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Sub forum for Animation in DAZ Studio

DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
edited August 2017 in The Commons

Hi,
Would it be possible to have a sub forum here that is stricktly for animation in DAZ related issues?

I'm pretty sure that there are other DAZ users here that do animation and use DAZ at least for parts of the process.
Since the signal to noise ratio in the general forum is pretty bad, it would be good to have a separate animation sub forum.

Please?

Thanks,Kay
 

Post edited by DrGonzo62 on
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Comments

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604

    Daz Studio, presumably (D|S) as Daz is the name of the Company

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    edited August 2017

    Yes, you're right. One forgets from time to time..  :)

    I edited the title of the post.

    Post edited by DrGonzo62 on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604

    Thank you

  • jaebeajaebea Posts: 454

    I would like that too.  When trying to search for something regarding animation, it is next to impossible to find an answer or it takes a while for anyone to answer.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,169

    yes the title needed clarification as Bryce and Carrara are also DAZ wink

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    jaebea said:

    I would like that too.  When trying to search for something regarding animation, it is next to impossible to find an answer or it takes a while for anyone to answer.

    Thanks! smiley

    I really am surprised that there seem to be so few that use DS for rendering animations.
    Which other program lets you do an iRay PBR render this easily? With all shaders and materials good to go?
    I tried - believe me.

    Is the vast majority of DS users contempt with rendering pretty stills?
    Looks that way. Although I have to admit that I don't understand why.

    Anyway - I hope that some more animators chime in as well.

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221

    That's it?
    No other people using DS for animation?
    I'm just baffled by that.

    There is such a vast pool of excellent fully textured 3D characters available in DS, along with fast PBR rendering.
    So, why not DS? Provided that animation is being done outside of it and re-imported.

    And what do you fellow animator use instead? Maya, MAX?
     

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826
    edited August 2017

    Hi
    There was an animation subforum in the past but Daz closed it.
    Thier stated reason wasw lack of activity.
    the reality is the the overwhelming majority of DS users are still
    render makers.

    The are a few of us animators
    active here such as Myself,
    Ivy Summers
    @BigH
    Arnold C
    Sennov
    Bryan Steagall
    @Kai
    th3Digit
    jaebea.

    I can only suggest that you post animation questions
    in the commons forum with the heading "ANIMATION QUESTION"..etc.etc.
    and one of us animators will eventualy chime in.

    Also be wary of people who make  negative statement,comments about the animation tools of Daz studio
    (Daz studio sucks for animation!! etc)
    but have NO animations of their own, anywhere online, to show that they have actually used Character animation tools
    to create any animation in any program.

    I personally find this quite irritating. 

    Post edited by wolf359 on
  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    @DrGonzo62

    I've been creating & rendering animation for years with daz studio https://www.youtube.com/c/IvySummers

    I,  like you I have requested over and over for the same thing a stickeid thread  to share information on & about creating animations with daz studio & its content ( simple request right?) .  but trust me its like beating a dead horse and will go on deaf ears..  this has been my experience every time i make this request. so it is my opinion Daz has no interest in supporting the artist that use daz studio, carrera or bryce to make animation.  it is my belief Daz primary interest is to sell and promote 3d content. It has also been my experience if you do post your Daz created animations in more than one thread or forum sometimes they will the move or remove your film all together.  

    So maybe you have better luck than I have in the last 8 years trying to get a Animation thread stickeid. but i wouldn't hold my breath

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,169

    DAZ studio does not suck for animation but sorry Genesis 3 & 8 kind of do cheeky

    yeah some can create keyframed animation for them or use various conversion methods but until they fix BVH import on them no external softwares can do so easily out of the box.

    On the otherhand Genesis 2 and below work quite well and V4 and M4 particularly are very good at loading BVH from outside softwares and which can be then used on the higher figures up to Genesis 2.

    I actually use DAZ studio to import most of my iClone BVH files to then use in Carrara as it is good at it.

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    th3Digit said:

    DAZ studio does not suck for animation but sorry Genesis 3 & 8 kind of do cheeky

    yeah some can create keyframed animation for them or use various conversion methods but until they fix BVH import on them no external softwares can do so easily out of the box.

    On the otherhand Genesis 2 and below work quite well and V4 and M4 particularly are very good at loading BVH from outside softwares and which can be then used on the higher figures up to Genesis 2.

    I actually use DAZ studio to import most of my iClone BVH files to then use in Carrara as it is good at it.

    Agreed Daz studio is a pretty good tool for animation.  it just takes knowing how the daz software works and its limits. the only reason i have not moved over to Carrara  is because daz lack of support daz has shown for it.   To me that says volumes on how much daz3d supports animation created with its software. I also agree it can be frustrating for a new person/user when trying to find information to create animation and when searching the forums and thread all you find is a Hodge podge of misinformation which is mostly opinions and antidotes more that actual help. and I have experience the only support offered by daz are third party tutorials sold in the daz store. Which not insult to the PA's that create  animation tutorials  but really some of the ones i have purchased. have left me scratching my head in confusion. it has been my experience with daz learning animation & working with daz studio has been actually just knowing & learning how the daz studio software works . once you master that, then animations fairly easier to create. Also the moderator Richard is very helpful when you have a software issue  using daz  he is very knowledgeable in all aspects of the daz software. so I found if i got stuck or had a bug by posting the question in the daz help thread that he is very good at helping you resolve those issues with the software

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826
    edited August 2017

    "DAZ studio does not suck for animation
     but sorry Genesis 3 & 8 kind of do"

    Quite true.
    The addition of those useless extra twist bones in the arms and legs
    ,with complete and utter indifference to the crippling
    effect it would have on animating G3/G8 , 
    tells you where Daz prioroties are.

    Not so much a criticism but a statement of fact.
    The still render content hoarders are the main source of Daz content sales
    so its wise business.

    Ironicly the broken G3/BVH from Iclone Import Debacle
    was the impetus for my sudden aquisition of new modeling skills
    that became necessary for me to continue to use G1/G2, for Iclone created animation,
    and have new clothing for them going forward

    I am now completely liberated from the market driven decisions
    of DAZ PA's,     about what types of  new clothing will be available for the figures I Choose to use
    as I now make my own custom clothing. 

     

     

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited August 2017
    wolf359 said:

    "DAZ studio does not suck for animation
     but sorry Genesis 3 & 8 kind of do"

    Quite true.
    The addition of those useless extra twist bones in the arms and legs
    ,with complete and utter indifference to the crippling
    effect it would have on animating G3/G8 , 
    tells you where Daz prioroties are.

    Not so much a criticism but a statement of fact.
    The still render content hoarders are the main source of Daz content sales
    so its wise business.

    Ironicly the broken G3/BVH from Iclone Import Debacle
    was the impetus for my sudden aquisition of new modeling skills
    that became necessary for me to continue to use G1/G2, for Iclone created animation,
    and have new clothing for them going forward

    I am now completely liberated from the market driven decisions
    of DAZ PA's,     about what types of  new clothing will be available for the figures I Choose to use
    as I now make my own custom clothing. 

     

     

    Nice! :)

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826

    Thanks Ivysmiley

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    edited August 2017

    Ahh!
    Thanks for the input everyone!
    I'm glad that there are other animators in this forum.

    I have over the years developed a pretty good Genesis 3 to Motionbuilder pipeline in order to animate my characters. This is working very well.
    But unless I export my characters to a game engine, I would like to be able to render in DS. I recently build a rig with dual 1080s and now
    I am able to rendered longer clips in iRay - without waiting several days for it to finish..

    The biggest problem I have right now is getting the character animations back into DS for rendering. While this works OK some of the time,
    I keep running into incorrectly rotated bones issues when I import an FBX animation from Motionbuilder (2015 btw).
    I had posted a thread about this a couple of days ago, but haven't seen a single reply. That prompted me to request a sub forum for animation.
    As others have done before apparently.. :)
    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/187866/motionbuilder-animation-not-playing-correctly-in-daz#latest

    Anyway, I'll post an animation to show that the DS - MB - DS workflow gets some pretty nice results.

    Thanks again for replying,
    Kay

    Post edited by DrGonzo62 on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,076
    edited August 2017

    Well I would like the possibility to add an animation the the DAZ Gallery.

    I also have a question. Which / what is the best forum, video tutorial, book for learning to animate by hand and not just retargeting of mocaps? I have a book I am working though now and several YouTube downloaded tutorials but a good teacher is more valuable than much trial and error so I am all ears for good teching material.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    nonesuch00 said:

    Well I would like the possibility to add an animation the the DAZ Gallery.

    I also have a question. Which / what is the best forum, video tutorial, book for learning to animate by hand and not just retargeting of mocaps? I have a book I am working though now and several YouTube downloaded tutorials but a good teacher is more valuable than much trial and error so I am all ears for good teching material.

    Hi nonesuch00,
    You can just upload a video to Youtube and link to it in here.

    As far as learning handkeying goes - I use MotionBuilder 2015 for animation because it supports the Genesis 3 skeleton, and I really liked the "Creating Walk Cycles in MotionBuilder 2012" course from Digital Tutors.
    https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/walk-cycles-motionbuilder-184

    Hope this helps,
    Kay

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,076
    edited August 2017
    DrGonzo62 said:
    nonesuch00 said:

    Well I would like the possibility to add an animation the the DAZ Gallery.

    I also have a question. Which / what is the best forum, video tutorial, book for learning to animate by hand and not just retargeting of mocaps? I have a book I am working though now and several YouTube downloaded tutorials but a good teacher is more valuable than much trial and error so I am all ears for good teching material.

    Hi nonesuch00,
    You can just upload a video to Youtube and link to it in here.

    As far as learning handkeying goes - I use MotionBuilder 2015 for animation because it supports the Genesis 3 skeleton, and I really liked the "Creating Walk Cycles in MotionBuilder 2012" course from Digital Tutors.
    https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/walk-cycles-motionbuilder-184

    Hope this helps,
    Kay

    Thanks. I will check out the PluralSight course. There is a walk cycle tutorial in the Blenderbook I am working on now too ith compositing too into video of a real scene. Hope it translates well to Blender.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    wolf359 said:
    Not so much a criticism but a statement of fact.

    The still render content hoarders are the main source of Daz content sales
    so its wise business.

    Yes, it would seem that way. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
    One would think that this might be getting boring after a while, but maybe not.

  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643

    Short Animations are doable in DAZ Studio. This is one I did when I had more time doing pose to pose animation using G3F in Iray.




    This was one I did a while before using G2F in 3Delight.

     

    Lack of time is my biggest problem.

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221

    Nicely done Kevin!

    Did you key it all by hand?

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826

    "The biggest problem I have right now is getting the character animations back into DS for rendering.
     While this works OK some of the time,
    I keep running into incorrectly rotated bones issues when
     I import an FBX animation from Motionbuilder (2015 btw).
    I had posted a thread about this a couple of days ago, 
    but haven't seen a single reply. 
    That prompted me to request a sub
     forum for animation."

    Hi, you might want to PM user Brian Steagle
    I am fairly certain he  sends G3/G8 FBX rigs to Motionbuilder
    for animation and reimports back to DS for rendering.

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    wolf359 said:

    Hi, you might want to PM user Brian Steagle
    I am fairly certain he  sends G3/G8 FBX rigs to Motionbuilder
    for animation and reimports back to DS for rendering.

    Thanks for the tip!
    I'll send Brian a PM to see where he's at with this.
    Luckily, someone in that thread had already pointed out to me that I had forgotten to unlock the joints prior to turning rotation limits off.

    That is the problem when juggling several complex programs - you forget to do one small step in one of them and it probably won't work at some point.
    And this is why I had started to maliciously document my workflows in each of those applications.

    - Kay

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited August 2017
    DrGonzo62 said:
    wolf359 said:

    Hi, you might want to PM user Brian Steagle
    I am fairly certain he  sends G3/G8 FBX rigs to Motionbuilder
    for animation and reimports back to DS for rendering.

    Thanks for the tip!
    I'll send Brian a PM to see where he's at with this.
    Luckily, someone in that thread had already pointed out to me that I had forgotten to unlock the joints prior to turning rotation limits off.

    That is the problem when juggling several complex programs - you forget to do one small step in one of them and it probably won't work at some point.
    And this is why I had started to maliciously document my workflows in each of those applications.

    - Kay

    I just use daz studio for creating my animations. . I have enough trouble with one software. let alone using multi programs .lol

     I did this one not long ago in iray as a interation scene test. I kind of made a story of it using girl 6 and 12 different scenes using different iteration settings

     

     

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221

    Nice job Ivy!!
    Well animated and great looking render too. How long did that take to render?

    Are you using KeyMate and GraphMate to tweak your animations?

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited August 2017

    that Iray test just took a few days  I just use animate 2 and I hand keyframe most everything. or use empty aniblocks to add to exsiting ones I am using. I edit everything right on the animate 2 time line  sometimes I will use graphi-mate if i need to bend a motion curve but I like to do everything by hand

     

    This is my lastest Karate girl film.  this took almost 5 months rendered in both 3dl and iray

     

     

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826

    Two recent clips from my current feature length film project
    I use DS ,Genesis 1& 2,
    Iclone Pro and render in Maxon Cinema4D
    via .obj /MDD export


    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TYEp536iB8THNhYzV3c3VXN0k/view

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TYEp536iB8dFh4OHNiRldLalU/view

     

     

  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221
    wolf359 said:

    Hi, you might want to PM user Brian Steagle
    I am fairly certain he  sends G3/G8 FBX rigs to Motionbuilder
    for animation and reimports back to DS for rendering.

    Could you post the link to one of Brian's posts in this forum so that I can PM him?
    I've searched for his name but came up empty.

    Thanks!

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,826
    edited August 2017
    DrGonzo62 said:
    wolf359 said:

    Hi, you might want to PM user Brian Steagle
    I am fairly certain he  sends G3/G8 FBX rigs to Motionbuilder
    for animation and reimports back to DS for rendering.

    Could you post the link to one of Brian's posts in this forum so that I can PM him?
    I've searched for his name but came up empty.

    Thanks!

     

    Hi I completely buggered up the spelling of his name..

    APOLOGIES blush

     

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/profile/38992/Bryan Steagall

     

    @Bryan Steagall

    Post edited by wolf359 on
  • DrGonzo62DrGonzo62 Posts: 221

    @Ivy and wolf359

    I'll check out your animations when I get home. Don't want to get in trouble at work.. ;^)

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