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Dartanbeck,
Don't worry about this, do your work to pay the bills . This is just a fun project for when you have time.:-)
Mike
Pjotter,
Feel free to download the character in the link on Post #9 in this thread and create a walk cycle using the bvh from poser and importing it into Carrara. It would be interesting to see how it would work with our character. You could try using the rig I have or the V4 one like you have mentioned.. Only if you want to:-)
Mike
ok, latest, sorry about the scary mouth cavity with tongue abd teeth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcS8pPM1gFY
Hey Guys,
Making some progress with the walk cycle, at least the motion is sort of smooth between the walk cycles. I do think there is a bug in Carrara when you "loop" the NLA clips, there was always a "hitch"j in between the loops. I copied 3 different NLA Master Clips of the walk cycles then adjusted the Offset from previous clip and that did the trick.
I may post a bit of a tut on this if you want .
http://youtu.be/l_sBVeX4dpw
Hey ,
NIce work on the morphs and the lip syncing. :coolsmile: , I guess I forgot to model the tongue and teeth.
https://www.box.com/shared/9rjuszisi9hvllnutsss
I had to use the file without the rig attached to do the mouth bits so not your original weightpainting, no eyes and jaw.
I did use your ik helpers to pose him but I had to delete the left shoulder bone heirarchy and reduplicate it to get it to bend not twist.
I added a few more ball joint restraints too.
but here it is mimic voice files and all (I rendered image series though and added the sound later)
just for fun.
Very important when you create a NLA walk clip, the first keyframes and the last keyframes have to be the same. If you have a 30 frames clip, keyframes 1 and 30 are the same. You can adjust this in the Graph Editor. Otherwise you will have glitches.
You can change the brush activity. Sometimes I put Strength to 100%, enlarge brush and smoothness to zero. You can have your whole character yellow in 10 seconds.
I can help you with weight painting. Just been through the whole process and was struggling as you are. Stick to this and it is doable. Although it is still a lot of work. I had to figure it out myself. So here is my "manual":
First, import your character in an empty scene.
Create all extreme poses on the timeline. So, T-Pose, Arms up, legs fully sideways, etc.
But use a lot of the timeline. So first pose not on frame 1 but 30 or something.
So if you move the timeline you get all the different poses. Don't worry about deformations. This is the goal.
Go to weight painting.
Use only the add function. Do not use subtract. Very often it will add hip influence everywhere and you don't want that.
Each vertice has 100% influence. If you use subtracts for a bone, it does, but it is replaced by hip to get the 100% again.
Do the weight painting roughly. It is almost impossible to do it perfect with WP. For the shoulder you'll never make it.
Go to the first pose using the timeline.
Start weight painting the figure so all spikes and deformations jump back.
Sometimes you can't reach a spike because it is covered. So make the pose less extreme with the timeline.
Go through all your poses, using the timeline. Save often.
If it is not very bad anymore, go to animation mode, the bones tap.
Here you do your fine tuning.
The rough approach is selecting multiple polygons. But I prefer selecting vertice by vertice. Use the sliders for correction.
Keep playing with the timeline.
Add bones if you need them, or remove bones if they are very wrong. (The hip is everywhere).
If you have fore instance a lot of hip influence at the neck, select all polygons and set slider to zero.
Or remove this bone influence (but first slider at zero).
Carrara gives sometimes an error. Most of the time you have to make the selection again. Everything has to be 100%
Some other things I discovered:
If one slider is at 100% and 2 or more sliders are 0%, you cannot move the 100% slider, but one of the others.
Because Carrara doesn't know how to divide it over the other sliders.
If one slider is 80% and one is 15% and one is 5%, and you move the 80% slider, the 5-15 ratio stays.
another one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7hI4iKCv0
When I first set up the rig, all went well - no weight-painting was needed, everything worked as expected. The only moves made were to check it out then return to reference.
When I re-opened to try my hand at animating it, the orientation of the bones is all over the place - some very slight, others (left shoulder) really bad. The constraints I've set have also changed - very slightly, but still...
Auto-orient makes it worse. When I try manually orienting, one joint at a time, I just can't get all three axes lined up - get two OK, but always one is out of kilter and when that comes right, the others go out. What is puzzling is that the selection tool and the universal manipulator show the orientation to be correct, but the rotate tool shows it is wrong.
Anyone have a good method of doing this? Should I be using angles instead of quarterion?
BTW - I'm using my own rig, in C8.1.1.12
I have had the same. And I couldn't solve it. Even the chest was wrong. With this you can't properly animate. You have to make very complicated constraint settings. The fingers are a real disaster. Carrara does weird things sometimes. With zero Pose, I get a complete deformed character.
But you could experiment with changing the rotation order on the constraints tab. Maybe this helps for you.
The only thing that worked for me is using a Poser skeleton (I am using Victoria 4). I had to start all over again, but now I am on track again.
if you all want to really use this - some body should take it into DS 4.5 and put the Genesis body in it - then you can use it in C 8.5
if you have it .
make life a lot easer .
Thanks for confirming, pjotter - I'll try with the rotation order:)
Hey bigh - it would be a lot easier just to do the whole thing in Blender - but that's not the point - this is not about easy:)
We are trying to get to learn and use Carrara correctly, without external assistance - so far it appears that only mmoir, who is not an animator, is having the most success!
He has made a walk and his rig's rotations are at least aligned:)
I doubt it is easier in Blender (I don't know Blender) and it is doable in Carrara. But you also have keep in mind what your goal is. Is it creating a good looking walk cycle or doing it in Carrara. Or in other words is the goal creating and moving on, or proofing it can be done in Carrara? I have spend a lot of time on this in Carrara and have been a lot further as posted, but still it didn't look right. The next step of Mmoir is probably lifting the knees and the foot angles. This is doable.
But a good walk cycle needs hip rotation, the body goes up and down and the body weight shifts left to right. This all at the specific time intervals. Believe me, this is very complicated. Besides that the upper body goes the wrong direction if you rotate the hip for the leg movement.
I did in my last video lift the feet but maybe not enough and I didn't exagerate things enough but with practice I think this is doable. I will post a tutorial or screen capture video of this shortly.
http://youtu.be/l_sBVeX4dpw
Mike
Roygee,
Sorry , I can't help you as I don't know what is going on. I do notice the rotation angles going squirrly and I think that is the main reason I switch to Ball joints and rotating in the Side/Front views. I played with the rotation order but didn't isolate how they work.
Mike
I can't help you with whole process, but I can give you a push in the right direction.
Next thing is to get rid of the kicking of the lower legs. Then the stiffness of the shoulders by rotating the chest slightly. BUT if you want it to do the right way, the hip rotation comes first, because when you rotate hips, everything moves along. In other words, you could do the rotation of the upper body only (this is a lot easier). But for a natural walk, the hip needs to rotate also.
Good luck.
DS is part of Carrara .
DS isn't part of Carrara.
DS needs to be installed if you want to use genesis and smart content in the current Carrara 8.5 beta,...
but Carrara is a stand alone product, and you don't "Need" to have DS installed. or use genesis and smart content.
With the release of DIM, and perhaps, later,.. a separate CMS installer, ...there will be no need to use Daz Studio to install the CMS.
there is already a separate installer for genesis (Genesis starter essentials) in both DS and Poser formats.
DIM adds the product info to the database, and that allows Carrara to see newly installed content, without having to open DS first, and let it update the database with any newly installed products.
That means Carrara 8.5 beta is one more step towards being fully independent again of Daz Studio for installing Genesis , the CMS, and updating the database with new products.
All previous versions of Carrara do not require DS, or any other products to be installed,..
So,. No,. DS is NOT part of Carrara.
don't use Carrara with out DS - only way to go !
other wise you are just betting your head on a wall for nothing .
to bad people just don't get it .
Pjotter,
I have recognized I have to do the things you mention , I just want to get more comfortable with the whole process.
Mike
I can't help you with whole process, but I can give you a push in the right direction.
Next thing is to get rid of the kicking of the lower legs. Then the stiffness of the shoulders by rotating the chest slightly. BUT if you want it to do the right way, the hip rotation comes first, because when you rotate hips, everything moves along. In other words, you could do the rotation of the upper body only (this is a lot easier). But for a natural walk, the hip needs to rotate also.
Good luck.
well if you click on my last two youtube clips Bigh, you will see mmoir's man singing and moving entirely done in Carrara, no studio or Daz content involved!
so no, you do NOT need studio or Poser to do animated lipsynced characters in Carrara.
I will admit I am not GOOD at it, and one of my YouSuck commenters was very quick to point this out asking "I am serious, why do you upload these animations which look half finished?"
pity he had no uploads for me to learn from.
but I personally think it is a milestone that I could even do what I did
ok I take baby steps and fall over heaps mostly pooping my nappy
but
oneday I will make a figure too in Carrara myself with facial morphs and rigging entirely of my own doing
it will talk, walk and dance
it may be crap
but my crap!
and I will feel proud
(and the youtubers will can it!)
that is what this is all about, taking ownership of what we do in Carrara!
yes, I love my Daz dollies too
and will always find room for more
but the thrill of creation is a heady euphoric one
I always admire people like RichardChaos and StuSuttcliff who do their own thing and want to be like them
mmoir is well and truly on his way (already a skilled architectural modeller and now a maker of humanoid figures and animator) I am putting my tiny feet in his footprints and trying to follow.
Bigh,
When genesis is fully integrated into Carrara it will be an option for sure. I do think banging your head on a wall is something that you need to do to make progress in almost anything you do . I don't want to be tied to a specific character , rigging and animating your own characters gives you a little more creative freedom in my optinion.
agree you have done well .
but why not use whats there to use .
Genesis is part of C.
I wish you nothing but good luck with this .
Hey ,
Just posted a screen grab video of the walk cycle creation in Carrara, right now it is just preparing the Man character for animating. Hopefully I can work on the rest of the walk cyle videos later. Hopefully this helps some people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkX5hL5OwpE&feature=youtu.be
Agreed. I'm definitely going to perfect this. I must!
Thanks for initiating this sequence of Carraraistic events, Mike!
btw, I may have said it before... but i really like this model!
Dartanbeck, there is something I really don't understand. You have a major problem with weight painting. I gave you a long and extensive explanation on how you could solve your problem. It took me a while to type this. But you are not responding at all. I think I have wasted my time. Is not going to happen again.
Don't know why it would need any weight-painting. The first rig I made needed none at all - when the joint orientation went out of whack and I couldn't fix, I made another, this time with a bone for the jaw and the only painting I had to do was to get that to work - took less than five minutes.
With a well-constructed mesh and correct bone placement, Carrara is pretty good at estimating the weights.
I disagree with not using subtract at all
often need to, or I add hip which is much the same thing before re-adding the bone wanted
while I am crap at doing my own animations, I do rig stuff a lot for iClone in Carrara so have done a lot of simple boning and weightpainting.
the trick is indeed to have well lined up bones, one reason I do starjump posed figures.
Dart is very busy with getting his environment store ready I imagine, so cut him some slack.
that and splitting rocks for landscaping!
It wasn't waste of time as I read it and I am sure others did as well and we learned from it.