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The "Animators Assemble!" thread for Daz animation WIPs, clips, and tips

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited October 2020

    I have some older Song covers I have done with my keyboard and guitar together,  but i keep them unlisted. Any Lyrics in songs usually get them DMC pretty quick by the music labels . I agree with you some musicians  use youtube for a living . I know even Lindsey Stirling has been hit for cover songs by YT so i guess it must effect everyone because she pretty popular

    I agree I wish I could work at my computer for my day job But since covid I had t go back to doing CNA work at th care center. Augh and even then I can only get part time hours which has greatly cut into my 3D budget  before when i was working for a printer locally at Highcountry I was getting plenty of over time. sadly covid force them to close.

    Things are tough all over i reckon.

    This is a old cover play I did a while back. I have not dare to upload any new videos since YT took down Polly's channel.    I have some with vocals too. but like i said I keep these type videos unlisted. 

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,208

    I cannot get the mixamo FBX to convert

    it did the first frame of some of the shorter ones then crashed hitting the longer ones

    I suspect it is thd FBX format that is the issue, they may need conversion to BVH first

    I could use iClone 3DXchange but that defeats the exercise as can use that alone anyway 

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,208

    an ArchVis video of  Jack's place kiss

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    Looks great Wendy :)

  • FrankTheTankFrankTheTank Posts: 1,131

    I'm surprised this thread is quiet this week. Looks like Daz and PAs are finally sending some love to animators, so hopefully this is a good sign of more to come. Curious though, has anyone updated to 4.14 yet? Is it really finally stable with everything working, no broken plugins? Also has anyone played with Spring Dynamics or the facial rig? Pretty sure I'm going to buy the Spring Dynamics, looks very useful, I'm on the fence about the facial rig though.I could see it potentially being a PITA if I accidentally click and pose the face with the rig, when I just want to select the head and move it. Hopefully one of you folks has bought it and can give some impressions of it in actual use. 

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238
    edited November 2020

    @TGSNT, yes, it has been quiet, hasn't it?

    I've upgraded and I'm in the process of testing.  I got both the face rig and the spring dynamics to see how I can integrate them into my own pipeline.  I'm rather disappointed with the face rig, even after seeing they integrated Dynamixyz (which I use), their implementation was not very efficient.  My beef with it is that although they integrated FACS (which is nice), it doesn't seem to match some of the documentation I have and doesn't seem to allow you to combine FACS poses (which are really required, but that might be me not knowing how to use the animation pipeline in Studio so well)  

    I do have a new little animation to show, my submission to the #MadeWithDaz #movember challenge.  Rendered in UE4 using the "Movie render pipeline" (offline renderer, took about 8hrs to render, at ArcVis quality, using raytracing)   I used Rokoko for the body/hands, Dynamixyz for the face, animated in Motionbuilder

    https://vimeo.com/480819185

     

    Post edited by Bryan Steagall on
  • Faux2DFaux2D Posts: 452
    TGSNT said:

    I could see it potentially being a PITA if I accidentally click and pose the face with the rig, when I just want to select the head and move it. Hopefully one of you folks has bought it and can give some impressions of it in actual use. 

    The Genesis Face Controls can be hidden, can be placed wherever on the screen, and can be parented to any bodypart (head is of course recommended).

     

    Bryan Steagall said:

    My beef with it is that although they integrated FACS (which is nice), it doesn't seem to match some of the documentation I have and doesn't seem to allow you to combine FACS poses (which are really required, but that might be me not knowing how to use the animation pipeline in Studio so well)  

    The tutorial from Daz might not have beent very clear. You can combine FACS as that is the very purpose of the tool. However, the product also comes with 50 premade facial expressions which they showcase in the video. Those aren't the FACS, those are just examples.

    I uploaded a tutorial on my channel which should clear some things out:

     

    Bryan Steagall said:

    I'm rather disappointed with the face rig, even after seeing they integrated Dynamixyz (which I use), their implementation was not very efficient.

    You're probably the only customer so far who has tested the Dynamixyz to Daz pipeline, I'm very curious to see what you'll be able to do with it. What issues have you been having with it?

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi Faux2d!

    I'm a Dynamixyz distributor and heavy user, and there are a few things which I could suggest.  I found it great that you created sample images for the retargeting profile (to know what expressions to do), but we normally try to keep that to very efficient ROM (around 45 expressions), with more added only when the actor has very specific range of motion.  It looks like you based the workflow on the Live Instant version of Performer (which is the generic tracker for live performance), which is similar to what was in the tutorial video.

    I can share some documentation that might be interesting to you, could we take this offline or PM me?

  • Faux2DFaux2D Posts: 452
    Bryan Steagall said:

    Hi Faux2d!

    I'm a Dynamixyz distributor and heavy user, and there are a few things which I could suggest.  I found it great that you created sample images for the retargeting profile (to know what expressions to do), but we normally try to keep that to very efficient ROM (around 45 expressions), with more added only when the actor has very specific range of motion.  It looks like you based the workflow on the Live Instant version of Performer (which is the generic tracker for live performance), which is similar to what was in the tutorial video.

    I can share some documentation that might be interesting to you, could we take this offline or PM me?

    Never used the live instance of Performer. My workflow actually has 136 ROM poses which are composed of FACS + phonemes and it bypasses the retargeting phase entirely. If FACS and phonemes are standardized, the retargeting links can just be copy-pasted from project to project. The user just has to record the training video while using the provided "Reference Images" as a guide.

    When you downloaded the Daz product there should have been 2 archives. One of them contains the Dynamixyz to Daz pipeline. There's also a quick video tutorial.

    I also wrote a Documentation file going in more detail but sent it the day the product was launched so it might not have been included until now. I'll send it over to you through the email you've sent.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,483
    edited November 2020

    I've posted this in the Commons but I thought I'd post it here too. It's an animation I did to test out the new Spring Dynamics product by 3D Universe https://www.daz3d.com/spring-dynamics-for-daz-studio

    I ran the Spring Dynamics script on the pectoral bones as well as the bones for the hair fringe. The dress movement is done with dForce simulation. The animation was rendered very quickly with Filament.

     

    (Turn DOWN your volume before watching - since Youtube added the soundtrack at a very high volume. Next time I will be adding the music before I upload to Youtube.)

     

    Spring Dynamics is pretty awesome! It DOES take some trial and error to get the settings right, but once you find the settings that work best for what you want you can save it as a preset and load it again later for other objects. It's a great script and can create some really cool movement effects! :) The script works with bones, so anything with bones can have Spring Dynamics added to it. I can see it being pretty useful for people who enjoy creating animations. :) I'll definitely be using it a lot in the future!

     

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • burntumberburntumber Posts: 16

    Hi Tis is impressive. Could you publish your setting. I assume the setting were the same for the pectals ad the hair? 

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,969

    So I just finally finished my Movember animated film submission and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I hope you give it a look if you have a few free minutes :) 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LevSu4P4xk0&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR25tgVjxGtwKRcdoXxmieudNPIL09XbBUZnfNsI17c-TqkNkRZa8tA5D2k

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    @benniewoodell

    Very nice, visually very stunning, good flow to the story and very appropriate, good luck!

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,969
    Bryan Steagall said:

    @benniewoodell

    Very nice, visually very stunning, good flow to the story and very appropriate, good luck!

    @Bryan Steagall thank you so much for watching it and the very kind words :) 

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,483
    burntumber said:

    Hi Tis is impressive. Could you publish your setting. I assume the setting were the same for the pectals ad the hair? 

    Yeah, I used the same settings for the pectoral bones as I did the hair fringe bones. I used these settings:

    I had to make some manual adjustments to a few of the frames to fix some clipping and reign in the pectoral bones a little, so you might try a little lower setting for the strength and see if that would be preferable. :)

  • burntumberburntumber Posts: 16

    Thank you 

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238
    edited December 2020

    I found this model from BlueJaunte that I just had to try an animate (https://www.daz3d.com/macey-and-chani-hd-with-hd-expression-for-genesis-8-female).  The daz studio render was just too good to pass up.  I asked my niece to capture a little video with her iphone and processed it through Dynamixyz Performer, and animated in Motionbuilder

    I'm not entirely happy with it though, some of the mouth shapes are a little weird, so I'm going to go back to my rigging in motionbuilder to try and perfect it

    Let me know what you think

    Post edited by Bryan Steagall on
  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    ughh, its not posting the video, here's the link

    https://vimeo.com/487608370

  • Z FamilyZ Family Posts: 32

    Awesome! Great work Bryan!!

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Thank you Z!

  • burntumberburntumber Posts: 16

    Very Nice. Is your capture device attached to the performers head? Or it is mouted in front of performer? THX

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi burntumber, 

    In this case, it was mounted in front of the performer, using the front-facing camera, so low res

     

  • bvknottybvknotty Posts: 14

    Take some mo-cap, add a fun model and background, then render with Filament and poke at it post-process. Came out ok, well maybe I got a little crazy with the auto-lens flare^^

    Thanks for having a look!

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Ok, here's the final render, I went back and simplified the mouth shapes, and I think I nailed it.  I have a tendency to overthink things sometimes, so stepping back and starting from scratch works sometimes.

    https://vimeo.com/488994104

  • burntumberburntumber Posts: 16

    Looks very good. You mention using front facing camera, so the camera is an iPhone? The software is on the iPhone? You export motion capture from iPhone to computor into Daz, or Cinema 4D or etc?

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi Burntumber.

    No the software is Dynamixyz Performer (www.dynamixyz.com).  The video was captured with an iphone, but the software is not there.  You have to bring in the video to process in Performer, then you can output that to your animation software, whether it be Motionbuilder, Maya, 3ds Max or Cinema4d.  Then I imported the fbx file into Studio to save the animation, so I could then place it on a native Daz Studio character.

    You can also use any webcam, static camera or in the case of mocap with the body, an HMC

  • burntumberburntumber Posts: 16

    Hi Bryan 

    Thank you. Can you output from Performer to Daz Studio?  So if I wanted to do a program, with several actors. Could I video tape all motion. Purchase a one  month subcription to Dynamixya and process all motion with in a month. 

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    Hi Burntumber

    Unfortunately Performer doesn't output to Daz studio directly (I wish it did!), so you have to use something like Maya, Motionbuilder, 3ds Max or Cinema4d to retarget to first, then you can import the finished fbx file into daz studio and save the animation as a properties preset file.  I have a tutorial with my process here https://vimeo.com/227139373

    You can rent the software, the indie version for 566 USD per month or 2200 per year, but you can get a trial version for 30 days too, so you can see how the software works beforehand to map out your process if you want to go that route.

    This week I"m planning on giving out a freebie here of a fast way to get results using motionbuilder (@Z Family knows the process, this is an updated one)

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    Best viewed in 1080 HD . click to play

  • Bryan SteagallBryan Steagall Posts: 238

    @Ivy, yeah,, we all wish that don't we?

    For those who might have been around back then, doing some tests with a blast from the past, one of the best Poser characters imho  

    https://www.facebook.com/694237489/videos/10159152571167490/

    The good old Jolly Troll

     

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