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Mimic Pro for Carrara or DS?

SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
edited February 2013 in Carrara Discussion

If I buy Mimic Pro for Carrara will it work with DAZ Studio 4.5 or do I need to buy Mimic Pro for that as well? There seem to be different versions which is a bit confusing.

Also, does GOZ for Carrara work with the latest version of Zbrush?

Post edited by Superdog on

Comments

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311
    edited December 1969

    Hi Superdog :)

    If you want to do lipsync in carrara using Daz3D figure , AND also use your own figures made in Carrara, then you'll need the Plugin version of mimic (Mimic for Carrara)

    As the name suggests, this is a plug-in, built specifically for use in Carrara. and it won't work in DS, or anything else.

    Mimic for carrara, works directly inside Carrara, and allows you to create the facial expression for your own figures, which mimic then uses to create the lip-sync animation, from the vocal / sound files.
    Or,..
    You can load a Daz3D "mimic ready" figure, Load it's DMC file (Daz Mimic Configuration file) and then the sound file, to create the lip-sync.

    I believe that Daz Studio pro 4.5 includes a "live sound" lip-sync system. so if you have that, then you shouldn't need to buy a version of mimic for DS.

    Carrara 8.5 can import the DS animation as a DUF file.

    There is also a "Stand Alone" Mimic Pro application which can load a Daz figure, and the sound file, then create the lip-sync animation, which can be exported as an animated Poser (PZ2) file,.. this file can be loaded into Poser, Daz Studio, or Carrara.

    Hope it helps :)

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited December 1969

    Thanks 3DAGE! I intend to use Carrara for creating scenes and animation so is it better to do the lipsyncing in Carrara as well? Perhaps it would be better to buy the standalone version so that I can export to DAZ and Carrara? Although that might be more awkward. I wonder how most people who use Carrara do it? I hope to use the Genesis figures as well so maybe it would be better to lipsync in DS and then export to Carrara?

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    Mimic Pro for Carrara seems to be a bit more powerful - due to its using Carrara's incredible NLA features in addition to what it does itself.
    You could then use Fenric's BVH/Pz2 Exporter to export the animation, but the sound wouldn't go with it.
    If, however, you used the stand alone version of Mimic Pro, it generates pz2 (poser pose) files with the audio either embedded or not - your choice.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    The great thing about doing it within Carrara is that it supports any possible figure that you can open in Carrara. The stand alone version is incredible as well - tough choice you have. I know that the stand alone exports a pz2 with sound. Is there a DS version? If so, you may need to use the beta for now, in order to get from DS to Carrara - that part I'm not sure about.

    Are you at all familiar with Carrara's NLA? Making clips for animation? With the Mimic Pro plugin, when you import your DSA file, which contains phoneme and gesture information, it places NLA clip files into your Clips tab. You may then load those toyour character and edit them and save to a new name for Mimic Pro to use for that Character whenever you use it. This makes it very easy to "Individualize" each character.

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    Mimic Pro for Carrara seems to be a bit more powerful - due to its using Carrara's incredible NLA features in addition to what it does itself.
    You could then use Fenric's BVH/Pz2 Exporter to export the animation, but the sound wouldn't go with it.
    If, however, you used the stand alone version of Mimic Pro, it generates pz2 (poser pose) files with the audio either embedded or not - your choice.

    If I export the animation from Carrara could I then add the audio when compositing in After Effects or some other compositor/video editor? I don't think it would be too difficult to sync up the audio file with the animation but I might be wrong.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    Superdog said:
    Dartanbeck said:
    Mimic Pro for Carrara seems to be a bit more powerful - due to its using Carrara's incredible NLA features in addition to what it does itself.
    You could then use Fenric's BVH/Pz2 Exporter to export the animation, but the sound wouldn't go with it.
    If, however, you used the stand alone version of Mimic Pro, it generates pz2 (poser pose) files with the audio either embedded or not - your choice.

    If I export the animation from Carrara could I then add the audio when compositing in After Effects or some other compositor/video editor? I don't think it would be too difficult to sync up the audio file with the animation but I might be wrong. Not wrong. That's exactly the way I'd do it.

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    Superdog said:
    Dartanbeck said:
    Mimic Pro for Carrara seems to be a bit more powerful - due to its using Carrara's incredible NLA features in addition to what it does itself.
    You could then use Fenric's BVH/Pz2 Exporter to export the animation, but the sound wouldn't go with it.
    If, however, you used the stand alone version of Mimic Pro, it generates pz2 (poser pose) files with the audio either embedded or not - your choice.

    If I export the animation from Carrara could I then add the audio when compositing in After Effects or some other compositor/video editor? I don't think it would be too difficult to sync up the audio file with the animation but I might be wrong.

    Not wrong. That's exactly the way I'd do it.

    Thanks! That sounds a lot easier so I'll get Mimic Pro for Carrara.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    At least I hope your not wrong! lol!
    I haven't recorded the script yet. Getting closer to that time, though. I think 3dage owns both of them, where I've only seen the standalone in action. I prefer NOT to have the sound embedded. But when I bring it into Vegas, I can just mute it. I may just buy the standalone, sometime just to have it. But for now, I really like the Carrara version, but all I could do so far is test it with the audio files that came with it - but I didn't read the manual before - and didn't know about the custom NLA stuff - which I'll definitely be using a lot! Rosie, my main character, has a very distinct way of talking. The way her lower corner on the right drops slightly when pronouncing vowels. But then being able to make such a set for various moods...
    3dage taught me that you make these separate NLA phonemes and Gestures, then they save right onto your character. So you make various saves for different moods and situations. This will save me a lot of time in the dialog end, and give me something productive to play on Rosie with until we reach the studio - like I said... soon.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    I really hope I'm not steering you wrong - I don't think you can go wrong, though.
    Carrara, to me, is where all animation renders take place anyways.

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited December 1969

    It makes sense to me to do animation and lipsyncing in Carrara and then export it so buying the plugin is better than the standalone I think. If I need the standalone I can always get it at a discount in the future now that I'm a Platinum Club member.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    The Platinum Club has saved me hundreds or more.
    My Spidey senses kick in when you mention export. Export from Carrara? Why, and where to?
    Carrara is the place to stay, my friend... it's the home base studio... the render monster, the bliss, that awesome sauce that brings out the best flavors! :coolhmm:

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311
    edited December 1969

    Hi Superdog :)

    I intend to use Carrara for creating scenes and animation so is it better to do the lipsyncing in Carrara as well?

    Yes,. Mimic only animates the face expressions (morphs), so you can still animate the rest of the figure independently.
    It creates a set of NLA poses and clips in the timeline, and a gestures track for blinks and slight head movement

    If you want to use Genesis in Carrara,, then the beta (with the updated version of "Mimic for Carrara") will do that. as well as handling any other previous Daz figures which are mimic ready,.
    The big advantage with Mimic for Carrara,. is that you can also make your own models (made in Carrara) talk,. using the Mimic for Carrara plugin.

    the stand alone version, was built before DS and Carrara had plugins to do the same thing.

    while the stand alone version does have the advantage of exporting in PZ2, which can be used in DS / poser and carrara,. it's only needed if you're using DS or Poser to animate and render. and only using Daz3D "mimic ready" figures.

    I have both the Stand alone version, and the Carrara plug-in,. but I've not used the stand alone in a long time,.

    If I export the animation from Carrara could I then add the audio when compositing in After Effects or some other compositor/video editor?

    Yes,. that would be the ideal work-flow,
    Lipsync and render as sequenced frames then import into AE, and add the sound file.
    then you can render out to whatever video format you choose.

    One point,. the PZ2 file is an animation file,.. and it cannot contain an audio file,. it's not embedded.

    The PZ2 only contains the lip-sync animation key-frames, so even with the stand alone version of Mimic, or the Carrara plugin,.. the animation remains separate from the sound,. and they need to be either composited together in post production (The most used method) or rendered to a movie format (which supports sound) from DS, Poser, or Carrara.

    Having the animation and sound separate allows you to do things like,.. record a "singing vocal" (without the music) to enable mimic to correctly add the lip-sync and not to get confused by the other "Musical" sounds,.
    Then you can replace the straight vocal track, with the final soundtrack including the music.

    Hope it helps :)

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited February 2013

    Thank you both! It's pretty clear that the Carrara plugin is the way to go. I'm looking fwd to lipsyncing in Carrara and then adjusting the audio file in Reaper using Melodyne to see if I can adapt the file to create different genders and voice types and also different intonations and inflections. So a statement could become a question for example. If this is possible (which I think it is) then one lipsync audio file could cover a range of characters for any spoken/sung phrase. It would mean that one person (me!) could become various different character voices and a phrase library could be built up pretty quickly. If I manage to do this I'll give an update on this forum.

    One other question, is the BVH/Pz2 Exporter necessary for what I plan to do and, if not, when is it useful? Apart from Carrara I only have DAZ Studio 4.5 and not Poser.

    Post edited by Superdog on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    Superdog said:

    One other question, is the BVH/Pz2 Exporter necessary for what I plan to do and, if not, when is it useful? Apart from Carrara I only have DAZ Studio 4.5 and not Poser.
    Nope.
    I love it... it's a great tool... use it all the time, but...
    no, you only need that to save the resulting lip synch from Carrara to a pz2.

    BTW, your ambitions sound fun!

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck said:
    Superdog said:

    One other question, is the BVH/Pz2 Exporter necessary for what I plan to do and, if not, when is it useful? Apart from Carrara I only have DAZ Studio 4.5 and not Poser.
    Nope.
    I love it... it's a great tool... use it all the time, but...
    no, you only need that to save the resulting lip synch from Carrara to a pz2.

    BTW, your ambitions sound fun!

    Thanks! I'll just get Mimic Plugin for Carrara for now then. I'm hoping that with a bit of tweaking creating different character voices will be a lot easier once the lipsync has been done. That's if it's possible to transfer lipsync files from one M4/V4 or M5/V5 character to another. I hope to lipsync one character and then use that file on another character and then sync an edited version of the original audio file that matches the new character. That way it would reduce the amount of lipsyncing and audio recording. I'm not sure yet if this is possible but I'll give it a go.

    Melodyne works as a plugin in Reaper and (I think) in Vegas. I've used it on vocal tracks before and it can create some amazing and pretty realistic transformations and effects. Changing gender, age and creating robotic voices. Other products can do the same but in my experience not as well as Melodyne. The plugin is usually on sale somewhere as well (about the same price as Mimic Pro for Carrara for PC members.)

    http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=product_comparison

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Superdog said:
    Dartanbeck said:
    Superdog said:

    One other question, is the BVH/Pz2 Exporter necessary for what I plan to do and, if not, when is it useful? Apart from Carrara I only have DAZ Studio 4.5 and not Poser.
    Nope.
    I love it... it's a great tool... use it all the time, but...
    no, you only need that to save the resulting lip synch from Carrara to a pz2.

    BTW, your ambitions sound fun!

    Thanks! I'll just get Mimic Plugin for Carrara for now then. I'm hoping that with a bit of tweaking creating different character voices will be a lot easier once the lipsync has been done. That's if it's possible to transfer lipsync files from one M4/V4 or M5/V5 character to another. I hope to lipsync one character and then use that file on another character and then sync an edited version of the original audio file that matches the new character. That way it would reduce the amount of lipsyncing and audio recording. I'm not sure yet if this is possible but I'll give it a go.

    Melodyne works as a plugin in Reaper and (I think) in Vegas. I've used it on vocal tracks before and it can create some amazing and pretty realistic transformations and effects. Changing gender, age and creating robotic voices. Other products can do the same but in my experience not as well as Melodyne. The plugin is usually on sale somewhere as well (about the same price as Mimic Pro for Carrara for PC members.)

    http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=product_comparison


    Something to think about using this other piece of software is audio clipping or stretching. In other words, when you change the audio track from a normal voice to a robot voice, does it change the length of the audio clip in the process. If so, then you need to factor that into your workflow, unless you're going for the badly dubbed foreign movie look. ;-)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    Well, another thing to consider in this regard:
    Each of the voicing changes would be better suited for a whole new set of phoneme alterations.
    Example,
    Robot should talk like a robot, but not like Suzy.
    Suzy would likely be okay if she used Carrie's phonemes, but Mike should be more manly. Mike could either use a phoneme NLA set made for Mike, or even Robert - but I'd keep them all different, myself.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    How would the phonemes in an NLA track look masculine or feminine? Those have more to do with just the mouth shape and don't really have much to do with body language. I would think the differences would have more to do with speech patterns. Words spoken in a long southern drawl would look different than the rapid clipped dialogue of a Film Nior type clip. I do agree though, that altering the voice clip first, and then bringing it into Carrara for syncing with Mimic is a better idea than altering the clip afterwords. You're less likely to get unwanted surprises.

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited February 2013

    evilproducer said:
    Superdog said:
    Dartanbeck said:
    Superdog said:

    One other question, is the BVH/Pz2 Exporter necessary for what I plan to do and, if not, when is it useful? Apart from Carrara I only have DAZ Studio 4.5 and not Poser.
    Nope.
    I love it... it's a great tool... use it all the time, but...
    no, you only need that to save the resulting lip synch from Carrara to a pz2.

    BTW, your ambitions sound fun!

    Thanks! I'll just get Mimic Plugin for Carrara for now then. I'm hoping that with a bit of tweaking creating different character voices will be a lot easier once the lipsync has been done. That's if it's possible to transfer lipsync files from one M4/V4 or M5/V5 character to another. I hope to lipsync one character and then use that file on another character and then sync an edited version of the original audio file that matches the new character. That way it would reduce the amount of lipsyncing and audio recording. I'm not sure yet if this is possible but I'll give it a go.

    Melodyne works as a plugin in Reaper and (I think) in Vegas. I've used it on vocal tracks before and it can create some amazing and pretty realistic transformations and effects. Changing gender, age and creating robotic voices. Other products can do the same but in my experience not as well as Melodyne. The plugin is usually on sale somewhere as well (about the same price as Mimic Pro for Carrara for PC members.)

    http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=product_comparison


    Something to think about using this other piece of software is audio clipping or stretching. In other words, when you change the audio track from a normal voice to a robot voice, does it change the length of the audio clip in the process. If so, then you need to factor that into your workflow, unless you're going for the badly dubbed foreign movie look. ;-)

    The great thing about Melodyne is that it doesn't alter the length of the audio file. You can edit each sound (word, grunt, noise etc.) individually. But if you want the whole audio file to maintain its original masculine or feminine sound but just want to make the voice slightly (or radically) deeper or higher without altering the pitch then select the whole audio file. You can even shorten or elongate words but still keep the audio file the same length. For example if you want "well" to become "weeellll" then you can do that and the other words will not be affected (and within reason) nor will the length of the whole phrase. This will mean altering the lipsync for "well" in Carrara to make it longer but not the other words in the phrase.

    I can't see why a robot voice would require any modification of the original lipsync either because Melodyne will not alter the actual length of the words in the phrase unless you deliberately decide to alter this. Of course, to create a robot voice a vocoder FX or some other filter will be needed in the audio FX chain for that task. There are loads of pretty good freeware vocoding and robot FX available now. So if you want your character to sing like some R&B superstar then vocode away. And Melodyne is great for correcting out of tune signing for those of us who can't sing in tune for very long or at all!

    Post edited by Superdog on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    I didn't say it did modify the length, I said to be cautious in case it did modify it. In my experience, some audio effects can effect the length of the clip. Especially if it adds additional decay or reverb.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    How would the phonemes in an NLA track look masculine or feminine? Those have more to do with just the mouth shape and don't really have much to do with body language. I would think the differences would have more to do with speech patterns. Words spoken in a long southern drawl would look different than the rapid clipped dialogue of a Film Nior type clip. I do agree though, that altering the voice clip first, and then bringing it into Carrara for syncing with Mimic is a better idea than altering the clip afterwords. You're less likely to get unwanted surprises.
    Oh
    man, really?
    I've spent my whole life noticing the difference! Women have a real act of beauty in the way they talk. Watch the way the lip shapes change - even between words. The NLA makes it possible to include such differences - which, to me, is beautiful in its own right!
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    You're telling me that Mimic creates gender biased phenomes? It's the shape of the face and speech mannerisms that causes the different looks. The Mechanics of making an M sound and an O sound should be the same regardless of gender.

  • SuperdogSuperdog Posts: 765
    edited February 2013

    evilproducer said:
    I didn't say it did modify the length, I said to be cautious in case it did modify it. In my experience, some audio effects can effect the length of the clip. Especially if it adds additional decay or reverb.

    Ok, I thought you were asking if Melodyne did that. You're right that does need to be taken into account when using reverb, delays etc. I agree with you that I don't think the mouth movements differ that much between male and female unless either is using a very affected way of speaking or has a different accent. But I'll have to test this out in practice in case I'm wrong about that. I'll have to look at the way men and women speak first of all. That might provoke a few odd looks though but it's all in the name of lipsyncing.

    Post edited by Superdog on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,200
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    You're telling me that Mimic creates gender biased phenomes? It's the shape of the face and speech mannerisms that causes the different looks. The Mechanics of making an M sound and an O sound should be the same regardless of gender.

    no, Carrara mimic uses the NLA clips or poses you add to it to create lipsync,
    a dmc file chooses the ones for a specific Daz figure for you
    V4 has different morphs to M4 for example

    I did my own viseme morphs on Mike Moir's man in this video and put them into mimic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7hI4iKCv0

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