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Contact me privately if you want some info on how to get those other programs. I think it might be worth your while.
Not sure how to send this privately.
Right now I'm trying to figure out why my cart just jumped up from what I had intended to buy a few minutes ago. Darn. Snooze you lose, I guess. I am in the process of getting those other items. I don't know who does Daz ads, but damn, they are enticing, really well done and clever, too. I think Daz may be an addiction... could do worse, I suppose.
Your Exile was fun to read. Are you animating that as well? Images are dark (my systems are all calibrated for print) but I understand they are night scenes, for the most part.
Phil
Yep night scenes mostly, and still very much just a great big WIP. Nothing posted is final. I'm playing with the Idea of animating it but this is giving me a look at render times and working sort of as a Story board at this stage. Thank you for the look. As for the other thing I thank you but must turn down the offer. I'm not in need of other things and having as much fun as I can stand beating DS studio up right now. I do thank you though.
No problem, just had some inside info. If you teach, like I do, there are some great deals out there right now on the high end software, just takes a bit of info to make it work.
I'm looking at Snapperstech mocap videos right now on youtube. Amazing stuff. I'll write to them and see what it costs, etc, if it can be used with Daz figures. I could continue to export the figures with channel masks for import into other programs, or Photoshop layers, but this could be a real nice step in the process. Or not. There's a lot of new software coming out now for lower-end users (like me!) that will allow much smoother animation, certainly much faster. I used to see this on the high end and it was very expensive, but this looks approachable.. maybe.
One last question, if that's OK, what mocap sets do you like? I just have a few for G2 figures, but thought the M4 earlier ones might work for G2 as well. Some of the poses work fine, save for the finger/feet problems, so I assume the mocap aniblocks will, too. ? I don't like returning items and it might be a pricey test, but I think I'll give a few of them a try on G2. By the way, I just retitled that lipsync file from female to Genesis 2 male, and it works fine. Now I can use the lipsync tool for voice input on the new characters. Sound has to be clean and solid, bass works best, but its a start. I can beef it up in Premier easily. I think I can even get the lips and brows to move more, beyond the code that I scanned through. It's set for 1.5 or so, I think all I have to do is put the max setting higher on those body parts that I need (in the face, I mean). I'll test it tonight if I get time.
P
LOL!! Nope no teacher, just a old retired due to health issues know it all. I may sound like I know what I'm doing here but believe me all my animation tips are things I have learned in just the last year by using DS with AniMate and the other plugins. Oh if you have never heard of them Casual, a user of DS Studio has a few threads in the Freepozitory Forum. They have a site full of Animation Script files that really help do things in the DAZ Studio timeline that are a PITA to do by hand. Pop in there and check his sig line to get to his 100% Free scripts for DS.
Hi Jaderail,
Thanks for the info. I'll check out the Scripts. Not sure how to apply them but they have to be easier than what I've been going through with the animations.
For the last week I've been struggling with trying to get two Poser mocap sequences (from Everday moves) to work with the Gen 2 figures in my scene, but sometimes the figures jump back to default pose when I add a keyframe in aniMate2. It's sporadic and I can't correct for this, there is no undo and deleting the key doesn't help, so I have to reload the last saved file and hope it won't happen the next time. I tried following your earlier steps and still need to buy Graphmate and Keymate, but I don't want to spend more money if its simply not going to give professional results. I tried importing my scenes into Max, since I know how to use that timeline better, which is a piece of cake by comparison to DS. All you basically do there is decide what part to move, any part in the scene, and move it, and then add (+) the key. I guess I was thinking I could use that approach with DS, but sometimes it simply chokes, holes in the programming or 3rd party not in sync. I love working in DS, and all the cool stuff you can do, so I am really trying to make these work. If you can answer a few more questions, I would really appreciate it.
I can actually do most of my tweaking while still in the aniblock stage of aniMate2. You simply set new keys for each part you want to tweak. There's a few ways to do this. I don't see the point in baking it for Daz timeline to use as I can't go in and adjust areas except to do the same thing - move a part, hit the plus (+) key. Here is the problem, though, sometimes when I do this in either, the arms will shoot around the chest and get stuck there. Then I have to go in, frame by frame, and literally adjust every one of them, guessing as I go, which leads to jumpy video. I tried several ways to correct this, from copying one frame that I adjusted, move several frames ahead, then try to paste this fix into the arms. It never works. I tried pasting one by one, it works, but back to the same problem of it being jumpy. I tried pasting into multiple parts- like on the animate2 timeline after I select, say, both shoulders of the figure in the Scene tab. Now, this should work, but it only takes one and for only one frame. A waste of time. Do you know of any better way to fix parts that go kerflewie! I assume that's where Graphmate or Keymate come in. Do these programs work well? Are they easy to use by comparison? I mean, do they react to the key adjustments properly and is it programmed well so its consistent?
One last thing- just an observation, but it seems like my best route is to buy all the good aniblocks (mocap) I can get and then use just sections of them, blending as I go. I've been trying this route tonight and it's actually working fairly well. I can even move the figures at a mid point in the timeline (animate2, not Daz timeline, not baked) and the figures don't lock up or freeze back to default pose. So my procedure now, which by the way is fun and certainly MUCH faster than frame by frame editing- is to test drop aniblocks and cut out the parts once I get the figures aimed in the right direction. I use a turn here, a straight walk there, seems to fit together smoothly. I'm about to test if I can move an arm or leg at midpoint in the timeline, hope it doesn't wrap the arms around the figure again. Guess its time to save yet another stage!
What aniblocks do you like, which ones work the best for you and can you recommend any that have good walking, running, action sequences? I don't need the dancing or spy stuff, although it looks kind of cool and I suppose I can chop and paste those in. I am almost exclusively using Gen2 figures now, although I have a few 'bad guys' still with gen 1, but I think they should all work fine for my needs.
Thanks again for your help. It's nice to know you are there to reach out to.
Phil
OH! One other thing- what is the purpose of saving the aniblocks? I assume to reuse on other animations, but I don't see that it's necessary. Is it just to make sure that when you bake the aniblocks, if it goes haywire, you have a backup?
I tried baking from the aniMate2 window (right clicking) and it took the info and baked it, I think. I don't know where it went but nothing seemed to have changed. I then saved it as a scene subset, which at least gave me a dialog box and that one I know saved. I think I can call these saved subsets up when needed...? I'm the type of person who will make dozens of these presets for the possible use... somewhere down the road. Just want to make sure I'm doing it right.
Thanks!
Just posting here for anyone following the thread who isn't aware :-(
Sad news