ISO quality .BVH files that work on genesis figures
FSMCDesigns
Posts: 12,803
Now that I am using unity and VR almost exclusively and can see movement results in real time i am really getting into animations and need some quality BVH files. I have seen/tried the options at rendo and truebones as well as a few options I found on the web with hit or miss results. Thought I would ask if anyone had any hidden places or gems, either free or commercial.
BTW is there a secret to exporting BVH files from DS? I tried a few truebones ones and when imported into DS they work fine, but when I combine them and then export from DS, they don't work.
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Have you tried the Carnagie Mellon BVH files? They come in various program friendly versions. There are some links to them here: https://www.deviantart.com/hogarth-mmd/journal/2548-free-downloadable-BVH-files-631005592
I haven't really gotten into animation so I haven't personally used them.; but they are supposed to be quite good. And best of all they are free; so, nothing but a little time lost if they don't work out for you.
iClone Pipeline
mocap available too but I haven’t tried it and 3Dxchange will export your characters and motions Unity ready apparently too
thanks for the ideas, will check them out. I am more about the VR experience more than the animation, but want movement and have found the BVH option the easiest, but will look at the IClone option to see what it might bring to the table. I just tried out KeyshotVR which is freakin amazing, but limited in what you can do and totally expensive, but it does say it supports animations
I assume you are primarily a Genesis 8 user yes??.
those carnegie mellon BVH files will likely be largely a collosal waste of your time as they are not compatible with the extra twist bones in G3-8
Also be aware that to use the full motionbuilding and exporting tools of Iclone pro , to create custom BVH for the G8 figures, you will need the full pipeline version around $700 USD IIRC.
Not trying to spam your thread but a good place to buy G3/G8 canned motions, as Daz content .duf files ,that have been quality tested for specific figures,
and go to the Main store page and search for G8 motions.
is over at flipbook market.
Click the link in my forum signature but please bypass my store
(its mostly old G2 motions)
Thanks Wolf. I am using whatever figures work and right now find more support for G2 more than anything, so i am good with that for now. Besides, I am finding that older figures look very different in other apps and render options, especially Unity. Since G2 is a denser mesh, I find it looks best for the most part.
That being the case ,then you will find alot of Mill 3& 4 legacy BVH & DS aniMate lite aniblock files will be compatible with Genesis 2 (with minimal adjustments)
Thus I now recommend the free Carnegie archives and other free sourcesbefore investing in the Reallusion money pit.
Thanks Wolf, appreciate it. I have some free aniblocks I found and can get them working fine in DS, but when I export as a BVH file, nothing happens in Unity. I tried importing it back into DS also and the same results as Unity. I see no options when exporting to check or uncheck. Can you shine some light on this issue?
double post
Sorry, I have next to Zero experience in Unity.
There may be some useful Daz to Unity pipeline tips at this free knowledge archive.
http://standsurestudio.com/gamedev_dazanim2unity/
Thanks for the link, miight prove useful. I feel the issue is more to do with DS since I imported the exported BVH back into DS and it didn't work. Oh well, I figured animation would have a learning curve, guess I was right, LOL thanks for everyones input.
i shudder to think what this would cost
it's just a user video by this guy who has it, not a commercial video
yeah, I am a long way off from getting into any motion capture needs, but I am impressed by the results. There is a VR game that I am folowing/playing and there are some talented users in that community playing around with mocap animations for use with scripted mods and addons. Makes me wonder what they use and their background in animation.
Hey @FSMCDesigns,
If you're mostly experimenting, There was a full set of the Mixamo (2400) BVH/FBX motions that was legitimately downloadable (Mixamo gave their library away for a while, but you had to download them all manually :). Someone did, and they're allowed to be used for anything commercial. I think these were BVH and FBX, so I think you could convert/transfer them with some tweaking, or perhaps the BVH's are already DAZ targeted, etc. I think you can search 'em out, but if not, hollar, and I'll see if I can find/post my source. The carnegie-mellon set are decent enough - probably worth pulling the DAZ set. TruBones just did an update that includes the hands, but not for any of the DAZ figures - not free.
To make your own, take a look for 'Brekel' and with a Kinect 'camera', you can make your own - depending on your HW and budget. He targets a couple of the DAZ figures in his product line. You can also use the payfor (zev0 and/or draagonstorm?) or freebie scripts (see the DAZ freebies forum) to convert various DAZ figure animations and poses to other figures.
The DAZ Studio BVH import/export is currently brain-dead - since 4.5+, even with Mil4 and Genesis1. I would bet their ad blurb claiming that it's a working function borders on false-advert, but so it goes. Trouble tickets by many ignored for years. Maybe in 4.12.0.33+ - we can hope. The new animation additions are promising, but the BVH export is still broke... Many have mixed luck with fbx/collada, but it depends a lot on your workflow. YMMV.
FWIW, I've seen folks burn/export DS animations (duf/aniblocks) for these figures to PZ2s for Poser then export to BVH in Poser, and go from there. I wonder if this path would work for you in your Unity world. Blender has some tools too - never used them.
GoFigure's packages are generally pretty good, as are the PoserMocap series (I think you just missed a really good sale...). Burn them to the timeline and export to PZ2, and ...
If you pick a path/workflow and have questions or get stuck, let us know, and perhaps we can lend a tip or two.
Hope this helps!, Curious how your explorations will go!
cheers,
--ms
Thanks for the input MS. I was going to spend some money on some animation products in the store to create some BVH files, but since I can't get a working BVH to export from DS then that is pointless. I am starting to see why serious animators say DS is useless for animation purposes..
I am a bit curious about your use of Unity.
Are you creating animation ,in Daz studio, and trying to apply it to an already exported Character residing in Unity??
Also what has been you success with a non daz BVH imported into Unity??
And most importantly are you using any of the free third party BVH viewers to verify how your exported BVH looks,
as I always do with my BVH exports from Iclone 3DXchange pipeline.
While it's often said that anyone serious about animation wouldn't spend too much time in DS, it has some features that *really* appeal to my sensibilities (and to a few of the other talented die-hards in here). Add to that the recent integration of the key/graph editors in the new DS 4.12 beta, and perhaps DAZ Inc. sees the potential economics of DS as a starting/working platform for simple-scene animators. Aniblocks, puppeteer, and the new 4.12 built-ins are giving me more hope than I probably let on.
Each tool (animate/puppeteer) is a hugely powerful paradigm that DAZ Inc. and their programmers invested in, but... it's my guess that the bean-counters didn't get the immediate 40% jump in sales and dropped development in liu of newer incompatible figure meshes that sell well to the short-term and to unwary users...
Of course in the dev world, initial releases are always "just about complete", and both of these tools could use 5% more help to get 500% improvements in workflow. My props to the devs who put these ideas together in such a meaningful way, and to the product mgr/devs who tried to take the chance. To the short-term thinking finance guys, well... you're getting your due, by chasing short term customers and fashion shadows.
FWIW, that 5% improvement would probably allow more of us to deliver more results like DAZ Inc's own:
Note that this is Genesis1! Produced by DAZ Inc. Pros who know their stuff. 8 years ago!
The forums are littered (and I use that term intentionally) with references to known issues that apparently aren't visible to DAZ Inc. in this so-called 'peer-to-peer' forum... ergo, It's not a ticket, so it's not an issue...
<rant>
What a tragedy, and not just a DAZ phenomena - many product forums are de-fact ignored by their devs/marketting depts, and appear to merely be something they need to do to satisfy the marketplace. This, in a world where illicit data-mining is considered a gold mine of information, here's a place where people actually tell you *exactly* what they think, and rather than listen, 'the smart people' - BFAs, etc. look at wishlist stats as if they are a holy grail of market trends. I completely give up on this one... Makes me wonder about humanity sometimes - seriously.
<rant/>
Anyway, DS is actually not a bad tool for animation framing in my view. As you know, the trick is in getting your good starting works done in DS, then out of DS and into your next workflow layer so you can get cool results.
Maybe they can get an intern to fix the BVH stuff. While it's not super-sexy, BVH is the 'jpeg' of motions, and does 95% of what *most of the market* needs. Why the DAZ bean-counters don't get this, I don't know. Maybe it's no longer hip to use OBJs, JPEGs, BVHs, ZIPs, etc. I'm not a luddit, but these tools still work, and mature libraries exist to support them... Ignore them at your peril. My wallet doesn't.
I just bought a few more mil4 aniblock sets last week (on sale...), so I'm not just spouting here. (c'mon product devs, push for us!)
--ms
+1
Well, first off Wolf, I have no plans with Unity other than enhancing my VR experience since I am obsessed with VR now. I have spent several hundred at Steam on VR titles only in the past month in addition to installing both Unreal and Unity and a few other VR apps that are based off one of those engines. So far, movement is the one main lacking factor when using any figure (Daz or otherwise) in a VR environment, hence my search for info on animations and importing them in the various apps i am using.
Anyhoo, lots to look at including free BVH veiwers which I did not know was a thing, so thanks.
Considering the "price" the Daz Character animation tool set is quite the bargain ( as of the 4.12 beta)
with graphMate and keyMate part of the core app.
The new "Ik nodes"???
Well to to be frank, they appear to be a typical Daz styled, Needlessly complicated, squiffy/Mason handshake approach to something that should be simple.
So I do not see any reason to upgrade from my ultra stable, heavily plugin enhanced , version 4.8.
That said there is a now a functioning IK foot contact solver in the free Daz studio compared to poser which costs hundreds of dollars and has an "IK system" that destroys your entire animation sesssion if you try to unpin the feet after frame one.
I do so love the puppeteer!! in fact I recently recorded a tutorial on creating secondary
facial animation on top of audio generated lipsync using the free "papagayo "lipsync tool.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ME6qMhLjfVCnGcuHIZPrrlQwKNP5WvQ7/view
Well Unreal I am familiar with, it is relatively easy to retarget a DAZ figure in the the Unreal editor and use third person motions, Untity I cannot figure out at all, I can bake simple “games” in Unreal (scenes I can walk through with physX) and those can be baked to use VR I just don’t own a headset but it’s an option.