ANIBLOCKS question

BC Rice

I was looking at iClone's animation interface and I'm wondering if Animate and it's resulting Aniblocks have a similar interface somewhere (in DAZ perhaps?).

I know I can purchase pre made aniblocks for fighting, etc, but for creating different styles of walk/run cycles and casual everyday movements, is there an interface somewhere to do that? I have all the necessary Animate/Aniblock importer stuff for Carrara that's just been collecting dust.

Thanks!

wetcircuit

Sorry, from your post I am not sure which program you would be animating in, and which would receive the animations for render....?

3DAGE

HI BC Rice :)

I'm hoping that you're aware of NLA in Carrara (Non Linear Animation).

You can make any key-frame animation you create into an NLA "Clip". Clips can be moved in the time-line. you can have Multiple NLA Tracks with multiple NLA clips in each track.

Each NLA Track, can also be set to control specific elements of the figure, although the clips in the track may have full figure animation, they can be limited by ther track parameters to only effect a part of the figure,. for example the Head,. or the legs, or arms.

You can also convert any imported "Aniblock" animations into Carrara NLA clips,. and save them to your (My Clips) section of the browser.

NLA Clips and NLA "poses" are also the keystone of Mimic for Carrara, and enables you to create custom characters in Carrara and add lip-sync to them, as well as using the Daz 3D figures which are mimic ready.

In C8, you also have the Puppeteer controller, which can be used to either create an animation by recording your mouse passing over the saved pose dot's you make in the grid,.. or you can click on the pose dots to Apply that pose to a figure at specific points in the time-line.
This will make a keyframe animation, which can be converted to NLA and saved.

Hope it helps :)

BC Rice

3DAGE said:

HI BC Rice :)

I'm hoping that you're aware of NLA in Carrara (Non Linear Animation).

You can make any key-frame animation you create into an NLA "Clip". Clips can be moved in the time-line. you can have Multiple NLA Tracks with multiple NLA clips in each track.

Each NLA Track, can also be set to control specific elements of the figure, although the clips in the track may have full figure animation, they can be limited by ther track parameters to only effect a part of the figure,. for example the Head,. or the legs, or arms.

You can also convert any imported "Aniblock" animations into Carrara NLA clips,. and save them to your (My Clips) section of the browser.

NLA Clips and NLA "poses" are also the keystone of Mimic for Carrara, and enables you to create custom characters in Carrara and add lip-sync to them, as well as using the Daz 3D figures which are mimic ready.

In C8, you also have the Puppeteer controller, which can be used to either create an animation by recording your mouse passing over the saved pose dot's you make in the grid,.. or you can click on the pose dots to Apply that pose to a figure at specific points in the time-line.
This will make a keyframe animation, which can be converted to NLA and saved.

Hope it helps :)

No, I understand NLA and all that. I understand importing BVH, etc. My question is in iClone there is an interface where you can take, say, a walk cycle and you can speed it up or slow it down or have the character crouch, etc, all in real time. You then choose what you want, the length, etc, and then you save that (as a BVH or what-have-you). Mixamo's product page works in a similar fashion, only there you have to actually purchase whatever it is you create. I *think* DAZ has an interface like this with the Animate product (which I have), but I do everything in my power to steer completely clear of DAZ -- unless I have no other option.

I'm wondering if I need some additional product (like, say, the Walk Construction Kit) in order to get the interface I'm looking for.

Hopefully that's clearer?

BC Rice

Oh and I use Carrara 7 Pro

3DAGE

Ah. You want a "Walk Designer".

Apart from puppeteer, where you make poses, then roll the mouse over the dot's you've created and you can record that in real time.

... but Carrara doesn't have a Walk designer, ...although feature requests have been posted for a walk designing tool.

The "walk construction kits" are a set of aniblocks and are best used in Animate2. (in Studio)
you basically load a sequence of aniblocks, just like NLA clips and they blend together to form a longer animation sequence.
the more aniblocks you have, the more varied your sequence can be,. You can make your own aniblocks from key-framed animations and the blocks can be Shortened / edited to isolate specific parts of the animation, and the blocks will still all blend together well.

With Animate2, you can also adjust the animations, either by editing key-frames, or adjusting path's.
There are some clips on the Gofigure3d website which show how Animate2 works.

The "Walk designer" products in the store are intended for use in Poser's "Walk designer" where you can Mix percentages of different 30 frame walk cycles,. to create a walk "style" and then create an animation from that, either a straight walk, or following a "Walk path".
In Carrara, they would only show up as a set of 30 frame "pre-set" walk animations.
You can also create your own 30 frame walk animations in poser,. save them in the Walk designer folder, and Use these in the Walk designer interface to create a new walk by mixing it with other styles of walk animations.

The Speed of NLA clips can be changed in the Clip parameters options, so you can have it running at a faster, or slower rate, than it was created at, but you can't adjust that speed in real time. just clip by clip.

Carrara can import All of the above. either as Poser PZ2 files,. or using the Aniblock importer, or as BVH
All of these can be changed into NLA clips which then allows you to create a Multi-Track animation sequence, where clips in different tracks control different elements of your figure.

Fenrick's BVH /PZ2 exporter for Carrara, is a really useful plug-in to have, since it allows you to create an animation in Carrara, then export them into Poser or DS and use it to create part of a new animation using either Aniblocks or Posers Walk designer. or both, and then save it and load it back into Carrara.

The Free PFE (Poser Format Exporter) is also useful for sending animations from DS to Poser, or Carrara as PZ2 files...
But the New DUF (Daz User File) in DS4.5 should also allow you to load animations and poses from DS into Carrara 8.5

So, there are several options to create animations, and if i-clone can export BVH, and can use a DS / Poser, or Carrara Bone rig, then that's another option to create animations for Carrara, as is Mixamo web site, or the hundreds of free BVH files online.

The animation options in Carrara could be better, and as I mentioned, there have been feature requests posted for better IK/FK plus a walk designer, and other tools and options to help make animating easier.

NLA, Animate, and Poser's Walk designer, all have nice features, but none of them are a single perfect solution to what is one of the most difficult things to accomplish without spending a long time learning,

You could also post a Feature request for the type of features you're seeing in i-clone. in the Bug tracker. *(select "Feature" as the issue type) instead of Major. Minor, tweak etc..

BC Rice

Hm. That's what I thought. Ugh -- Studio it is then. :P

I think so long as I'm *just* doing pre-made animation of blank M4 or V4 it should be tolerable. It's when I try to access any of the stuff I have in Carrara over in DAZ that things get severely choppy. None of my stuff that's in Carrara is accessible by DAZ with the exception of the pre-installed stuff. I like to manually put things in specific places for use in Carrara, so me and Studio are not on good terms. Also I loathe Studio's interface.

But I'll bite the bullet just this once as I don't think there's any other workaround

(Also, I think in order for iClone to export BVH files you have to have 3DXChange -- and iClone plus Xchange is too much for me to pay just to have something comparable to Animate 2.5 in Studio)

Thanks! :)

3DAGE

HI

None of my stuff that’s in Carrara is accessible by DAZ

Do you mean custom figures you've created ? ..

Carrara stuff works best in Carrara, and as far as animation is concerned, Carrara has a great key-frame editor and animation features when compared to Daz studio.

Non figure stuff, "without bones" will load into DS or Poser if you export it as OBJ.

If you're meaning animations you're making in Cararra using M4/V4,.. The BVH/PZ2 exporter plugin solves that, but hopefully that's an area we'll see improve in C8.5 with DUF transfer.

I like to manually put things in specific places for use in Carrara, so me and Studio are not on good terms.

Daz Studio,. and Poser, only work with specific file types and they only work with them when they're placed into the DS Library or a Poser Runtime folder.

Neither Daz Studio or Poser is capable of loading a .CAR file, or .CBR file.

I'm with you on the DS interface and I'd like to see easier ways for Carrara to export figures and animation out to other programs, but one of the issues is that most other programs don;t have many of the features you could have in a Carrara file,.. for example Replicators, terrains, plants, oceans, clouds etc..

Fortunately, if you're only dealing with animation, life is easier, since formats like BVH will transfer between programs and are really small files.

Hope it helps :)