Daz, Maya, Cinema, Motionbuilder.....what to do...
I need advice please about controllers for body and facial expressions. What would you do?
I am planning some 4 to 8 minute long animated cartoons with a lot of fighting and other complex motions. I want facial expressions but since my animations are set to music, lip sync isn't a huge priority.
I've been using Cinema 4d for a while now (mainly text animations). In sept I started school so I got Autodesk student and have Maya and Motionbuilder in my arsenal. Still a noobie with them.
My wife will beat me if I spend any more money on animation so iclone is out of the question. I am also very disappointed with some of the Daz plugins so I am loathe to even get animate 2. Besides, I have Cinema and Maya, right?
I love how my Genesis 2 character looks. I can't get her nearly as pretty in Gen 3. (Facegen Pro seems to work a lot better with Gen 2) I could just move it to maya/motionbuilder, re rig it, transfer the weighting (which Daz does beautifully!) create a bunch of control devices and then animate. But I'd be giving up on so many great tools like the Daz poses and puppeteer. Plus that's a lot to learn in Maya/Motionbuilder. And I've found that deformers break if you even look at them wrong. So that's going to be a whole thing of screaming at my computer.
Maybe there's an easier way to transfer the daz controls. I have been able to export the morph target facial expressions from Daz. But something tells me transfering all the controls would be far more difficult than just editing the FBX export dialogue. And the controls I have are not nearly complete and they're clunky. (I know Gen 3 has rigged faces but that scares me. If you look at them its like a bouquet of flowers in her face!)
I was also thinking of exporting each pose I make in daz as an fbx file and tweening them in Cinema. There's a lot of fbx import issues here but I know how to fix them in Cinema now. (And if anyone wants to know, ask in the response. You don't need any plugin or hooha.) Its a bit of a pain since I have to apply my homemade uniform texture to the amazing daz bodysuit. But I can live with that. Anyone try anything like that?
There is also the option of exporting the animation as a bvh file and apply it as an animation layer in Cinema. Anyone try that? Save the bvh. Put it in an animation layer in Cinema and then laugh as it all works perfectly on the first try.
Yeah right.
So what should I do?
Am I kidding myself? Should I just bite the bullet and just export the gen2 model into Maya or Cinema and create my own controllers. A six minute video is a whole different animal from a simple animation sequence.
Does anyone have effective workflows from Daz that lets them save their controllers and animate in a full feature 3d program like Maya or Cinema?
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Comments
How about Daz to Maya? That new product on the Daz3d web page. Haven't checked the cost and whether it would lead to more bruises or not!
By "controllers" do you mean "blendshapes"? The FBX export does support them, at least as morphs you specify. I suggest making the key ones including the FaceGen one a favorite (hit heart on the properties in parameters/shaping pane) and specifying favorite morphs in the FBX export morph details. For unity it works anyway (though I'm not suggesting you trade the clunkiness of daz keyframe animation for unity's!)
Am in a similar situation and always end up staying in Daz since the figure always looks different elsewhere. The smallest change in lighting or perturbed vertices can completely change the feel you spend all the time perfecting. I am guessing I would need to perfect it nearly from scratch in the other package in order to be happy with animating it there, but I might be missing something in my stubborn-ness.
also there is keygen / graphgen for making life in daz better when it comes to keyframe animation
also not sure if it is the leap from G2 to G3/G8 that is the problem or the animation tools. If it is the G2->G3/G8 leap, I really benefitted from SickleYield's tutorial about this (google "Transferring-Character-Morphs-G1G2G3G8"). Basic idea I think was exporting the key morphs (using 'fav morphs' as I mention above) on base figure as obj, importing the obj as a new dial for taking g3/g8 base figures into your old shape, using the built-in Daz clones of earlier figures.
After awhile, the new one becomes the canonical one, mostly because your skills improve with time. I have to admit the original has something the new one doesn't. Kind of like real people!
Hi. The plugin is out for about 30 bucks and has both positive and negative reviews. But you don't need it. Here's how to transfer the control rig from Daz to Maya.
https://toyen-art.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Using-Daz-figures-for-animation-in-Maya-585078140
There will be bruising with both. But one is free and lets you learn what's going on.
I don't know what Daz calls them. But when I say 'control rig' I mean both skeletal controllers and the target morphs (I think that's the general term) which Maya calls blendshapes and Cinema calls something else. I have all the head blendshapes transfer with no problem in FBX and I think we're doing the same thing.
I have never seen a specify favorite morphs in FBX. I would love that so can you send a screenshot? If you're talking about Export Morph Rules as in CNTRL Head Bake (the syntax is wrong obviously but ykwim)?
A backhanded compliment if ever I heard one but sooo true. I don't need daz plugins. I have Maya and Cinema 4d. That's the whole point. Set a start pose and end pose in Daz. Tween it and export as an FBX. Add it to an animation layer and now you can play with the fcurves and change where the animation starts and stops and use takes and on and on and on.
Now, my new friends @DrZap and @Wolf359 say that there's a little something called JCM (Joint Controlled Morphs) which Daz adds that doesn't get transfered unless you learn how to program in machine language and get a cybernetic implant (or use Xpresso scripts, I forget which). As a result it won't be pretty. And they seem pretty darn smart.
@DrZap and I are in agreement on this. Learn the hard stuff. Daz gives ten headaches for each one it solves. I'm using Daz as something to overcome. Like tyranny or a vegitarian wife. Genesis 2 is beautiful and works with facegen and is weighted perfectly and has a great rig and wonderful controls for posing. But everything else in Daz such as its modeling, render engines, and pretty much everything else was written in 1746 by some Austro Hungarian archduke. I'm making 4 to 8 minute long cartoons. I need Maya and Cinema. BE MORE STUBBORN.
If you're using unity are you making models for video games? If its video games why leave Genesis 2. If its animation, like me, why leave Genesis 2?
Seriously, I'm not an expert on this or anything cg related. But I know the Gen3 model uses bones and not morph targets (blendshapes) to make faces. I said earlier that the gen 3 rig looks like someone stuffed a bunch of flowers in her mouth. But blendshapes are so elegant in Maya. The controls are wonderful and its not that hard. That's why I'm not making the leap. Genesis 2 is like my 2000 mercedes 320. Its old but perfect for me because I can't drive my wife's car like a fool. And still it looks cool as hell all white with really dark tinted windows and I can remotely control the rear headrests which can freak out people in the back seat....what were we talking about?
But I know the Gen3 model uses bones and not morph targets (blendshapes) to make faces.
This isn't entirely true. Genesis 3 and 8 characters can use both morphs and bones. If you are using fbx to transfer your figure, you are transfering blendshapes or morph targets to your host application. Genesis 3 and 8 also have a face rig, as you know, for more precise facial movements. You can control these in maya with the right controls. So the new figures have the best of both worlds. Morph expressions and bones or joints.