Animate 2 procedural blocks
We should be able, on any track, to quickly control hands, head and eye movements. Sure, I know we can use blocks for this, but for tedious repetitive scenes, built in blocks would allow is to quickly add realism.
We should be able to right click on a track and choose "add procedural block" or "add adjustment block"
There should be built in blocks that do the following:
For hands:
make fist
relax hand
gun
sword
maybe five more common hand poses as well as animations, like typing or warming up fingers
For head
eyes right and left
eyes up and down
head up down left and right
blinking (I know there are already blink aniblocks but they should be insertable any time)
Idling
Idling is a real problem there are simply NEXT TO NO GOOD PLAIN IDLING ANIBLOCKS. Something non-stylized and non-hyper-active. Idling should not be hyperactive. It should just be "not still".
Maybe four different idles, standing and sitting from extra simple to stylized.
Randomness
It would be cool if a very soft random background idle could be added to a track so that keyed poses look more natural.
Maybe a few more adjustment inserts for wider/narrowers stances, etc.
Again, I get around these things all the time. I know that it can be done without a right click, but if you REALLY want a nice animation, going back and forth can be extra tedious and lead to less than polished
Comments
You're right, we do need more idling blocks. The ones that exist are a little to hyperactive.
About making a fist, etc.
I have been doing that by using the puppeteer. I set a relaxed hand as the start point, then a fist and the end point. Then I create the aniblock from that.
You have some good ideas, hopefully our friends at goFigure will read your post and take action.
Thanks.
When I worked for a software company, we wouldn't stand for an explanation to be "Use another product to do what our product could do with a tweak." The owner would ask us if it was feasible. We'd whine no, and then he'd say do it. And then we'd do it and make it better than the suggestion/complaint.
Animate is great. It needs to move on to awesome. It should be backwards compatible but more to the next level. The priority should be ease of animation. My suggestions don't suggest changing the interface. Just automating a few processes that Animate doesn't.. They add a lot of thoughtful features, but the new features are getting more and more esoteric and obscure. They should be PRACTICAL updates.
Oh! Male and female walk, sprint and run, turn, stop, etc should not be aniblock construction kit products. They should be built in. Not just included blocks. They should be built in. The interface is TINY and annoying to navigate. Actually having to navigate around to find aniblocks should be minimized. I will admit search does help a lot.
I like your Ideas as well. Like tsarist I have created many of my own AniBlocks for such things as hands eyes and more blinks. I did a passable shift weight from leg to leg but it's not near pro quality. As I wish to really get into Animation when my new PC is built Faster and easier would really make my day.
Tsarist pointed me towards this thread. FYI, we are making all of our future releases to include aniblocks, and we definitely want to have your suggestions.
Thank you for popping in. I do wonder why the Quick pick menu in AniMate2 was made as a pull away behind the Control interface if the tab is not docked? I prefer to have my interface float as I work and that behavior took me aback until I learned the quick pick tab was a pull away.
There was a DS3 plugin called Life that did this kind of procedural.
This thread discussed it: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20118/
I guess it's gone now though.
Does anyone know how to create aniBlocks with a .dsa file instead of the .ds file. When Creating the aniBlocks it needs to be a .dsa or .duf now
I have a walk.gfa and a walk.ds which apparently needs to be a .dsa file for it to work with Daz Studio
Any help with this would be amazing
SKA