Using iClone for Swimming Animation?

Zig Zag

Hi,

I'm currently using Daz Studio with KeyMate, Graphmate and AniMate2 to do animations showing different swim strokes. However, it's incredibly tedious to do so.

For example, I'm currently trying to make an animation of the freestyle stroke based on a video of a swimmer. The swimmer uses bilateral breathing, so one stroke cycle takes about six seconds, which equals 180 frames, using 30fps.

Could iClone help me make this process less tedious?

Thanks.

Hermit Crab

In Iclone you can use 'edit motion layer' to pull limbs using IK or rotate them so that you can create a pose.

Next you would move the scrubber along the timeline to adjust the pose and so on until your 'swim cycle' is finished. Then you could view the motion in real time. The render time of a short cycle should be very quick.

Iclone only has one viewport but you could set up multiple cameras to see your pose from different points of view.

Iclone is very good for animating quickly and can import Genesis if you have Pro version 5 and have 3DXchange 5 (pro or pipeline)

Clothing a native iclone character in a swimsuit would be a further expense.

Edited to add:

This is my first post on any forum! I tried to introduce myself before but my password failed every time. This was a test reply before I contacted DAZ and I am somewhat shocked that it worked.

So, to try to provide a bit more information:

Posing in Iclone involves clicking a joint on a figure displayed on a pop-up window when you choose 'edit motion layer' . A 'rotate', 'scale' or 'move' gizmo appears on your character at that joint and this works very well. The choice of rotate/move/scale is yours to make.

Iclone allows you to use a video clip as a background to your scene or as the 'texture' of a billboard prop. So you could get your timing from the background video. (I think I am correct in this - I haven't tried).

DAZ figures are superior to Iclone's native figures. The iclone figures provided with the program wear mostly everyday clothing - anything else needs to be purchased - or made using Clone Cloth sold by reallusion (or less expensive imitations sold by other vendors).

Lastly, anyone can offer their work for sale on the Reallusion website - once your animations are finished those motions could be offered for sale and the customer base is quite large.

Of course, Iclone has its own learning curve - which differs from person to person.

WendyLuvsCatz

to get the created motion back into Daz studio you need pipeline for BVH
though once you have rendered animations in iClone you are unlikely to want to use DS for anything but still images

Zig Zag

Hmm after seeing your replies I don't see any advantage of using iClone versus Daz Studio for animation. The process seems to be tedious in both programs.

Or am I missing something?

Being able to only use one viewport in iClone is an disadvantage, I currently use 4 viewports to animate my swimming character...

mrposer

Hi Marcus... welcome to the DAZ forums.... I found http://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/ccdproduct.aspx?contentid=AIC500CIENU030120120914001 in their store which might give you a base swim animations that you could refine... unless the OP plans to sell his animations.. then I guess you start from scratch in either software.

Zig Zag

Hi MrPoser,

No I don't plan to sell those animations. Hmm I don't know, I just had at the demo of the swim motions you found on the reallusion site. They would need a lot of work too. Does it justify spending another few hundred dollars on iClone, plus the learning curve...

Decisions, decisions...

Hermit Crab

Thanks MrPoser for welcoming me to the forums and for locating the store items I was unaware of.

To the OP: Unfortunately hand-crafting animations IS a slow process. I once tried to animate an underwater swimmer in Carrara and the main problem was that the mouse kept picking up the wrong limb as I used the gizmo. In DAZ studio you can select the part of the figure you want from the scene list and then use the Gizmo on the figure. In Iclone you select the limb from a pop-up figure and the gizmo appears on your character in the scene. In each case you move along the timeline and adjust the pose.

So there isn't much difference or any quick way to do this.

I don't have the graph editor you mentioned and don't have Animate2 but I can say that I've found animating in DAZ studio to be difficult (in the couple of times I tried) and I got poor results.

If you want to do other animating besides the swimming task in hand then buying Iclone might still be worth considering. My aim as a hobbyist was to create small animated clips in Carrara. Then, when I bought Iclone I was initially a bit dismayed at how little it seemed to consist of. But I soon learned that a huge amount can be done very quickly (mostly using pre-built motions) and that the program has many great features. I don't regret buying 3DXchange either - it really is essential for bringing in props and figures from other software.

Clone cloth is the last essential for making an endless variety of (low poly) clothing. When I bought that I figured that I could 'prototype' garments which I would then learn to create for Genesis - at least I can dream.

You might enjoy seeing how Iclone can be used this video which is not mine but which was posted in the Reallusion forums a while back. It shows a couple of minutes animation and then explains how the scenes were created.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gK3UX5gylo&feature=player_detailpage

(I copied and pasted the URL - hope it works

mjc1016

The big advantage of iClone is that it makes mo-cap within the grasp of anyone willing to pay the price of the camera...which, as far as it goes, isn't that expensive.

Obviously, it would be rather problematic doing mo-cap in a pool...but 'coffee table' swimming could get some usable 'base' animations going.

Zig Zag

Sorry for the late reply but I was busy over the last few days...

I think I'll just move along with Daz Studio and the plugins I bought.

In my particular use case I don't see a big benefit using iClone. I don't think motion capture would work either because it is rather difficult to realistically reproduce swimming motions on dry land because there isn't the resistance and support from water...