Export a Genesis 3 movement in FBX

domfer

Hi everybody,

I'm working mainly on cinema 4D but I need to animate a figure on a very simple movement. I've choose a genesis 3 figure for this sequence. The best way I've found is to make this animation in DAZ, beacause of the powerful tools animation in DAZ.

There is an add-on call "animation gen2 ti gen3" in the store. So let's check my work-flow :

I make an animation on a Gen2 figure

I use "animation gen2 to gen 3" to transfer the animation to my character

I export the animation in an FBX format

Is that correct ? Have you an idea fort a better and more simple workflow ?

(sorry for my poor english ! I'm note a native !)

mork

Sounds correct. Unfortunately it looks like you cannot convert the animations once and later simply drop it on your G3 character, so yes, what you described sounds like the shortest workflow.

domfer

mork said:

- Unfortunately it looks like you cannot convert the animations once and later simply drop it on your G3 character, -

thanks mork !

did you test "animation 2 to 3" ?

 

mork

No, I don't own it yet, but I think I should, as I have a hard time getting animations for G3.

I do own the conversion tool for poses, which works okay to good - depends on the pose.
Since I don't own it, I'm not sure if this applies, but for the pose conversion tool, it is not a perfect copy of the old pose, but an approximation. The pose will not convert 1:1 most of the time, I guess that might be similar for the animation converter. Don't expect the animations to convert 1:1, you likely will have to adjust things here and there, after the conversion. Someone correct me, if I'm wrong, please.

I read up on the production description and noticed that the product description says you can save the converted animation, so I think I was wrong.
Looks like you do the conversion G2->G3 once, save it and later you simply re-use the converted animations. So, depending on what you want to do, I think the workflow won't get any shorter than this. First time do the conversion, later drop G3 into the scene, drop the converted animation on it and you're good to go.


For my animations I'm using Mixamo right now, but that does not allow me to re-use my old animations, of which I have a lot, plus mixamo will be locked down soon or parts of it functionality.
I think I will have to take a look at the follow up product for mixamo by Adobe... *sighs*

Anyway, animating G3 within DAZ was and is a major let down for me. You can do it by hand - but hellooo, this is 2017 calling, we have mocap data en masse - or do conversions, for which you need to purchase a tool, and which might work good or not. And who knows if it is still working for the next generation... What's not to like? (sarcasm detected)

domfer

That's not really a problem if there are some corrections to do : the gen2 skeleton is really diffrent of the gen3, so I can understand that there are somme adjustements to do. But I want to be shure that the new animation is really exportable through FBX..

Thanks Mork to your experience !

domfer

Any others ideas ? is somebody test an export of a gen3 movement ?

or test the "animate gen2 to gen 3" ?

 

 

a-sennov

The product's page of Genesis2 to Genesis3 animation converter has sample video where you can see the result. All problems of this script are visible there: inaccuracy in posing, shaking limbs etc. Plus conversion is performed on frame-to-frame basis so it will be very difficult to edit result animation even when initially it was very simple.

wolf359

"The product's page of Genesis2 to
 Genesis3 animation converter has 
sample video where you can see the result. 
All problems of this script are visible there: 
inaccuracy in posing, shaking limbs etc. 
Plus conversion is performed on frame-to-frame
 basis so it will be very difficult to edit result animation 
even when initially it was very simple."

There is a free script by zaz777 in the freebie forum that frankly
is quite bit more accurate ,in my usage, than the paid script by the late
 "DraagonStorm" and with it you can go drectly from Vicky4 to G3
with animation retargeting,

Also the problem of having keyframes populating every frame
is easily solved by the free script by Mcasual called "decimate"
see my example in this thread:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/175151/how-to-delete-keyframes-between-frames#latest

 

 

 

a-sennov

wolf359 said:

There is a free script by zaz777 in the freebie forum that frankly

is quite bit more accurate ,in my usage, than the paid script by the late
 "DraagonStorm" and with it you can go drectly from Vicky4 to G3
with animation retargeting,

Well, in those rare cases when I need to convert motion to Genesis3 directly (without retargetting app like MoBu) from previous generations I usually simply save it as animated pose and then manually reroute twist keyframes to appropriates twist bones using SearchAndReplace function of text editor and finally one of offset aniblocks for final correction (especially when it's V4 to Gen3). This preserves original keyframes and leave place for ajustments.

But this method is surely not the one I would recommend to novice user :)

domfer

Thank you for your contributions !..

Let's try another angle : How animate Genesis 3 et export them in FBX ? The animation of Gen2 is possibly not necessary.. Is there a technique like aniblock to animate gen3 ?