What is the best alternative for creating animation cycles to be imported into DAZ?

tcassat

My intention is:

1. export Genesis 8 models to the other program
2. create relatively simple animation cycles (people doing looping actions such as waving, gesturing, etc.)
3. import the animation into DAZ for rendering

I have a basic knowledge of a program called Cascadeur, and it theoretically meets all my needs, but unfortunately the option to export the animations is locked behind a $100 annual paywall, and I'm afraid to pay only to later discover possible problems that render my animations useless (interaction of hair and other DAZ products with the animation, that sort of thing)... What do you recommend?

I think Blender is the most obvious option, but I have the impression that it's 'overkill' for my needs to create simple animation cycles, but I'm not sure. If anyone has any opinions that could help me, I'd appreciate it.

Gordig

I'm an evangelist for Cascadeur. I haven't checked to see if it has tools specifically for looping animations, but even without that, Cascadeur is a very powerful tool for animation program because of its AI assisted physics.

crosswind

I'm also a user of Cascadeur and Blender. First, I don't know how simple the animation is that you wanna make...but my gut feeling is that they might be both overkill.

For instance ~ 1) if you don't make complicated animations with physics effect, you don't need Cascadeur for the time being. 2) if you don't render such a "simple animation" in Blender, you don't really have to use Blender to make animations...

In this forum, there're quite a few folks who make "good and complicated animations" just with DS. Actually, with a series of tools like ActivePose, PowerPose, Puppeteer, animation products / aniBlock, etc. you can quickly make very good animation cycles.

But the software like Cascadeur and Blender certainly can bring you much better results, as long as you're willing to pay for them as well as prepared for some challenging learning curves... It's alway up to your choice.

tcassat

crosswind said:

I'm also a user of Cascadeur and Blender. First, I don't know how simple the animation is that you wanna make...but my gut feeling is that they might be both overkill.

For instance ~ 1) if you don't make complicated animations with physics effect, you don't need Cascadeur for the time being. 2) if you don't render such a "simple animation" in Blender, you don't really have to use Blender to make animations...

In this forum, there're quite a few folks who make "good and complicated animations" just with DS. Actually, with a series of tools like ActivePose, PowerPose, Puppeteer, animation products / aniBlock, etc. you can quickly make very good animation cycles.

But the software like Cascadeur and Blender certainly can bring you much better results, as long as you're willing to pay for them as well as prepared for some challenging learning curves... It's alway up to your choice.

Thanks for the comments, guys.

My problem with DAZ Studio in particular is that - as far as I know - there isn't much control between frame interpolations. The only really useful tool for organic animations is TCB, but it's pretty awful to use when you don't have any graphics to visualize anything. If there was at least a way to interpolate key frames with some curves it would be totally adequate for what I want to do, but as far as I know TCB is the only solution, and changing those three parameters on a trial-and-error basis is kind of a bad experience...

 

crosswind

Yes, animation capability in DS is not as strong as other pro. software but it still depends on the animation you're gonna make. For instance, as for interpolation you mentioned, besides TCB, don't forget there's a Linear type in DS. And you also can edit "curve" in DS though it's not very user friendly and easy to use...

Well, since you have more demand in these functionalities, I would recommend you go for using Blender + Diffeomorphic Daz Importer, which can well export \ import Daz assets into Blender. You make animation with Blender then send the action back to DS (or directly render in Blender.)