lew, character animation tutorial)
Another problem is that, according to the original post, you were just grabbing part of genesis and dragging it into position.
That's a quick way of moving characters, but in many cases you'll need to do a lot of clean up to get everything straightened out and positioned correctly.
I warped the heck out of genesis' lower body doing this test. hence why i don't do it this way.
I'd recommend that you check online for tutorials on animation, and also when doing animation, get some reference photos, and/or videos(youtube is great for that), they'll help get a feel for real movements/posing. just remember that most cg characters only have about 1/10th the bones a real person does, and don't move like real people, so you'll have to adjust as needed.

just my two cents, take it for what it's worth.

creativemodelsbe

there is a bug/future request about this subject in the bug tracker.
i think as long that there is not a real IK solution in studio, this problem will remain.

vindazi

Casual said:

that's precisely the object of my old mcjAutoLimb script

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjautolimb

there's also mcjKeepOrient to stabilize the feet orientation once the feet position is stabilized

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjkeeporient

and for cases where the feet or the hands are attached to something that moves, there's mcjHoldOn
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/mcjholdo

What application(s) were these done in?