In search of Bvh / Fbx re-targeting workflow / utility for Carrara

DADA_universe

I've been struggling with a similar problem to the one discussed at this Carrara forum thread

Together with several forum posts including this thread, I studied Joe Pingleton's findings from his experiments using Brekel for mocap.

and SciFi Funk's tutorials on bringing Carnegie Mellon Mocap into carrara.

The file I'm working with is a mocap file captured to Motion Builder (I don't own or use Motion Builder, I just have these files I'm experimenting with towards settling for a mocap pipeline I can work with) and exported from there to both Fbx and Bvh formats. Both formats were making Genesis go into suicidal contortions when imported into Carrara. I noticed that Sci-Fi Funk used Daz ready mocap files from the Carnegie Mellon collection, which probably means they have already been re-targeted to work well with Daz/Carrara. I only know for sure that the bvh / fbx files I have came from Motion Builder in Maya Human IK format. I took the fbx into iClone 3DXchange5 (I got iClone recently as I'm trying to create a Carrara-iClone workflow for myself) and I was able to create a non standard character which exported fine as an iMotion that worked well with a character i iClone. So that's fine. The initial problem I had in doing that was solved by making sure I set the skeleton to a T pose at the first frame in 3DXchange before doing anything else. You would notice from the rendered sampling from that motion applied to an iclone character below that the hands are still kind of frozen at a funny angle, I believe that is because I didn't spend enough time setting up the T pose in 3DXchange, so that should be easily fixable. What this tells me is that for those who have Carrara and iClone + 3DXchange5, the iClone route might be a way to get your re-targeting done, because once you can get your fbx (didn't have as much luck with the bvh file, but more on that later) converted into iMotion files that iClone can read, theoretically you can re-export this out via 3DXchange in a re-targeted format that Carrara can read. Sadly I'm yet unable to test this theory because you can only export from 3DXchange if you have the pipeline version (which I don't have). Also note that to export certain iClone motions, you will need to pay for an export license, but that shouldn't apply if you are exporting motions you brought in yourself for re-targeting. So much for the iClone route, for anyone who's thinking of trying in that direction.

At the Carrara side of things, the bvh and fbx files from my mocap sample are not working well with Genesis. With the bvh, I tried out bvh hacker based on Sci-Fi Funk's tutorial, not to reduce the file size of the animation like he was doing, but to see if I would do some re-targeting. I tried to edit the bone structure in the bvh skeleton to better approximate the bone structure in Genesis and I renamed the bones to mirror the naming convention in Daz Genesis. It didn't make much of a difference. It is possible I just didn't use bvh hacker properly, if someone has had better success at this sort of thing, I would please like to know how. I suspect though, that the re-targeting needs to also mirror the joint rotations to be complete and I sincerely have no idea of how to do this. Joe Pingleton's work around was a bit helpful though, by applying an inverse IK modifier that tracked Genesis's hip bone to the bvh skeleton's 'hips' Genesis stopped flying all over the place but its limbs were still not behaving properly. I found out that the fbx skeleton imports well into Carrara and plays well as an individual skeleton. (See the difference between the skeleton in the capture below and the bvh applied to Genesis) I believe this skeleton can be attached to a Genesis skin but it would need time consuming weight mapping but it wont be a Genesis skeleton anyway as the naming convention would be different, so other things in Daz land- props, clothes, et al- wont work well it. So what we are looking for is how to map the motion on the fbx skeleton to the Genesis skeleton.

I suspect a work around for the fbx would be most useful going forward, judging from Brekel's post on his forum that 'FBX internally defines data the best, than the slightly archaic - 20 year old - BVH format' (paraphrased here).

Any tips / tutorials on how to achieve re-targetting for Daz / Carrara from bvh and (preferably) fbx files generated from mocap data fed through Motion Builder and outputed in Maya Human Ik format would be heaven sent. Or better still, can one dare hope that one of our ever heroic programmers in the community like Fenric and Sparrowhawk would one day give us a utility that makes this happen in a breeze? I'd be first in line to get it if that happens.

Edit: Note on the gif, got carried away, experimenting with compositing in Carrara. Hope it's till legible. The dude in red shorts is the iClone render while the Carrara screen grab with un-clothed Genesis + moving skeleton is the....well...Carrara version.

DADA_universe

Admin pls help, I don't know why the text is spilling out of the frame this way...:ahhh:

Edit: *Got it fixed with help from Wendy...;o)*

WendyLuvsCatz

type this

  
a word or sentence describing your links 

WendyLuvsCatz

or copy paste first link

WendyLuvsCatz

and carnegie Melon Daz friendly BVH files from CGspeed work fine on M4 and V4 in Daz studio selecting hip
save as a pz2 using the free Poser format exporter
to use in carrara put in runtime libraries under pose

WendyLuvsCatz

http://www.daz3d.com/poser-format-exporter-pfe well it was free

DADA_universe

Thank you Wendy, now I know how to embed links in forum posts! Thanks for the tip on poser format exporter, still hoping to find how to re-target the non Daz friendly bvh and fbx files though. Just to mention here that I read through a number of conversations you had with different people here and on the Reallusion forum. This particular one with sw00000p at the Reallusion forum held my interest, but unfortunately I didn't understand what he was alluding to and he didn't explain any further.

WendyLuvsCatz

that was a long time ago and I have PP12 now , Carrara 8.5 out of beta and we all have DS4,6 pro
but no cannot do a non Daz Poser BVH export with Fenrics plugin from Carrara
he has tried to fix it but no luck so far

DADA_universe

Okay, thanks a lot.

Dartanbeck

I've never really got settled into re-targeting bvh files. Too much of a PITA for me, which drove my interests into key-frame animation by hand. Much less stressful for me! ;)
In my aniMating in Carrara article I talk about how I use AniMate 2, the aniBlock Importer for Carrara, and some imagination to use bits of aniBlocks and discard what I don't use. GoFigure has such a good selection of blocks available, I use these to create all manner of actions.

I hope you find a good way to do it and report how you do it. Argus captures his own motions and re-targets them... I wonder if he can give you some tips?

DADA_universe

Thanks Dartanbeck,
I use Animate 2 and the aniblock importer as well and a bit of manual key frame animation, but I would like to capture my own motions as well. Would be interested in knowing how Argus does it. I know iPisoft allows re-targeting to the Daz bone structure from within the app before exporting the motion, but I'm not going down that route. If nothing comes up, might have to wait till I can get 3DXchange pipeline to rely on the iClone option, but it would be splendid to have something built for Carrara to sort it out.....*Mondays are good for wishful thinking, right?*

DADA_universe

In the course of this preoccupation of mine, I stumbled upon Jimmy Rig. It really does look pretty neat, caveat though, develoment is pretty slow and the developers are happy to take their time. There hasn't been an update in years (it's not even currently available on their site) but a new totally rewritten version is in alpha test mode at the moment. Would be interesting if it actually launches and is well supported going forward and would integrate nicely into a Daz Studio / Carrara animation pipeline as it is able to work with Poser characters as depicted in this video.

Design Acrobat

DADA_universe said:

I've been struggling with a similar problem to the one discussed at this Carrara forum thread

Together with several forum posts including this thread, I studied Joe Pingleton's findings from his experiments using Brekel for mocap.

and SciFi Funk's tutorials on bringing Carnegie Mellon Mocap into carrara.

The file I'm working with is a mocap file captured to Motion Builder (I don't own or use Motion Builder, I just have these files I'm experimenting with towards settling for a mocap pipeline I can work with) and exported from there to both Fbx and Bvh formats. Both formats were making Genesis go into suicidal contortions when imported into Carrara. I noticed that Sci-Fi Funk used Daz ready mocap files from the Carnegie Mellon collection, which probably means they have already been re-targeted to work well with Daz/Carrara. I only know for sure that the bvh / fbx files I have came from Motion Builder in Maya Human IK format. I took the fbx into iClone 3DXchange5 (I got iClone recently as I'm trying to create a Carrara-iClone workflow for myself) and I was able to create a non standard character which exported fine as an iMotion that worked well with a character i iClone. So that's fine. The initial problem I had in doing that was solved by making sure I set the skeleton to a T pose at the first frame in 3DXchange before doing anything else. You would notice from the rendered sampling from that motion applied to an iclone character below that the hands are still kind of frozen at a funny angle, I believe that is because I didn't spend enough time setting up the T pose in 3DXchange, so that should be easily fixable. What this tells me is that for those who have Carrara and iClone + 3DXchange5, the iClone route might be a way to get your re-targeting done, because once you can get your fbx (didn't have as much luck with the bvh file, but more on that later) converted into iMotion files that iClone can read, theoretically you can re-export this out via 3DXchange in a re-targeted format that Carrara can read. Sadly I'm yet unable to test this theory because you can only export from 3DXchange if you have the pipeline version (which I don't have). Also note that to export certain iClone motions, you will need to pay for an export license, but that shouldn't apply if you are exporting motions you brought in yourself for re-targeting. So much for the iClone route, for anyone who's thinking of trying in that direction.

At the Carrara side of things, the bvh and fbx files from my mocap sample are not working well with Genesis. With the bvh, I tried out bvh hacker based on Sci-Fi Funk's tutorial, not to reduce the file size of the animation like he was doing, but to see if I would do some re-targeting. I tried to edit the bone structure in the bvh skeleton to better approximate the bone structure in Genesis and I renamed the bones to mirror the naming convention in Daz Genesis. It didn't make much of a difference. It is possible I just didn't use bvh hacker properly, if someone has had better success at this sort of thing, I would please like to know how. I suspect though, that the re-targeting needs to also mirror the joint rotations to be complete and I sincerely have no idea of how to do this. Joe Pingleton's work around was a bit helpful though, by applying an inverse IK modifier that tracked Genesis's hip bone to the bvh skeleton's 'hips' Genesis stopped flying all over the place but its limbs were still not behaving properly. I found out that the fbx skeleton imports well into Carrara and plays well as an individual skeleton. (See the difference between the skeleton in the capture below and the bvh applied to Genesis) I believe this skeleton can be attached to a Genesis skin but it would need time consuming weight mapping but it wont be a Genesis skeleton anyway as the naming convention would be different, so other things in Daz land- props, clothes, et al- wont work well it. So what we are looking for is how to map the motion on the fbx skeleton to the Genesis skeleton.

I suspect a work around for the fbx would be most useful going forward, judging from Brekel's post on his forum that 'FBX internally defines data the best, than the slightly archaic - 20 year old - BVH format' (paraphrased here).

Any tips / tutorials on how to achieve re-targetting for Daz / Carrara from bvh and (preferably) fbx files generated from mocap data fed through Motion Builder and outputed in Maya Human Ik format would be heaven sent. Or better still, can one dare hope that one of our ever heroic programmers in the community like Fenric and Sparrowhawk would one day give us a utility that makes this happen in a breeze? I'd be first in line to get it if that happens.

Edit: Note on the gif, got carried away, experimenting with compositing in Carrara. Hope it's till legible. The dude in red shorts is the iClone render while the Carrara screen grab with un-clothed Genesis + moving skeleton is the....well...Carrara version.

I remember the 3DEXchange video tutorials, it gave a warning not to use 2012 FBX.

Attached is an image of DAZ FBX export options and Carrara 8.5 pro has two options for FBX export(Carrara exports 6.1 and 7.1 ) as described below from an Autodesk publication.

There are several versions of FBX SDK that are in current use: FBX SDK 2011.2, FBX SDK 2011.1, FBX SDK 2010.2, FBX SDK 2010.0, FBX SDK 2009, etc.

FBX file formats also have version numbers. FBX SDK 2010.2 exports FBX file format 7.1 (default), 7.0, and 6.1, and imports FBX file format 7.1, 7.0, 6.1, and 6.0 (seeFile formats imported and exported.)

Autodesk FBX
http://download.autodesk.com/us/fbx/20112/FBX_SDK_HELP/index.html?url=WS1a9193826455f5ff-e569a012180ce5891-1ecf.htm,topicNumber=d0e3725

stringtheory9

DADA_universe said:

I've been struggling with a similar problem to the one discussed at this Carrara forum thread

Together with several forum posts including this thread, I studied Joe Pingleton's findings from his experiments using Brekel for mocap.

and SciFi Funk's tutorials on bringing Carnegie Mellon Mocap into carrara.

Have you looked into Webanimate. It might be a good solution.

WendyLuvsCatz

Oh btw the iClone pipeline WILL work, I can conform this as I do it
BUT
you do need to import BVH back into DAZ studio first then save duf animation for use in carrara.
I have indeed brought iClone imotions in that way on ANY figure I have retargeted in 3dx5pipeline inc quadrupeds.

STEPS
start with having a retargeted genesis base in iclone
A) export figure V4 or M4 if using cgspeed as FBX with motion
B) retarget in 3dx5 to tpose walk and calibrate finger movements etc save profile for reuse
C) export as iMotion
D) import your base genesis
E) import iMotion on it and add to perform
F) export BVH selecting hip not root node in dialogue
G) select hip on figure in DAZ studio load BVH check all bones selected in advance
H) save as pose animated, duf

ProPose

wendy♥catz said:

Oh btw the iClone pipeline WILL work, I can conform this as I do it
BUT
you do need to import BVH back into DAZ studio first then save duf animation for use in carrara.
I have indeed brought iClone imotions in that way on ANY figure I have retargeted in 3dx5pipeline inc quadrupeds.

STEPS
start with having a retargeted genesis base in iclone
A) export figure V4 or M4 if using cgspeed as FBX with motion
B) retarget in 3dx5 to tpose walk and calibrate finger movements etc save profile for reuse
C) export as iMotion
D) import your base genesis
E) import iMotion on it and add to perform
F) export BVH selecting hip not root node in dialogue
G) select hip on figure in DAZ studio load BVH check all bones selected in advance
H) save as pose animated, duf

Works for me, thnx

DADA_universe

Design Acrobat said:

DADA_universe said:

I've been struggling with a similar problem to the one discussed at this Carrara forum thread

Together with several forum posts including this thread, I studied Joe Pingleton's findings from his experiments using Brekel for mocap.

and SciFi Funk's tutorials on bringing Carnegie Mellon Mocap into carrara.

The file I'm working with is a mocap file captured to Motion Builder (I don't own or use Motion Builder, I just have these files I'm experimenting with towards settling for a mocap pipeline I can work with) and exported from there to both Fbx and Bvh formats. Both formats were making Genesis go into suicidal contortions when imported into Carrara. I noticed that Sci-Fi Funk used Daz ready mocap files from the Carnegie Mellon collection, which probably means they have already been re-targeted to work well with Daz/Carrara. I only know for sure that the bvh / fbx files I have came from Motion Builder in Maya Human IK format. I took the fbx into iClone 3DXchange5 (I got iClone recently as I'm trying to create a Carrara-iClone workflow for myself) and I was able to create a non standard character which exported fine as an iMotion that worked well with a character i iClone. So that's fine. The initial problem I had in doing that was solved by making sure I set the skeleton to a T pose at the first frame in 3DXchange before doing anything else. You would notice from the rendered sampling from that motion applied to an iclone character below that the hands are still kind of frozen at a funny angle, I believe that is because I didn't spend enough time setting up the T pose in 3DXchange, so that should be easily fixable. What this tells me is that for those who have Carrara and iClone + 3DXchange5, the iClone route might be a way to get your re-targeting done, because once you can get your fbx (didn't have as much luck with the bvh file, but more on that later) converted into iMotion files that iClone can read, theoretically you can re-export this out via 3DXchange in a re-targeted format that Carrara can read. Sadly I'm yet unable to test this theory because you can only export from 3DXchange if you have the pipeline version (which I don't have). Also note that to export certain iClone motions, you will need to pay for an export license, but that shouldn't apply if you are exporting motions you brought in yourself for re-targeting. So much for the iClone route, for anyone who's thinking of trying in that direction.

At the Carrara side of things, the bvh and fbx files from my mocap sample are not working well with Genesis. With the bvh, I tried out bvh hacker based on Sci-Fi Funk's tutorial, not to reduce the file size of the animation like he was doing, but to see if I would do some re-targeting. I tried to edit the bone structure in the bvh skeleton to better approximate the bone structure in Genesis and I renamed the bones to mirror the naming convention in Daz Genesis. It didn't make much of a difference. It is possible I just didn't use bvh hacker properly, if someone has had better success at this sort of thing, I would please like to know how. I suspect though, that the re-targeting needs to also mirror the joint rotations to be complete and I sincerely have no idea of how to do this. Joe Pingleton's work around was a bit helpful though, by applying an inverse IK modifier that tracked Genesis's hip bone to the bvh skeleton's 'hips' Genesis stopped flying all over the place but its limbs were still not behaving properly. I found out that the fbx skeleton imports well into Carrara and plays well as an individual skeleton. (See the difference between the skeleton in the capture below and the bvh applied to Genesis) I believe this skeleton can be attached to a Genesis skin but it would need time consuming weight mapping but it wont be a Genesis skeleton anyway as the naming convention would be different, so other things in Daz land- props, clothes, et al- wont work well it. So what we are looking for is how to map the motion on the fbx skeleton to the Genesis skeleton.

I suspect a work around for the fbx would be most useful going forward, judging from Brekel's post on his forum that 'FBX internally defines data the best, than the slightly archaic - 20 year old - BVH format' (paraphrased here).

Any tips / tutorials on how to achieve re-targetting for Daz / Carrara from bvh and (preferably) fbx files generated from mocap data fed through Motion Builder and outputed in Maya Human Ik format would be heaven sent. Or better still, can one dare hope that one of our ever heroic programmers in the community like Fenric and Sparrowhawk would one day give us a utility that makes this happen in a breeze? I'd be first in line to get it if that happens.

Edit: Note on the gif, got carried away, experimenting with compositing in Carrara. Hope it's till legible. The dude in red shorts is the iClone render while the Carrara screen grab with un-clothed Genesis + moving skeleton is the....well...Carrara version.

I remember the 3DEXchange video tutorials, it gave a warning not to use 2012 FBX.

Attached is an image of DAZ FBX export options and Carrara 8.5 pro has two options for FBX export(Carrara exports 6.1 and 7.1 ) as described below from an Autodesk publication.

There are several versions of FBX SDK that are in current use: FBX SDK 2011.2, FBX SDK 2011.1, FBX SDK 2010.2, FBX SDK 2010.0, FBX SDK 2009, etc.

FBX file formats also have version numbers. FBX SDK 2010.2 exports FBX file format 7.1 (default), 7.0, and 6.1, and imports FBX file format 7.1, 7.0, 6.1, and 6.0 (seeFile formats imported and exported.)

Autodesk FBX
http://download.autodesk.com/us/fbx/20112/FBX_SDK_HELP/index.html?url=WS1a9193826455f5ff-e569a012180ce5891-1ecf.htm,topicNumber=d0e3725

Thanks for these pointers, will put these in consideration for further experiments, many thanks.

Dartanbeck

DADA_universe said:

Would be interested in knowing how Argus does it. I know iPisoft allows re-targeting to the Daz bone structure from within the app before exporting the motion, but I'm not going down that route. If nothing comes up, might have to wait till I can get 3DXchange pipeline to rely on the iClone option, but it would be splendid to have something built for Carrara to sort it out.....*Mondays are good for wishful thinking, right?*

Argus uses Kinect cameras and iPisoft

DADA_universe

stringtheory9 said:

DADA_universe said:

I've been struggling with a similar problem to the one discussed at this Carrara forum thread

Together with several forum posts including this thread, I studied Joe Pingleton's findings from his experiments using Brekel for mocap.

and SciFi Funk's tutorials on bringing Carnegie Mellon Mocap into carrara.

Have you looked into Webanimate. It might be a good solution.

Webanimate looks a lot more interesting than the last time I took a look or perhaps I wasn't paying attention. Interestingly, Jimmy Rig 2 is being built to run on the Chrome browser as well, but I only just realized that might mean they would adopt a subscription model as well just like Webanimate. I tend to have a problem with the subscription model for apps as it doesn't work too well for me. Hope they'll allow other payment options. But thanks for mentioning Webanimate, that's another potential alternative in the kitty.

DADA_universe

wendy♥catz said:

Oh btw the iClone pipeline WILL work, I can conform this as I do it
BUT
you do need to import BVH back into DAZ studio first then save duf animation for use in carrara.
I have indeed brought iClone imotions in that way on ANY figure I have retargeted in 3dx5pipeline inc quadrupeds.

STEPS
start with having a retargeted genesis base in iclone
A) export figure V4 or M4 if using cgspeed as FBX with motion
B) retarget in 3dx5 to tpose walk and calibrate finger movements etc save profile for reuse
C) export as iMotion
D) import your base genesis
E) import iMotion on it and add to perform
F) export BVH selecting hip not root node in dialogue
G) select hip on figure in DAZ studio load BVH check all bones selected in advance
H) save as pose animated, duf

Thank you Wendy, ProPose, since the start of this thread, I now own 3DExchange Pipeline, so I'm definitely going to be doing some work using the workflow you've sugggested. Will share the results but that would be some weeks from now while I sort out other stuff.

DADA_universe

Dartanbeck said:

DADA_universe said:

Would be interested in knowing how Argus does it. I know iPisoft allows re-targeting to the Daz bone structure from within the app before exporting the motion, but I'm not going down that route. If nothing comes up, might have to wait till I can get 3DXchange pipeline to rely on the iClone option, but it would be splendid to have something built for Carrara to sort it out.....*Mondays are good for wishful thinking, right?*

Argus uses Kinect cameras and iPisoft

Here's another potential mocap tool I've been watching for some months now, apparently also still in beta but it shows promise. Perception Neuron seems to be the indie mocap buzz at the moment but I tend to favour a markerless system with cameras to one where you have to wear gear, hence why I'm keenly waiting for The Captury Studio to launch. The downside though is that you would need about 8 cameras. If you opt for GoPros, that would cost a bunch, but if you go for PSeye cameras (which are listed as about the lowest limit), you might not spend more than you would on a Kinect system.

argus1000

DADA_universe said:

I use Animate 2 and the aniblock importer as well and a bit of manual key frame animation, but I would like to capture my own motions as well. Would be interested in knowing how Argus does it.

I have DXChange Pipeline and I have my re-tyarhgetd characters (M5 and V5, M4 and V4) already imported as FBX into iClone, so I sometimes use motions from iClone's motion puppet, apply them into my characters, re-import them though DXChange Pipeline as BVH into Daz Studio, work on them in animate2 and them import them as DUF files into Carrara.

I also use Ipisoft with 2 Kinect cameras to capture my own poses, or maybe only my arm movements, import the BVHs into Daz Studio and sometimes mix them with clips from iClone or Daz Studio, sometimes I use the full body capture.

I just bought the new Kinect 2 high res sensor and am experimenting with it now.

Also, in case you don't know, iClone has a training DVD for DXChange 5 at:
http://www.reallusion.com/event/12-3DXchange5_training_dvd/