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I don't think anyone is saying that you can't animate in DS, but rather asking "Why would you?" I cannot count the number of times someone has ranted about some new tool in DS that is a limited implementation of some much more powerful feature that has been available in Blender for years.
And I think we must place things in proper context: the whole idea of Aniblocks is detrimental to the creative process. Because it puts the cart before the horse: I do not want to find some aniblocks or mixamo animations, and see what short shot I can generate with them. I want to start with my vision, and implement that with as much fidelity as I can. 99% of the time, there is no canned animation that I can "fix" with less work than it would take to just spend the time to set up all the move.ai cameras (or even Move One), and chalk outline everything out. I think anyone using canned would be hardpressed if they had a very specific scene idea in mind or had very subtle cues about the emotional state of the character as required by good storytelling. So part of the difference is in what each individual considers to be "Animation".
Considering all that, I stand by the statement that DS is probably, no, without a doubt, the best character creation tool around. But it is just not particularly good at animation when compared to the specialized applications that actually are. And I don't see how so objectively true a statement could in any way be viewed as controversial.
This exercise might be useful: Test Your Own Assumption. Even with the character meshes that DS makes it so eay to achieve, why is it that no professionals, whose primary concern is presumably supporting a narrative, use DAZ Studio to animate? Why is DAZ Studio never even part of the discusssion?
Nope. I don't see that as controversial at all. Very excellent points.
I've been collecting animated pose files and aniBlocks forever and I have a pretty solid recollection of what each collection has in it. So it's pretty easy for me to find a starting base.
But that's me.
After seeing what can be done in Blender for building animations from scratch, I was completely onboard with that. The problem for me is that Blender is so incredibly foriegn to me. I always wanted to get my hands on LightWave for doing those things. It has some really impressive tools for animation, and I think there were some nice solutions for animating Daz Figures. At the time when I was going to buy software for that purpose, there wasn't, and I was kind of getting shunned for asking (especially in the Maya/3DS camps). That's when I found Carrara, which can load Daz Figure in right out of the browser and they just work. Of course that compatibility stops at Genesis 2 - Genesis 1 for full auto-fit compatibility.
When I started trying to work in Blender, I was starting to really get somewhere - until I wasn't. I don't recall what it was, but I was having an impossible time figuring out how to do certain things. Simple things.
Just around that time I asked myself what motions I wanted to create. My mind immediately gravitation to several various animations that I already have - my wonderful collection of canned motions - that I could disassemble and stitch together to get what I wanted.
As I started doing that, I started running into stumbling blocks.
Well in my Carrara days, what did I always use Daz Studio for? Making tools and optimizing content. Making movement morphs for clothes and hair and such.
Hmmm... I could make animation controls directly on the figure!
I made a prototype set of motion tools and tried them out. Fantastic! Suddenly the absence of being able to animate in Daz Studio completely disappeared!!!
So I deleted that intitial set of prototype tools and worked in earnest to make real ones... and I made a ton of them.
It goes so fast making them because it's all just simple edits using ERC Freeze, and saving them as dials on the base figure. Even better, I didn't need to make All of them at once - just a basic collection of what I need at the moment, and then through in a few advanced ones that I thought might help.
At any time I can make more, and the beauty of it is that, the way the Daz Figures work, these new changes also work on saved files. So I could be animating along and recognize that I need specific tools to go further with my idea. I just save the scene, exit, load in the base figure, make my new tools (and this happens in literally just a few minutes), save them, exit, load my saved scene and start using the new tools.
After a very short while Genesis 3 has tons of these things. I could just animate away without even using aniBlocks or motion poses - just start animating.
I was shocked because suddenly the worse app for animating became my favorite. I still love animating in Carrara, and these tools will work in that as well (probably Blender too if Morphforms come through the import) but the way I am now animating in Studio has truly become so fast and fun that it has quickly become my favorite method - which is why I'm always preaching it.
An example being a squatting action. I can load a base figure, make it squat to the floor - only working the joints for the squat, leaving the arms, etc., alone completely, and save that as a tool - Squat/No Arms
I could then do the same thing but this time with arm motions - Squat/wArms
With those two tools, I can perform all of that with the twist of a dial - and that's just a simple example of what we can build in Daz Studio that really works to an animators workflow.
In that crazy promo I showed earlier, it's all really fast time lapse for the promo but we can see a glimpse of what I did with the hands and face. Amazing the power of that!
Just FYI, Lightwave3D has been resurrected from the Dead.
Not sure About the state of any Modern day Daz figure compability though
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
I can answer this question definitively
>>No Human IK system with on the fly IK/FK switching.<<
(and NO third party frame by frame scripts like "limbstick" is not a substitute for IK pinning in animation production)
No ability to import ,rig an animate a custom character mesh ,with facial, or non human anatomy
tails,tentacles etc for paid,bespoke client work
( yes I know there are non genesis figures for daz studio but there is a reason why their numbers are vanishingly small)
NO in built modeling and sculpting tools
(necessary for professional Character animation work trust me)
NO production capable offline or realtime rendering system
(Iray is not a production render engine for films with no RTX support
even Reallusion has recently dumped Iray for NVIDIA Omniverse)
NO viable remote team collaborative capabilities and scene/content portability due to critical dependency on hard path local Daz Data folder structures being present.
But back to the original topic,
it seems the OP actually has Autodesk motionbuilder
which I would rank as the best option for external animation retargeted to Daz figures and re imported as BVH
followed closely by Reallusion Iclone/CC4.
Yeah, some friends of mine are LightWavers. One in paticular is on the fence as to whether or not to follow that path. If I'd have jumped onboard instead of going with Carrara, I would - I think. Everything I've studied about LightWave I love - and the absence of developments probably wouldn't have bothered me much. I'm a fan of working with what I've got.
That said, I've given up on the notion of getting into other 3D apps. I've found my zone.
I have friends that love to create original 3D models, friends that chase the game engine way, friends that love Blender...
I began all of this as a texture artist and doing UV editing in 3ds Max.
With Daz figures being so perfect for me, along with all of the wonderful support content, I'm happy letting them do their thing while I happily animate away. With Daz Studio's dForce and so many providers making cool dForce stuff, I prefer to stay within Daz studio for the whole show, and then render in Iray or maybe one day I'll do more with OctaneRender, but I don't like that it requires an internet connection. If I get into a full project and that comes to a screeching halt because of an internet failure... what am I to do then, watch TV?
Besides, I really like using Iray. I like getting cool tools for Daz Studio, content for my figures and brilliant environments and props to play with.
It keeps my in a zone instead of having to try and fix things. There was a time when fixing things was fun. Now I just enjoy a good animation/simulation/render session. Then watch a nice documentary on VFX.
The other thing is that, it really is easy to find a base motion capture for nearly any narrative. It's just to get things started is all. And this gives me actual motion capture data driving the base, while I key frame in the rest. It's like starting from scratch but instead of an A-Pose for everything, it's only that way for the part I'm actually going to animate. The rest is already driven by an actor in a motion capture suit.
It's easier than it might seem and it really helps to move things along.
I do follow ILM and WETA and enjoy the process they take. They have teams that can spend months on a few seconds of animation. My team is my canned motions and the Daz 3D store. They don't ask for much - so I'm happy to give them what they want - most of the time! ;)
But again - that's just me. I totally get where you're coming from.
Also again, the reason I bring this all up is because the original thread title was talking about bringing the animations back into Daz Studio. Why do that unless we're using Daz Studio? None of those professional VFX studios do that either. They have teams that develop their software on a constant basis. It's their groundwork that we have to thank for Daz Studio being what it is today.
Cool stuff. Takes too long for this fellow to do as a home project. Besides... I bet my way is a Lot more Fun!!! :)
I'm a bit lost in the "ocean" of the words from you guys ~~
I only know all roads lead to Rome... and the most important things are - happy animating and happy rendering ! Hoho~
You are Not! And you're a kitty now!!! :)
Yes, I was embarrassed ~~ I wrongly used a cropped pic as my avatar but I did not know that pic was from one of Ron's products. I got a warning from him....
So I changed it to the pic of my Munchkin, wahaha ~~
Hi Munchkin, Buddy! Come... sit on uncle Dart's lap and watch some Star Wars! ;)
Was wondering when you would put in your $.02, Wolf :)
I'd even add that it can't easily be added to a pipeline because of its virtually non-existent import/export capability.
And these are not really jabs... it's kind of like my response when someone ribs me everytime USC beats UCLA in football, (which is essentially every time). "I guess I'll just have to console myself with being the superior institute of higher learning". DAZ will just have to console themselves with being the superior character creation platform :) DAZ will be just fine.
All that aside, I'd be false if I didn't admit two things:
1) I enjoy your animations, and
2) I often think that if you can do this with DS, what would a guy with your innate skills do with something like Houdini? :)
OP, if that's true, just use that and don't worry about any other considerations. In my experience, the answer to any question that begins with "Can MoBu do..." is "Yes". It's just too doggone expensive and its future is in doubt. I heard that if it weren't for James Cameron saying "No Motionbuilder, no Avatar", it'd be completely unavailable already.
Meow ~~ meow ~~
I'm a big fan of Star Wars !
I think I would Love Houdini! I am a Nodes kind of guy!!!
I have to say, though... I get this whole discussion on "The Professional Way" and all that. So I have a big question:
Do any of you do this Pro workflow on your own or with a big team?
I mean, studying and watching the pros do this stuff is how I relax when my scenes are simulating or rendering. It's been like that for a l o n g time for me - I don't really like anyhting on TV, games would take me away from my rendering/simulating... I do have a collection of stuff I like to watch, but following ILM mostly, since they have a lot of documentaries to watch, as a passtime.
Something I've learned from all of that is how freaking many people they pour into one tiny fragment of the job for quite some time to get it right.
While that would be Enormously fun for me - to be a part of a team like that - it certainly is Not how I would strive to achieve animation on my own at home.
I really can't afford Houdini and I loathe watermarks on my work
If I had something like Houdini, or the ability to get it with a viable solution for rendering, yeah... I'd love learning it and you'd probably be seeing my work in that.
There would have to be investors buying me all of the stuff it requires to work that way, and they'd need to also provide a tutor for a lot of it so I could get up and running before I die.
The problem with that for someone like me is that - with all of that going on, now I have to answer to someone - someone not me.
In Daz Studio, I customize my characters, paint my own textures, work my own shaders - all of a base provided me by this really cool store! I really enjoy doing what I do, so I'm not inclined to give that up unless ILM or Blur gave me a call! LOL
I'm still very new with Daz Studio. I know it has a lot more to offer me.
Unlocking those secrets is a lot of fun. I'm always so busy doing my animations that I often forget to stop and learn to advance my knowledge - which is why, all of a sudden I start going off about how cool "This Thing" is.
Truly, though. Between the first 4.22 update and this last one a few days ago, there have been night and day changes to the timeline that make Studio a lot nicer for key framing.
One of usssss.........
Also, I'd like to point out that, while LimbStick might not be a Replacement for a good IK system, if we work with it and really work with it - take the results and make some changes and run it again, like 3DU does in his tutorial video, It's really cool how well it works. Very powerful and fast little tool. I love it!
Even if the limb isn't supposed to lock onto something, we can still create and animate something - anything - that we use to tell the limb what to do. It's freaking cool!
OMG I hate nodes
If you're a "node kinda guy" I too think you would love Houdini. Did you know that Houdini Indie is like $289 per year, and I believe it's exactly the same as the enterprise version, with no restrictions, unlike Houdini Apprentice which can't even export Alembic? Just sayin' :)
But while I find that everything just "makes sense" in Houdini, I also find that if you don't approach it with a very specific thing you need to do and can't in other software, you'll get sucked into the maelstrom, go down the rabbit hole, or whatever metaphor you want to use because, man, there is soooo much there and it's all interesting and their approaches are so well thought out... you just want to learn for the sake of learning and then 3 months later you haven't produced a single shot. Case in point:
In Houdini, ther are no bones or armatures, technically. There are just hierarchies of transformations. Because that's all an armature is at the end of the day. I wrote a routine to import/export poses in about an hour (and today ChatGPT probably would have done it in a few seconds) and meanwhile, here I am in DS four years later and it still doesn't work correctly in all cases. If my pipeline didn't already work in Blender and I had to start over again today, I'd probably go with Houdini exclusively. The more I learn, the more I think "Dang, this is just How It Should Be Done(tm)" It's a steep learning curve, I complain about Houdini how others complain about Blender, but I feel it is worth it. I don't know of another tool that could simulate long hair the way Houdini does, and I haven't even gotten into KineFX yet.
I love a good Nodes workflow!
The concept is what it is - an empty warehouse with a shelf of many tools.
We can leave the tools on the shelf or we can put them on the floor.
Once they're on the floor we can use them.
With each tool having its own unique powers, the way we run our flow through them can make profound differences.
We can recycle the same tool for many aspects along the production line.
We can pull a tool out of the line or simply switch it off (at least in Fusion we can) to see what the results look like without it.
I love how, in Fusion, we can use media as a node. I enjoy making my own media for animating the results of something else. A texture map, bump map, displacement... all sorts of things!
PD Howler was created and is still being developed by a wonderful VFX artist who wanted to make something vastly different from PhotoShop. What he ended up making is perefect for making this sort of media.
Haha, I was going to @ you when DB wrote that :)
Come over any time, my friend! Chicha, my Princess from Spain - my Strawberry Kangaroo - loves kitties. You both can sit on my lap and I'll even let you two decide which Star Wars to watch. And if you can't decide, I'll likely put on the special features of The Clone Wars! They share a Lot of cool CG secrets in those - and there are a Lot of them!!! :)
Wendy, you're one of the other people that I secretly wish would experiment with Houdini, just to see what crazy stuff you came up with that no one else even though about.
I'm still very new with animation. After having watched lots of great animations made with Blender, Daz + Blender would be the only pipeline for me at this stage, based on cost-effectiveness principle. :D
But you probably know some of the secret handshakes, don't you!
After messing with Blender's dynamic hair, I realized that I would have to go into Blender and back to Daz Studio to use my awesome hair. And then it came to... um... why am I trying to do this in Blender?
And now that crosswind turned me on to Mesh Grabber - I ain't leaving Studio!
Much like making my animation control dials, I can make specific changes to any mesh - even after its been simulated in either dforce or VWD, turn that into a new dial and animate that - and continue to do these things any time I feel the need! So Cool!!!
Body2Hip makes all of my Mixamo downloads work as aniBlocks of the same data
Bone Minion Bundles have made every single animation pack I've ever bought compatible with every single Daz Figure generation I use - which is all of them from M4/V4 through Genesis 8.1
aniMate 2 allows me to save bits and pieces of motion capture data into their own partial aniBlocks that I can blend in anywhere
LimbStick helps me tell my stories my way, along with aniMate 2's incredible Parent Constraint - one of the things I used to dream about LightWave was it's parent constraint system - now I have pretty much the same thing!
VWD lets me add jiggle and simulate clothing that is too stubborn for dforce
dForce lets me have really cool hair and simulated cloth
I don't care what anybody says - I really like Iray! But then again, I have the unfair advantage of having HDRI Photoshoot by joelegecko. Oh... wait... anybody can get that. Oh well.
Before DaVinci Resolve came bundled with Fairlight and Fusion, I had the standalone free version of Fusion and I was starting to get somewehere with it.
When Blackmagic Design bundled it into Resolve (which used to be just a color corrector - but one of the best in its class) they gave it an interface that made it a Lot easier for me to get started on. I'm still a total newb with it, but I love it! Fairlight too!!!
I have to agree ~~ in quite a few cases, simulation in DS is faster than in Blender... better in 4.0 but more experiments will be still needed.
I did try Apprentice 11 years ago, found a reference on Facebook with this image which originally was an animated gif, apparently I deleted whatever I had on YouTube
I am sure I played with water in it more recently though
but no my brain just doesn't think that way, I hate shadermixer for the same reason
believe me I have tried, I am rather neurodivergent and just tend zone out if overwhelmed
I need a knock on the head
and Blender I have visited many times, even modeled and rigged in it as well as running particle and physics sims
I just cannot retain knowkedge and have to Google every step and read the manual everytime unlike Carrara where things just work for me
I am using DAZ studio a lot lately because of the content mostly, it just loads and works
the animations I do are not great though
How I would really rock in Blender is if I didn't worry about doing Rosie, and just do simple characters with simply hair - and then I'd just do everything in Blender from the ground up - starting with the character model.
Then I'd set it up as an animation actor with all the handles and such. By then maybe I'd know more about the simple things I can't find.
Part of the reason things have to be so difficult to learn in Blender is the demands of the legacy users reluctant for professional change - and interface that's more useable. But things have grown a lot regardless and I really do love Blender now - I just can't use it.
At this point, however, I have a much nicer model actor than I could make myself and she's Rosie with killer hair! I'm still getting better with the hair. Some of my latest stuff digressed in that, but it's coming back around again.
I also don't have to learn Blender, I can just watch other people use it and go: "Woah... that's really cool!" and then show them my stuff and they go: "Dude, that's Daz Studio?" and I go: "Yeah!"
you have a lovely kitty
the one I used for my Avatar sadly died almost 3 years ago