Import Carnegie Mellon BVH files into G3?

Causam3D

Hello everyone,

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how to successfully import bvh motion capture files from the CMU database using G3 characters.  For anyone who has run up against this and solved it, can you please share the solution?

wolf359

Hi...stop...get it out of your head..not happening.

Those "Carnegie mellon" BVH files and any other BVH files currently in existance, will NOT work with the Daz Genesis3 Models.
Their Exotic new rigging scheme makes them unusable with all existing Standard biped motion file Data.
If you want to animate a G3 Figure you must $$$Buy Iclone Pro, Autodesk Motion builder$$$ or Export G3 to the unity Game engine and create a character controler and Make your animation in Unity3D.

You can ,however, manually animate G3 Figure within Daz studio  but not with the aniMate2 system as GS Does not work with that either
If you want to create Character animation within Daz studio I advise using Genesis 2 or even Genesis 1

nonesuch00

There was at one time if you search the net a couple of sites that had those CM animations converted to DAZ format. As wolf359 said though Genesis 3 figures won't work with those files. I've read they are actually, even cleaned up, not the best to use for animation and not a very practically diverse set of animations to use for typical animation needs either.

You can download the Mixamo animation files for free, search Reddit, and someone has already downloaded the whole mess of them and but them in a zip file and onto one of those commercial file sharing services, but you can download for free.

If you can't find that link or the file has since been removed from that share you can still join Mixamo (Adobe now) and get those animations free.

Jimbow

wolf359 said:

but not with the aniMate2 system as GS Does not work with that either
 

 

Seems to work with G3 here.

nonesuch00

Jimbow said:

wolf359 said:

but not with the aniMate2 system as GS Does not work with that either
 

 

Seems to work with G3 here.

I haven't tried yet but that is nice to hear. The old aniBlocks from the store do not work though and there are some good ones. :-(

wolf359

Jimbow said:

wolf359 said:

but not with the aniMate2 system as GS Does not work with that either
 

 

Seems to work with G3 here.

Hi what aniblock did you use can you post a screenshot or animation sample???

nonesuch00

I would really like a conversion utility that converted the old animblocks so they work work with Genesis 3.

wolf359

nonesuch00 said:

I would really like a conversion utility that converted the old animblocks so they work work with Genesis 3.

Well there is this product
http://www.daz3d.com/animation-conversion-genesis-2-to-genesis-3

But I have heard from users of the product that it does not work with all G2 animated poses and the results on G3 are a bit hit & miss.

Jimbow

Sorry, I didn't realise you were being specific about aniblocks.

wolf359

Jimbow said:

Sorry, I didn't realise you were being specific about aniblocks.

The aniMate2 system uses aniblocks
they do not work with G3.

nonesuch00

You can still use it to create Genesis 3 animations though from the link that I was given for this product so the ability to animate Genesis 3 with aniMate2 isn't affected.

http://www.daz3d.com/animation-conversion-genesis-2-to-genesis-3

Hmmm...so it seems that this product requires applying an aniBlock to a Genesis 2 characters both male & female when needed, making any adjustments since most were made for V4 and M4, and then converting to Genesis 3 twice. One for male, one for female and then adjusting. 

Lot of work but still saves even more work I guess.

Jimbow

wolf359 said:

Jimbow said:

Sorry, I didn't realise you were being specific about aniblocks.

The aniMate2 system uses aniblocks
they do not work with G3.

My bad. It was late here. I was thinking of Keymate. Apologies everyone :/

nonesuch00

Jimbow said:

wolf359 said:

Jimbow said:

Sorry, I didn't realise you were being specific about aniblocks.

The aniMate2 system uses aniblocks
they do not work with G3.

My bad. It was late here. I was thinking of Keymate. Apologies everyone :/

Me too, since I have both animate2 & keymate I don't distinguish between them but keymate does allow you to to more animation things.

wolf359

nonesuch00 said:

You can still use it to create Genesis 3 animations though from the link that I was given for this product so the ability to animate Genesis 3 with aniMate2 isn't affected.

http://www.daz3d.com/animation-conversion-genesis-2-to-genesis-3

Hmmm...so it seems that this product requires applying an aniBlock to a Genesis 2 characters both male & female when needed, making any adjustments since most were made for V4 and M4, and then converting to Genesis 3 twice. One for male, one for female and then adjusting. 

Lot of work but still saves even more work I guess.

Yes we have that script,
it has substantial limitations
and there is alot manual of cleanup involved
requiring use of the "graphMate" plugin at a minimum
so it is not for the inexperienced newcomer to animation
but it is better than no G3 solution at all.

Here is a rarely seen G3  "normal" walk cycle animation that is part of a package we will soon be offering over at our brokerage at Flipbook

Causam3D

Thanks for the commentary everyone.  It seems as though I'm back to my original workflow on this, however, for the compelling reason that the CMU bvh files are derived from motion capture and are therefore very natural, I want to find a solution to this workflow that won't eat up galaxies of my time.

I've been to Mixamo, and yes that is a very useful resource.  I've saved all of the bvh I need from that site.  One problem I have with it is that it really doesn't skin a character that has any complexity at all to it very well.  A low poly game character is fine.  Anything more than that, you're looking at a lot of cleanup.

My original workflow was to export G3 as an obj file into Blender and the use the auto rigger in Blender (human metarig, or Pitchipoy).  However, due to the way meshes are exported from DAZ, this requires a lot of mesh "clean up" (eyelashes, teeth, toenails, etc) before the character will skin to the rig.  Very tedious.  I've had some success with FBX and DAE exports, but again, there is some significant cleanup with the rigging.  I am then left with the problems associated with re-exporting the final animated character into something else.  

Wouldn't it be nice if one of the commercial products would just decide to combine the beautiful meshes of DAZ with the ease of rigging and bvh integration of Blender?   I've begun fooling around with 3ds Max, and hopefully this will present a solution.  Or maybe not.  It seems as though the major softwares out there are determined, a'la Bill Gates, to ensure that interoperability is never achieved in their quest to protect market share.

nonesuch00

billisaacs_b4e2129c98 said:

Thanks for the commentary everyone.  It seems as though I'm back to my original workflow on this, however, for the compelling reason that the CMU bvh files are derived from motion capture and are therefore very natural, I want to find a solution to this workflow that won't eat up galaxies of my time.

I've been to Mixamo, and yes that is a very useful resource.  I've saved all of the bvh I need from that site.  One problem I have with it is that it really doesn't skin a character that has any complexity at all to it very well.  A low poly game character is fine.  Anything more than that, you're looking at a lot of cleanup.

My original workflow was to export G3 as an obj file into Blender and the use the auto rigger in Blender (human metarig, or Pitchipoy).  However, due to the way meshes are exported from DAZ, this requires a lot of mesh "clean up" (eyelashes, teeth, toenails, etc) before the character will skin to the rig.  Very tedious.  I've had some success with FBX and DAE exports, but again, there is some significant cleanup with the rigging.  I am then left with the problems associated with re-exporting the final animated character into something else.  

Wouldn't it be nice if one of the commercial products would just decide to combine the beautiful meshes of DAZ with the ease of rigging and bvh integration of Blender?   I've begun fooling around with 3ds Max, and hopefully this will present a solution.  Or maybe not.  It seems as though the major softwares out there are determined, a'la Bill Gates, to ensure that interoperability is never achieved in their quest to protect market share.

Well if you download Unity 3D & login to their Asset Store (you have to create an account) there have the CMU BVH set converted & cleaned up for the Unity Animation State Machine.  So you download the CMU asset and import it into a Unity project you create.

Since it for their state machine that means I believe they are in fbx format, it not they are in Unity 3D .anim format. But anyway what you do is export a Genesis 3 character in FBX 2014 format and import that character into Unity and assign an Unity Animation Controller to it and then target the animation to the DAZ Genesis character you exported. Then you export the animation only portion as FBX (after making possible adjustments to the character and animation) from Unity & import into Blender or DAZ Studio or Cararra or what have you.

It's probably the case that you can save all that extra work and directly import the CMU FBXes directly from where you have imported them into Unity without importing the DAZ Character into Unity & adjusting.

I'm not 100% sure though that all CMU animations are included in that Unity asset. There was at one time a 3rd party individual who had cleaned every single on of those animations up and made them available in the asset store free. They were divided up into 3 different assets 1, 2, & 3 and had all the CMU animation but were in Unity .anim format. A lot of those animations though if you've ever seen the list of what's in the set are repetitive and not good quality. A real person may have been recorded to create them but the recording and technical process used to create the BVH files wasn't the best.

wolf359

"Since it for their state machine that means I believe they are in fbx format, it not they are in Unity 3D .anim format. But anyway what you do is export a Genesis 3 character in FBX 2014 format and import that character into Unity and assign an Unity Animation Controller to it and then target the animation to the DAZ Genesis character you exported. Then you export the animation only portion as FBX (after making possible adjustments to the character and animation) from Unity & import into Blender or DAZ Studio or Cararra or what have you."

Sure that is one possible option but
it ignores the reason most people are using Daz Genesis models in the first place...because they are well... Daz genesis models:Autofit
             hundreds of morphs at the call
            one click change of clothing,hair and skin
If one is to send your DAZ Genesis model on some far flung journey around the CG universe only to bring it "home" in the form of some stripped down FBX doppleganger,
Then what was the point??

One may as well have just bought

 a female model from here
 

 

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-model/woman/

and imported it  directly into DS and have a generic static but poseable rig .