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Has anyone found a good way to get facial mocap into Daz?
That is really limiting my animation capabilities these days!
I either didn't know about (or forgot about?) this thread, so posted a link in the Art Studio forum to a video with DAZ animation I was involved in the creatiion of. I guess I ought to post it here, so here is the link to the original post:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/362796/music-video-created-in-daz-studio-win-your-love#latest
That lists all the DAZ products used in it, but here is the link to just the video:
Hell, I'd pay that - I need to upgrade my iPhone anyway!
Great job Bennie very entertaining :) you have some good voice actors too.
very good.
Thanks, Ivy. Everybody I know of at Seven Oaks is an admirer of your work, so this means a lot.
((Blush)) Thank you . , I hope you guys keep posting these I am enjoying the heck out of watching them :)
Unfortunately, there's no facial mocap software that will work directly with Daz Studio that I'm aware of. The one I use, Dynamixyz Performer, needs either Motionbuilder, Cinema4d (which I know you use Wolf), Maya or 3ds Max to retarget to first, then bring into studio using fbx format (which works really well) my pipeline which can be found here https://vimeo.com/227139373
Since it is a pro solution, it is not cheap, but can use any type of camera, including webcams or any static camera (but if you are using it together with mocap, I recommend an HMC) They do have an indie package that costs around 2k per year for the software subscription. What I really like about Performer is its flexibility, using any blendshape, bone or controller (or combination thereof), and it is a trained retargeter, which takes longer (meaning, you train it to the actor and the character), but gives you much better results (in contrast to all the facial mocap systems that are generic, meaning any face, such as the iphonex one)
You can get a 30 day trial if you go their website or I can arrange one for you (I am a distributor)
Thanks so much, Bryan. I really want to take the big leap into doing animation, but $2k per year is way outside my price range. Obviously this is a pro product / implementation, but that's still disappointing.
I suppose I'll have to stick to manually keying everything, LOL.
I would like to see workflow/tips from blender 2.8 users. I just started playing around with it, but it seems much improved from what I remember a few years ago when I last tried it. I think thats what I'm going to use, if possible, with my current Daz library. I've animated with Daz in the past, but then stopped maybe a year ago due to personal commitments. Looking into animating again as a hobby, and haven't tried the new 4.12 timeline yet. Last I used was 4.8 and I made some decent animations with it, decent enough for me anyway. But I really like what I see of Blender so far. Its far more intuitive than I remember and if I can import and animate using my huge Daz Library in there, I'll be a happy camper. So any blender users animating with Daz assets?
Thanks, christophebaumann. This software looks neat! But I'm not sure it works well with Daz figures. I took a look at the forums and they seem to be having trouble.
Motion capture is one of the areas I really, really wish Daz would find a solution for. Their figures are so good, but this cripples their usefulness.
I hear you Leonides.. but then again, we are such a small subset of Studio users, that I really don't see them adding these type of tools, unless someone goes through the effort of making plugins for it (Optitrack had a live plugin for studio way back, but that was because the original developer of Studio is one of the OptiTrack developers) and almost every mocap manufacturer targets the big pro packages like Autodesk, Cinema4d or Unreal. Brekel works ok when paired up with motionbuilder, where you can clean and use its retargeting functions. But not many can afford the 4k+ cost of mobu (I have to because I work in this industry)
Iclone is the only outlier that has made the effort of developing their own plugins for most of the mocap manufacturers, and they've been really agressive with it, but it has its own limitations (like Wolf has mentioned), and again, it's not that cheap when factoring everything in.
Although I haven't used it as of yet, I'm hoping that their inclusion of an IK rig means that they are making strides in that direction.
And yes, their characters are really, really good (the industry's little secret is that although they make fun of Daz studio, they actually use the exported fbx characters for a LOT of things, such as previs)
Thanks, Bryan Steagall. I actually have Autodesk / MotionBuilder, although I don't know how to use it yet. Could I import an FBX into MotionBuilder, use Brekel, and export that out to Daz for rendering?
(I like the ease of use of Iray)
I also have iClone and 3Dxchange. Would that be even easier?
I've made all the purchases and strides, but the gap for me is that I want to use DAZ to render. I have no confidence in building shaders or materials.
Hi Leonides
Certainly, this link shows the process https://vimeo.com/227139373 And if you want to use Mobu, here's some free training (older version, but mobu hasn't changed much) https://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/motionbuilder-issue-1-6 I haven't used iclone, but Mobu is much more powerful if you take the time to learn it, especially for animation, constraints, etc, but it is somewhat of a steep learning curve, but, at the same time, it is the standard.
For body animation Both Iclone /3Dxchange and MOBU can import your genesis 1,2,3,8 people as FBX and retarget mocap to them and export (BAKED TO FK)BVH motion back to Daz studio.
For facial Mocap this is not so easy or cheap as Bryan has already noted.
And from Iclone it is not even possible to import their Live face mocap back into Daz studio as it only works on Iclone native avatars or CC3 Avatars with imported Daz people shape projected onto them with their Character creator software.
Right now your only options for audio based lipsynch with G3/8 are the $90 USD anilip 2 plugin, the free basic lisinc plugin
(32 bit only )or the $50 USD mimic live plugin .
The Reallusion products are not competively priced in this current market IMHO.
I am stil using Iclone pro 6.5/3DX with no plans to upgrade as I only use it to retarget Imotion and Radoll from Endorphin to my genesis Characters in Daz studio before Export to C4D or
Lightwave 2015.
If you are reffering to the new "IK foot pinning" system in Daz studio 4.12 they have quite a ways to go as it is NOT a Foot to floor contact solver for locomotion.
@Wolf.. Yep, that is why I say a "step", not necessarily in practical use, but in concept.. maybe they are finally starting to listen somewhat to animators
Dynamixyz does have a "live instant" version, that allows a generic live retargeting to motionbuilder, maya, etc, which would allow you to record the performance in Motionbuilder that is relatively inexpensive (817 usd per year) It is not as flexible and accurate as the trained version, as it only takes into account the model rig, But you could then bring this back into Daz Studio.
I haven't played with Brekel face2, but it is one of the few that actually has support for Daz Studio, and relatively inexpensive.. bring it into Mobu for cleaning up and adding animation, and it probably will work pretty good, but judging from the video he posted, even raw looks ok, but you do need the microsoft kinect.
Mobu also has the "voice" device, which works on the same principle as Mimic, which I have used before, with relatively good results (probably as good as mimic).
Hello everyone!, First of all, I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year, I hope you all have a safe one with your families.
I've decided that in January, I'm going to start a youtube or vimeo channel with a series of tutorials of my whole pipeline with Daz Studio and Motionbuilder. I know I've shared tips and tricks and have some short tutorials of the pipeline, but these are going to be more in depth on the tricks, tips and whatnot that I've gained over the years. Over the past few weeks, working on a comission for a publisher where I actually rendered in Studio (yah, I know, took a long time to render), I had to really fine-tune it, so I decided it was time to share for anyone interested.
I'm going to break it up into chunks.. first preparing the characters in studio for export to mobu for use with facial and body mocap, characterization in mobu, introducing mocap (both body and face), polish, tips and tricks in mobu, then finally bringing it back into daz studio for use with native characters. I'm going to be using both my optical mocap system and my new Rokoko inertial suit, with my Dynamixyz facial system, but the workflow would be similar with other mocap, including online mocap files.
I know we are a very small subset of Daz Studio users, and motionbuilder users even smaller, but I'm one of those that firmly believes in sharing info, as I've received a lot over the years, so it is a way of giving back to the community. I'm hoping you might something useful.
You all have a good one and I'll share when I have the first tutorials out!
@Bryan Steagall its sounds great to have some new tuts . I look forward to learning new things.
This is part one of my Star Trek Fanimated Film "Blood of Tiberius". I've been working on it for about two years now. Part two is coming along... slowly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a1OnpNGt40
This was animated entirely in DAZ 3d and rendered with Octane. Post work in After Effects then edited with Premiere. Audio Post was done with Protools. My workflow is such: (Refined after two years)
1. Finalize script.
2. Record voices.
3. Animate face and mouth in DAZ3d 4.12 32bit (beta) using lip sync.
4. Animate body movements in Daz3d 4.12 64bit (beta) using various movements from store bought, mixamo , various sources, or animate directly. Apply face and mouth animations. Add a camera. Render tests with open GL and repeat until satisfied. Once the scene of various shots is finished, I edit in Premiere with the tests to get an idea of how many frames are actually used.
( Note: Mixamo does not work any longer with Gen 3 or Gen 8 so I use Gen 2 to bring in the animations and convert them using various pay and freeware plugins.)
For more complex scenes with more than 3 characters I use V4, Gen, and Gen 2 for Background actors.
5. Add a set. Light and Texturize in Octane. Once finished, I break up the scene(s) into separate parts. Actors, lights in one with sets textured with shadow catchers only, Full sets and lights in another.
6. Render each part in DAZ using Octane. A shot of roughly 300 frames at 1920 x 1080 with one character averages about 2 hours with Octane set at Direct Lighting with 100 samples and the noise filter.
7. Composite all renders in After Effects applying any additional VFX or coloring. Export final shot as HiRes.MXF
8. Edit in Premiere and do a rough SFX/Music pass. Export to Protools.
9 Do a final sound mix in Protools and re-export back to Premiere for final.
Hi Tikiman
Very nice work indeed! excellent timing in all of the animation, good camera shots and very well composed overall.You can really see you put some serious work into it, congrats!
Thank you!!
I do think that DAZ is coming along as a better animation platform now that dForce and VWD ver 2 is making things easier. But, it has a long way to go in terms of the animation engine and some kind of cloud rendereing for IRAY. I do wonder why they tout it all over youtube as animation software, but this forum is the only one I've seen about displaying animation videos. ( Thank you Auroratrek!!) Why isn't there a gallery for animations? It would be nice.
All in all I can't complain about the price.
Wow. I have limited internet time, so I usually don't stray far from the Carrara Discussion Forum, here at Daz so I only just found this thread a few minutes ago.
Firstly, I am super impressed with what I'm seeing here! I really love the opening post with that (okay, she's not a kid) awesome girl checking herself out in the mirror! I am friends with WendyLovesCats, and she's had 3DXchange since the beginning - but I've been just too darned poor to grab it so far. But with her telling/showing me about it I've had a lot of fun watching tutorials and promos on Reallusion's YouTube channel over the years. I did get iClone 5 and then 6 Standard editions for free through a service, but I don't really care for them without the ability to use my Daz3d collection - so there they sit.
Anyway, I'm Dartanbeck and I'm a Carrara addict. Have been for nearly ten years now, though my need to work manual labor jobs keep overtime at a maximum and my projects get left on hold longer than I'd like them to be.
Excuses, excuses, right? LOL
So I accidentally went six years without updating/upgrading my PC since my last build which left me without a Carrara machine when it went down. I still practiced some stuff on this lowly craptop, and actually even learned some valuable new skills. But now I'm getting back on my feet (just very recently) with a new PC build. Ten Years After - Almost is a thread that I've started in the Carrara forum to talk about some changes I've been going through with my new workflow on my new machine. I type in there while my new machine is rendering the animations I've just put together.
Yeah! See, that's Exactly how I feel about Carrara! We had a Carrara user back in the days of the old original Daz3d forum who just couldn't get used to our Poser-like interface of Carrara, being from a more modern UI way of computing. So he tried C4D and never looked back. That's awesome!
I am a total Carrara cheerleader, but I don't mean to force it on anyone. I have the opinion that each of us need to find our comfort zone - and mine is Carrara!
I really love the work you did in the video from the above quote. That sort of blend between using purchased content (even kitbashing) and custom made elements is a need that I've felt from the start, which is what drove me from Poser to Carrara.
The only animations I have on YouTube right now are old. I have a lot of work done, just not published. Coming soon, I keep saying. I have been using V4, M4 and family from the beginning. I was a strong supporter of Daz3d giving Genesis (although it didn't have that name yet - in beta stage) compatibility to Carrara right from the start, which is what gave birth to Carrara 8.5 Pro Upgrade. I was so excited about Unimesh (Genesis' original name) that I bought everything I could for it as I tested the 8.5 Pro beta. Lots of shapes, unisex shapes for monsters, creatures, people... auto-fit clones going back all the way to generation 3... I bought all of that stuff - and love it!
I was reluctant to switch my main characters (Dartanbeck (me) and Rosie (my wife)) over to Genesis/Genesis 2, since I had so much stuff for Generation 4 - especially MoCaps.
Here is an image I did showing off the new Rosie 5 (Genesis 1) with her new Carrara dynamic Hair, and grabbing an extra instance of it from the Carrara browser (basically just saying that I attach the hair to a separate mesh so that I can feel free to make changes to Rosie's mesh without worry of her hair going all wonky!!!)
and here's the new Dartanbeck 5
They both look a lot like their generation 4 counterparts, but with the better shapes of Genesis 2, even though they're Genesis 1 figures. I bought Genesis Generation X2 and the Genesis 2 addon, which allows me to transport morphs from M4, V4 and family as well as those from male and female Genesis 2 into Genesis 1.
...and so now it begins afresh, which is exactly where I needed to be. When I first started all of this, I knew nothing of filmmaking. After a few (very part time) years of studying it, I feel much better equipped to begin my whole new workflow and get this ball rolling!
Now I just need to save up and get that crazy-awesome 3dXchange, eh? In the meantime, I tweak aniBlocks and other motion cature files I buy.
►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄ is a thread I started long ago to help folks learn whatever they want about Carrara. Links to lost topics, ideas from my silly head, and some fun shared topics from others... but it all started with the notion that I should create an Index to Cripeman's fun and informative video tutorials - so I asked him, he said yes, we became friends... and now he's pasted on.
► AniMating in Carrara is an article I wrote back in the older forum and tweaked into the manual. It's old now, but shows how I would rip aniBlocks apart and use bits and pieces of them. I have new ways of doing things now, which inspired a whole new article that hasn't been published yet, but I still believe in and use that older technique a bit too.
You know how you have to render tests for timing, lighting, motions, etc., as you build an animation? Well years ago, when I wanted to try Sony Movie HD Platinum I took a bunch of those spent tests and worked them into a film to see if I liked Vegas or not. I did like it! Wow this is old now! V4 and M4 Rosie and Dartanbeck
Genesis was released and Carrara 8.5 Pro was getting negative, dark opinions because it was all about Genesis instead of other things so I made this
Back when I was still a Daz3d PA, I made this pack for M4 by hand keyframing. Where it looks like slow motion, I slowed it down in the promo in Vegas.
This was one of my Daz3d products that included a whole bunch of Carrara presets with atmosphere an enviromental lighting (and animated water/lava), clouds, etc., already set up. I had this one, Woodlands was first, and then Underwater Realms. Was fun stuff!
This was my first animation pack - for the Millennium Dragon 2 - Poser animated PZ2s, aniBlocks for Daz Studio and NLA clips for Carrara, It also included a set of Carrara shaders I made for the Dragon in the promo. For this promo I used the aniMating in Carrara techniques with aniBlocks from GoFigure for Dart and Rosie. The dragon animated files were keyframed and made to link together in various ways.
Woah... see why my wife calls me Sir babble-on, and on, and on... and..... LOL
Cheers! Love the thread!
I mentioned that my PC died on me, so I was experimenting with things on this lowly laptop. Well in order to do so, I had to reduce texture image resolutions to one quarter their original size and render at 640 x 360 max in order to keep render times to something manageable. It was horrible.
Alita Battle Angel came out and it took my virtual breath away! It got me completely inspired to (finally) try and figure out how to get dynamic hair working for my main hero, Rosie.
The problem that I've had with it over the years wasn't only because it has to be long, but also because her hair is really curly. I had a hunch that the curly shader is what was causing the hair to jitter, even when it wsn't moving. I was right.
Test after test - which was tough with such horrible computer conditions, I've finally figured out some compromises that could get rid of the jitters, and have nice, flowing dynamic hair. Carrara's hair really rocks!
So in order to do these tests, I made a low resolution proxy stand-in as Rosie. She was just a quick mock-up I created to test hair with. I also didn't finish any of the animations - I was only trying to break the hair and observe how it was working.
Making this video, I mostly put the earliest tests toward the beginning and the later ones toward the end - but some of them are also just randomly (kinda) placed in there for at lleast a little continuity.
That was made entirely on the old laptop. When I built the new machine, my first assignment was to design Rosie 5 from the ground up and create her hair. It's a LOT better than what is shown in the video - currently just like the image in the previous post, but I feel that I still have some work to do on Rosie herself, then some fine adjustments to the hair.
In the new version I'm also using physics forces to increase gravity on the hair the closer it is to the ground. This made a big difference in control and since I can turn it on and off and anywhere in between, it's been making the animations look really good! The main necessity came from simple walks. Droe me nuts that just a normal walk would cause the hair to slide up and over the shoulder. It just doesn't do that in real life. The new forces system still lets the hair move around like it should, but it also keeps it better planted onto the character, like real hair.