Animation in Studio: Can's and…
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Animation in Studio: Can's and Can'ts?
zombiewhacker
Posts: 685
in The Commons
I have Studio as well as the plug-ins Keymate, Graphmate, and Mimic Live, but haven't tried my hand at animating just yet. Assuming for the sake of argument I'm relying on these plug-ins and no others (well, except maybe for Puppeteer, which is built-in), what can and can't be done when animating in Studio?
It would be helpful also if responses were grouped something along the lines of:
Easy to Do
Harder to Do But Still Possible
No Way Jose
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I second this request. I'm interested in this too. I'd like to know how to do pose-to-pose animation, if it's possible.
the most lacking things in Studio IMO is motion paths and tracking
not a criticism as much as a suggestion if anyone can make an easy plugin to do it
You can do an decent animation with the plugins you suggest, but render times can make it impossible. A 30 second render at 30 frames per second = 900 frames. At the current rate that I can render in daz, this makes it impossible. I can shave renders down to 3 minutes a frame by taking shortcuts, but it would still take forever to render 10 minutes.
Well the long render times means those that want to animate should consider approaching animating as if you were going to animate for a game. For this the most straight forward approach would be learning to animate in Unity 3D or UE4. Yes, yes more SW to learn as if I weren't obtuse enough. That said you can learn to animate quite good in Blender but not 'officially' render it too.
'Rumour' has it that DAZ 3D is working on big unexpected improvements to their SW the 2nd half of this year.
I was hoping for more specifics as to what Studio can and can't do.
For instance, the creator of Star Trek Aurora frequents this board, but ultimately did not use Studio to make his animated film. What aspects of Studio caused him to hit a brick wall?
Being that I'm a CG animation newb I might not even have to worry about these limitations right away. Learn to walk before you learn to run, as they say.
Can't do:
1. Consistently apply mocap animation (which is the quickest and most realistic way of animating your character). DS claims to except a common mocap file format (.bvh), but in reality it's often a crap shoot and usually not worth the trouble. You will have frustration animating this way in DS.
2. Can't animate clothing or hair (with few exceptions). There is a dynamic cloth plugin. If you have a stout computer and patience, it is doable, but many frustrations will follow you (maybe I should categorize this as "doable".
3. Can't do particle animation or any type of sophisticated special effects within DS. Daz's animation engine is very rudimentary.
Can do:
You can keyframe. If you are doing a cartoon character, keyframing may be your method of choice. In that case, Animate and Keymate are your friends. You can do this in DS. This includes rigged hair and clothing. Keep in mind, most hair and clothing aren't rigged. But if you had a mind to rig it, you can keyframe it.
As mentioned, rendering can be a problem for newbies. If you only have one computer, you will face a challenge because while you are rendering you can do nothing else in Daz Studio. For experienced animators, iRay is no different from the many other renderers on the market (not including realtime engines). You can choose to render on a machine dedicated to the task. If you build a rendering machine with multi-GPU's you can send your project there to render and depending on the length and detail of your animation, you can expect a finished product between a few days and a few weeks. Meanwhile, you can work in another instance of Daz on another workstation. If you have more than one computer, this shouldn't be an issue.
The reason why the creator of ST: Aurora used C4D to animate their project is probably because he used extensive mocap animation and Daz is really just crappy at animation. But it may be suitable for a beginner to learn the basics of animation. If you are serious about animation, sooner or later you will look for alternatives to DS.
By the way, you mentioned pose to pose animation. In my opinion, this is the most beautiful and elegant way of animating. I have limited experience with this within Daz because I have already ruled Daz out as an animation platform for my project, but it should be doable. Will it be worth the trouble? That is for you to decide.
Or Tim used Cinema 4D because its OpenGL rendering engine would render a lot faster than Studios 3Delight renderer. Steps according to "Aurora's Production Process" on the Aurora Website, towards the bottom of the "Production" (News) page:
1. Record voice using a decent microphone (M-Audio Nova mic, Mobile Pre preamp, Apple Soundtrack)
2. Record motion capture movements with Optitrack motion capture system.
3. Import mocap data into Daz Studio via Arena plugin; export bvh.
4. Import bvh file into Poser; edit/refine animation, add hand movements.
5. Create mouth moves in Daz Mimic
6. Apply Mimic file to character in Poser; save pose
7. Apply pose to character in Cinema 4D environment and render to TIFF files
6. Create .mov file from TIFFs (using Quicktime Pro)
7. Import .mov file into Apple Final Cut Pro, edit into animation
8. Add voice file/sound effects
According to a now vanished interview, Jesús Orellana did the animations for his award-winning short ROSA in DAZ Studio, then exported to and rendered in Blender. Most likely because DAZ's 3Delight renderer can be a real resource-hog.
A simple static 5-second-scene I tried a while ago (just buildings & lights, no figures, 150 frames) needed about ten hours to complete. Studio crashed doing one of the last 15 frames, but fortunately I had it render the scene to an image series instead to a movie file. Skipping the first 135 frames concluding with the frame Studio crashed just took several minutes.
This little 21 second Motion Test (a total of 716 frames) took about 22 minutes to completion using Studio's "Basic OpenGL" renderer. It's a pity that Studio's "Intermediate OpenGL" renderer only produces really crude and ugly shadows.
From Blendernation, in their interview Jesus says Rosa was rendered in DAZ Studio. https://www.blendernation.com/2011/11/22/rosa/
Having plugins you mentioned plus Animate2 plus a little scripting you can animate pretty much anything in DAZ Studio.
Yes, you can keyframe anything in Daz Studio, but just using keyframing is so... last century.... which perfectly describes Daz Studio's animation capabilities. When I first discovered Daz, I thought I had found Utopia, and maybe it is for people who want to render still pictures of half naked voluptuous dolls. But the full potential of the wonderful Daz figures are locked inside an archaic piece of software and it's such a pity. Fortunately, an enterprising fellow may have managed to change things. This plugin: http://www.3dtoall.com/products/daztomaya/ is due to be released any day now. If it does what it claims, I can happily begin to start working. I will only need Daz Studio as a loading receptacle. Instead of that 10 step workflow from hell Tim had to endure, mine will be as simple as pie:
1. Daz to Maya
2. Have the time of my life.
with a broken IK, you can't animate very well momently inside studio! (or you have to use pre-made mocaps, wich i do not prefer) or you have to be happy with something that acting not to much pro and shaky feets and so on....
So you are saying render in Maya? Since you can also rig and animate easier in Maya what exactly would you be using DS for?
I feel that the biggest omission in DS is the IK side, the ability to define an object (which would usually be invisible) and have a foot track it while I can move the hip (for example). This is sort of half implemented as you can pin a foot, but having trackable objects will allow you to animate a walk cycle without getting foot slippage, which is actually really difficult to do in DS. It is much easier to do in Carrara - but there isn't a clear pathway to export an animation from Carrara to use in DS unless you are using pre-Genesis figures. If only someone would either develop a proper IK implementation in DS or to have a pipeline from Carrara for more recent characters, that would be wonderful. Currently Carrara is a much better animation environment, but does not support the latest Daz figures.
By the way - 10 mins of animation is really a long time. I was commissioned to produce a 5 min animated short a couple of years ago (which I did in Carrara and was very well received at a number of international film festivals) and it took around 6 months from concept to producing the final animation - most of the rendering took place overnight, I tried to stick to no more than 5 mins per frame and the total rendering time was around 1 month continuous rendering.
wow this is a loaded question..lol . The can and can't do's are just to many to list. But as someone that has been using daz studio for the last 8 years just for animation. I can tell you with patients and a little RD all things are possible using daz studio in animation. .. you may have to render one keyframe at a time to archive the motion,effect, or cause your looking to accomplish to look right .. but all things are possible.
animation is nothing like still rendering it takes time, skills and patients & for those complaining about render time. have either never tried rendering a animation with another software or have no idea what they are talking about. Daz render times are compatible with blender and Autodesk software . the more quality you dial in to the final render the longer the render times this is true for Iray and 3delight both. you can try other software. which will give better results as in vue is pretty fast but limited on what can be used for assets if your trying to use daz assets.. Iclone is faster than daz but look like a boxy video game animation. with flat 2d assets being used for tress and etc. and you can not use genesis3 or v8 in iclone. So there are tradeoff . quality over render times.
I have been using Maya with Vray & other bias render render engines trying to find the best rendering solution. my experience is the render times are as long if not longer using autodesk as they are using daz studio for rendering. . The one advantage of autodesk & or blender over Daz is the ability to use render farms and to plugin into other render enginesusing RIB . which would cut your render work down, other wise if your going to render animation. no matter the software your using its going to take time to render. even the still art folks complain about render times...lol so unless your using something like anime studio or course. expect long render times when creating animation... thats just my 2 cents
[quote] ....I have been using Maya with Vray & other bias render render engines trying to find the best rendering solution. my experience is the render times are as long if not longer using autodesk as they are using daz studio for rendering. . The one advantage of autodesk & or blender over Daz is the ability to use render farms and to plugin into other render engines . which would cut your render work down, other wise if your going to render animation. no matter the software your using its going to take time to render. even the still art folks complain about render times...lol so unless your using something like anime studio or course. expect long render times when creating animation... thats just my 2 cents [/quote]
Yes, this
Daz iRay is a second rate renderer compared to the big boys, but as far as rendering times, it is comparable (in the ballpark) and if you want photorealism, there is no other choice but to wait for it or hire a renderfarm.
Do you have any tips regarding foot slippage when doing walk cycles, this seems to be the biggest issue for me.
HiPhil
yeah foot slipping is a challenge I still have issues with too. I found when using aniblock for the walk cycle and I am getting foot slippage. that I can add a empty anoblock.on a sub track on the animate2 timeline & double click the empty aniblock to open the it to edit the keyframs and now when moving the timeline scrubber along the timeline where the foot slips is. yuu can add a correction keyframe to the empty aniblock on the subtract under the original aniblock. this helps corrects the slippage your getting in the original aniblock walk cycle. this trick also works great if your using aniblock made for older generations on the genesis3 character to fix aniblock querky issues for aniblocks being used that are not made for those characters. and it also is a great work around for walk cycles that require your character to carry a obj. using empty aniblocks and adding custom keyframes to add to the original aniblock is a quick fix solution for that as well.
empty aniblocks are great for building or adding to existing aniblocks for the simple reason you can add custom keyframes where needed with out actually changing or destroying the original aniblock or motion file. .. that has been the best solution I found so far... thats how Ive been doing it in daz studio anyway using the animate2 timeline
Thanks Ivy, that's an interesting approach, I've have to give it a try. I have animated in Carrara for years but am relatively new to using Daz Studio on a more regular basis.
Folks following or lurking for this thread might be interested to know that the current Carrara challenge is accepting animations as eligible entries. Entry deadline is August 11 so plenty of time.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/182101/carrara-challenge-34-sing-to-me-muse-wip-thread/p1
Daz can be a challenge to work with for animation it mostly just takes knowing the software. . but maybe that is why I like to use it . I look at creating animation with daz like a big jig saw puzzle. Solve each problem by building scenes for your storyboards. to find the pieces you need. and put all the pieces together in daz, animate them as you would any other software. and then comes the worst part. that is the waiting for the darn rendering to complete..lol But once you get the rendering done do your final film editing in the software of choice. to get the complete animation. its finding how to fit those pieces fit that is the challenge for me. I also have learn to avoid things which frustrate me & do not work well in daz studio. and not am not bashing genesis3 but it does not work well in animation when using daz studio and older generation assets together, so I avoid g3 & v8 until such a better solution for working with it can be had or more animation assets are available for them. other wise Daz is fun to animate with right up until the time comes to rendering..lol then its wait wait wait! just like any other software....lol
I aniMate mostly in Iclone Pro.
its motion creation tools are far superior
to Daz studio's and are actually comparable to
Autodesk motionbuilder.
I use DS for its high quality, easily morphable
figures and auto lipsync options with mimic live and even the older mimic 3 pro.
Everyone has thier own creative objectives
But I personally have No use for Daz studio as a final rendering solution
be that 3DL or IRay.
I render every final in Maxon Cinema4D because it can send lighting& camera Data out as Adobe after effect project files
for seamless compositing of visual effects.
seen here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TYEp536iB8THNhYzV3c3VXN0k/view?usp=sharing.
Every FIGURE in the above clip is a Daz Genesis 1or 2
everything else is C4D native mostly rendered in separate passes
and composited in Adobe after effects
The Daz studio internal renderer is not suitable for the types of lighting,procedural materials, and visual effects
I prefer to have in my sci fi genre animations.
Sorry... but people who say that the Daz renderer is comparable to
Autodesk ,Maxon etc clearly are not rendering anything complex
with dynamic lighting and environmental effects such as haze & particles.
Rendering one half naked G3 female walking across a room
is DS and getting comparable render time in Maya etc. is not an accurate metric
of the two rendering systems performance.
Show me a DS only 4 minute long ,animation render with 12 figures wearing metal Armor
with ray traced reflections and some glowing particles eminating from some source
that is reflecting on all of those metal surfaces etc.
Or a metal space ship cruising in deep space with the stars and nebulae reflecting on it hulls
If one is happy with only using openGL renders
with no reflections and no ground shadows or AO then Daz studio is fine for final renders.
Try rendering some dense complex,raytraced animation scenes in DS only and You will quickly see the difference
between the performance of Daz 3DL and the engines we have in
programs like Maya or C4D.
BTW, late getting back to you here, but thanks for all your helpful responses.