Diffeo Base Rig IK Question
benniewoodell
Posts: 1,992
So I just saw on the diffeomorphic site that it's possible to now bring animations from Blender back into Daz! First and foremost, a HUGE thanks to Thomas for making this work as it is something I really have been dreaming about for the past year since I saw how wonderful Blender was for animation. I tried it out with a kick from Mixamo and it worked beautifully!
Now my question is though that it shows on the blog from the diffeo site that you have to have the rig that the character is imported with for it to work. I tried it with both rigify and MHX just to double check and it didn't work. No problemo, I have zero issue using that base skeleton but my question is, is there a way to give it proper IK so I can move the hip around? Or will I have to do everything I can in Blender without IK, and then bring it back into Daz and then IK the hips to move up and down? I tried to rig it just now and the arm turned into a noodle, so I'm just wondering if anyone has tried to do this successfully.
Thank you for any and all help!
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Comments
I'm a complete novice when it comes to animations but I thought the whole point of sending from DAZ Studio to Blender was to be able to use the Blender animation tools, particularly IK. If IK is off the table, I don't really see the point. The IK in DAZ Studio is awful (I try to get along with the Active Pose tools which is one step up from useless) but it is better than nothing at all (I would have thought).
One further question: the Diffeomorphic blog carries an update so that the original BVH method has been dropped in favour of a Pose Preset. Which are you testing with Mixamo? And when Thomas says "Genesis" does he mean the original Genesis (AKA Genesis One) or any Genesis generation?
Oh! I'm sorry, it is a Mixamo kick, but it wasn't directly a file from Mixamo. I did the test on my old computer today while my regular one is rendering a shot for my film. On the old computer, I went through and converted a bunch of Mixamo files from DAE to BVH. So when I used the BVH importer from diffeomorphic, it was one of those BVH files. But I was able to use the BVH importer on the Daz rig that comes in when you load it with the diffeomorphic tool, I didn't change it to MHX or rigify. So that route works in sending it back to Daz. But in case you're wondering, I tried to export an animation I did in Blender as a BVH to try and retarget it on a Daz character and it did not work out at all. I don't quite understand what the problem was, but the character moved halfway down the screen and all the limbs moved backwards and that was it.
But you're right about the main allure is to be able to use the Blender IK for animation, but for my workflow, I don't necessarily need it. In Daz 4.15, the IK setup is actually fine, it's better than it was, you can move the hips around perfectly and such, the problem arises with feet moving all over the place as well as other parts of the body if there are multiple keyframes. I've found you can work around that by selecting the keyframes in-between the first and last pose and setting them to linear, then limbs don't move when they shouldn't for the most part, but you lose the smooth in and out. So you have to do it for the section of the movement where it's direct. I've played around with this so much. So I'm fine if I have to bring it back into Daz to move the hips, like have someone sit down or something. But what I can't do in Daz is copy and paste keyframes, that makes the characters do all kinds of crazy things. So what I can do is make a walk cycle in Blender through Mixamo walk cycles in place and be able to copy and paste as many keys as I need to complete the walk, which I couldn't do in Daz. Then I could even have them walk along a set path and curve which Daz doesn't do. So I'd be able to bring that animation into Daz, delete any keyframes set that are not from the pelvis down, and have full control of the arms. To most folks, this might sound like it doesn't work, or it's too much work, or it's not what typically is done, and that's cool, but for my needs, it's fine. I was actually doing this exact thing in Maya when I had the free trial because the Maya bridge has the ability to port animation back into Daz, and so I'd do the base animation and port it back into Daz and delete the keyframes that I needed to adjust and make the adjustments with the Daz timeline and it worked fantastic. But I'm not paying for Maya, so I've been patiently waiting for this kind of ability to happen to bring stuff from Blender back into Daz.
So yeah, it would be ideal to be able to have IK for the base rig for the characters, and if anyone knows how to do that, please point me in the right direction as I would greatly appreciate it!
I think that the ideal would be for DAZ to fix the timeline. Having a sort-of-working-but-not-really tool is frustrating to say the least. I would love to be able to learn animation and preferably do it in DAZ Studio but it is another of those things awaiting a fix that has been coming for a looong time and is probably never going to work.
Yet somehow the people who sell animations (well, some of them) manage to make it work. I bought a walk cycle complete with breast bounce and it works a treat. A tutorial from them would be nice.
I've tried the recommended method of importing Mixamo animations straight into DAZ Studio for G8F. That's the one where you use the Genesis One figure in Mixamo, import it back to DAZ Studio and save it as an animated pose which is then applied to G8. Again it sort of works but not really. The feet slide and wander all over the place which looks anything but graceful.
@Marble
the vendor product you mentioned "SKAMOTION" uses a human mocap system with live models and Autodesk motionbuilder for retargeting IIRC.
I have one of his older products for G2 and his work is top notch but any tutorial of his process will not involve Blender.
I have a set of ten "Everyday motions" I may release
commercially in .duf format for the G8 female ,again not created using Blender.
I Love Blender !! it is my main 3DCC.
but I have repeatedly posted information (with video evidence) that Blender is NOT a General purpose motion retargeter/ BVH exporter.
Not sure what Thomas Larson is actually promising so I wont comment on any Diffeo BVH export options.
however I can confirm there is no problem with Daz studios BVH importer in general.
It was overhauled back in version 4.11 and works just fine with proper BVH motion data that has been properly retargeted as the high quality product from PA's like SKAMOTION demonstrates
@wolf359 Thomas said on the site that he originally tried BVH and it wasn't working right, so this new method is going from Blender native to Daz native. I only brought up BVH because that is how I got the Mixamo files onto the character in Blender. It was more so to show that I did not actually animate a character in Blender myself and transfer it over, but more so that I had a preset animation used as I wanted to first try and figure out if I can get the initial rig brought in through diffeo set up for with IK before I started putzing around with animating it.
I've tried so many times though to bring in BVH into Daz and never can figure it out, even watched a few tutorials. But I do use the Skamotion walk cycle sometimes and it really is a good one.
@Marble I agree, I wish the Daz issues were fixed.
@benniewoodel there is no reason to animate a rig in Blender with FK only(Arrghh!!)
You can manually set up IK with several solving methodsin Blender it is just a matter of choosing a method most compatible with a diffeo imported rig.
However ,again not sure ,if the Thomas Larson method requires the Diffeo imported Daz rig to remain unaltered as most IK set ups alter the rig to some degree.
Some methods such as Autorig pro completely replace the original rig as it assumes you plan to animate and render in Blender
Indeed that's the very first comment I posted that animating the daz rig doesn't make much sense, even before the conversion worked, so I agree. But it was necessary to make a first step. From what I understand Thomas is considering adding mhx and rigify support but there are issues with the twist bones. Then I proposed a ik chain for the twist bone (so yes it's possible to also ik the daz rig with the same principle) but got no answer yet from Thomas.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/466/is-it-possible-to-import-differomorpic
As a "side note" Thomas is working on a much more exciting feature right now that's the FACS controls. Yes, you get it right, that imports the G8.1 FACS controls in blender and it's already working .. almost.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/477/genesis-81-face-controls
That was the issue when I made the IK chain on the Daz rig, the twist bones seemed to make it wonky. I used a different IK tutorial from Royal Skies than the one Wolf359 posted above, but I just tried this one because I'll try anything, and though I got it to somewhat work, the legs were like loose noodles still. And then when I tried to bring that animation into Daz, just to see if it would work, the leg didn't bend. I even set up the Daz character with an IK chain after the initial test didn't work, and it still didn't help. But you're absolutely right, Padone, without taking that first step, nothing is going to get going and progress. This is so exciting!!
Oddly enough, I've been working so hard at learning to do a walk cycle the past year because I'm so tired of being tied to walk cycles from like Mixamo and Daz that aren't the speed I want, turning, etcetera, so I've been trying so hard at learning it and I could never get it, even in Blender with the MHX rig. I think I overcompensate the hip going up and down, I can never get the right feel. But last night just for fun, I tried with the rig that's imported and I actually successfully made a walk cycle and the gal moved up and down when she was supposed to, etcetera, which I think having to manually move the character up and down helped. I was pleasantly surprised. I totally saved it for later use with the save pose in the tool!
And that is amazing that he's got the FACS controls already working to a point!
I hope to some day understand all this. I need to add walking G8 figures to my scene.