Animating in DAZ: What is the easiest/lowest-learning curve method?
firewarden
Posts: 1,484
Edited: What I'm really looking for is the easiest to learn, fastest way to create good animation. The hardest thing we need to animate, I think, is a fight scene between two Viking warriors using swords & shields or spears and shields that needs multiple variations to show fighting techniques.
I was roped into creating the artwork and animation for my daughter's senior project, programming a 2D educational game in the game Engine Visionaire Studio. I'm using DAZ Studio for the artwork, but I need some animated sequences for walking, finding stuff, and Viking-style combat. I'm also very "amateur" at DAZ, even though I have tons of assets I've been collecting over the years I never had time to really learn it, so I'm learning it now.
The main figures I'm using are Genesis 2. I have one main character that uses G3F Priya, but if I have to, I can give that up, as I understand (perhaps) the additional bones mess up some animation conversions. I won't let it be a deal-breaker, at this point.
Searching through products and the forums and Googling the topic, it looks as if I have several choices: Buying animation sequences from Posermocap, SimonWM, BoneTech3D, etc. to use with Animate2 (?), using iClone, using Mixamo, or making aniblocks myself, or perhaps things working better if I use Carrara (which I own, but haven't used).. As a newbie, I have no clue which one of these is best, except I'm pretty sure that doing it by hand would be an exercise in futility.
I've tried Mixamo, which looks great when I upload a base figure and animate on their website,, but the character doesn't seem to load back into DAZ - I tried OBJ and FBX with G2F and G3F (then again, I'm a newb and might be doing something totally wrong).
Does anyone know the easiest way for a non-pro DAZ user to animate? What software is best? Are there directions somewhere that I am just missing?
I can't find iClone in the DAZ store so I don't know if DAZ is still affiliated with that and if it works and/or works easily. Does anyone know? Is using a third party tool easier or is it a waste of money?
Was I foolish to choose DAZ instead of Unity? (I've spent well over $1,000 so far on assets for this project. Probably way more, but I can't bring myself to go back and add it up.) Should I move over to something geared for 2D, such as Manga Studio (now named Clip Studio Paint Pro)?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
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Comments
Use poses and timeline. By far the easiest way non-pro way to animate, as DAZ automatically interpolates between each frame.
Hi mtl1, thanks for answering! Are you saying that if I want a fight scene between two Vikings with several variations, for example, I'm better off animating it by hand, rather than finding a third-part product that might have the animations already build in? I need the smallest, fastest learning curve, plus something I can do in a reasonable amount of time being the one-person art/animation department.
Have you ever used iClone or Mixamo? Animated in Carrara? I'm really curious how all the various tools stack up and which ones actually work.
If doing it by hand is the best option, I guess I'll stumble through and do that, but it seems as if some of these tools might make it a little faster and less painful if they actually work.
Hi your best options for the types of animation you need are the full version of aniMate2 and some aniblocks from a merchants you mentioned.
It is good that you are using Genesis 2 as Genesis 3 does not work with aniMate2.
Here are some videos to get you started with animate 2
https://www.youtube.com/user/GoFigure3D
Hi wolf359,
I will check those videos out. That shoudl definitely give me a better idea of what Animate2 can do. And some of the animation sets are still on sale, which would be nice.
Thanks for the info.
Did this in 15 minutes with the G2 male & Standard BVH files from my old poser motion archive
That's cool. Were BVH files were from Animate2?
I've used Carrara iClone Daz Studio (and Poser) to animate characters and some basic visual effects, prefab motions or hand keying. All of the them are capable and sufficient for entry-level sword fighting animation.
Unity has potential for character animation but is long way from being intuitive or easy for most. Mixamo is good for freebie motions and autorigging, not rendering scenes with background and props.
3D animation is tedious enough in pro tools and will be hacky in all these mentioned semi-pro tools. If your intention is create light hearted stuff/ comedy do consider 2D, which could be equally effective but less intensive.
It's hard to recommend without knowing your current skill level and learning style. Probably best way to get a feel of them comparatively is watch/read tutorials.
Learning curve is individual matter, what you're used to, what you cannot do without (for me Carrara has everything except the crucial custom interface and 3D mouse). I prefer the least import/export workflow. I'm partial to Daz Studio because the interface is highly customizable, shader options exist, also like puppeteer and aniMate2.
Visual quality is DS's big attraction, so is quad based pipeline. DS's weaknesses are lipsync (external), physics (under-supported 3rd party), and generally lack of dynamics (helmet or spaghetti hair, dead leaves, still rivers).
AniMate2 also hasn't have meaningful update for some time, still doesn't work with Genesis3. Most DS vendors don't (know how to) make optimized products for animation, this means lots of mesh decimation and mat/texture/UV editing work, something to consider.
Etc etc.
I've watched several of the Animate2 videos and will watch the rest after a bit. Animate2 looks doable, although Mixamo looks far easier and there are tons of awesome animations already built in. (Not to mention it's all free.) If only I could get it to import back into DAZ correctly! However, barring that eventuality, being able to edit the poses/animations in Animate2 is a definite plus.
Thank you again for the links to those videos and showing me how quickly I could start to piece together fight scenes!!!
Wow, Mythmaker, thanks for the awesome info! :) It sounds like you have a wide range of experience.
My daughter will build and program the game in Visionaire Studio, a game engine geared at 2D adventure games: http://www.visionaire-studio.net/, (an example Visionaire game is Memoria, http://store.steampowered.com/app/243200/). My daughter chose the engine and game idea for her senior IT project, and asked if I would help. My daughter won't be helping with the artwork, just building the game itself using the artwork I create for assets. She's brilliant with computers, has high-functioning autism, and I'd like to help her get the bulk of this game done before fall semester hits and with it, her senior year at university.
I'm doing the artwork in DAZ because I'm terrible at drawing by hand. Photoshop is my savior. :) I'm a decent learner, having learned many computer systems and programs over the years, but my brain is older now and I have a finite amount of time due to life, the universe, and everything. While I have a background in computer documentation/technical writing, have extensive computer experience, I only have a little experience with animation (HASH Animation: Master, decades ago) and even less experience modeling, although I've done a little, again, long ao.. I'm decent with Photoshop and am doing quite a bit of postwork, including filtering with Topaz, etc. to get the artistic effect my daughter wants. I used to think reading was my preferred learning method, but I've come to appreciate videos a lot, lol. :)
The artwork I need to produce is backgrounds, characters, and frames for character animation to be used by the game engine. The backgrounds will be basic 2D backgrounds, using such models as the Viking Village, Utopia Labs, Utopia City Blocks, SciFi Crew Quarters, etc. But for each character, I need to have several frames of animation (the character on a transparent background), enough to make the engine's animation of the character look okay for each type of movement (walk, pick something up, fight, etc).
The backgrounds, characters, and objects are all separate 2D elements manipulated by the game engine. The only time I will actually composite them would be for promo images and the like.
Here's a website with the idea that my daughter pitched to her professors: http://www.twotrolls.com. The images were rushed without postwork because we had to get something out there for the proposal and to link in her rough design document/proposal. We've since refined the characters, suit design, and filters more. I'll see if I can put some examples here.
If you are after something that can teach you the basics then there is a carrara tutorial that teachs you how to create a basic walk cycle and make it realistic. MMoir does a very good job and the basics of what he covers is applicable to all programs. Carrara can also import BVH and with the Animate plugin you can import them as well.
after learning the basics from this tutorial you can apply the techniques to anything else such as your sword fights.
http://www.daz3d.com/create-a-walk-cycle-in-carrara
In case they help, here is a playlist of some Daz Studio animation videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF3LSR7D48MfuZDaXfMmsZI8ab5lBF-sG
Thank you, chickenman and DAZ_Steve! I will be trying to watch all recommended videos over the course of this evening. :)
I did a viking fight scene once using ani- blocks came out okay took about 8 weeks to complete
the ship rowers I created one ani block for all the rowers
click picture to play or click this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MZiT6-ScPM
Posermocap stuff is good. This is an older set that works with V4/M4/Genesis: http://www.posermocap.com/2012/09/14/swordplay-volume-one-is-now-available-at-daz3d-com/
Ivy, that's awesome! Wow! Thank you for sharing that. :)
Kevin, thanks for the link to Posermocap's swordplay package info. I watched the video and will be buying it today. It will definitely help! :)
I'll tell you how I would do this, and I'll also tell you why you should ignore my advice :)
For me, it's a no-brainer I would use Carrara. Studio likely wouldn't be involved at all, except perhaps minimally in arranging any aniblocks I was using, but probably not even that. I would use Genesis1 as my figure along with DraagonStorm's animation converter to use any aniblocks made for V4 that I might want to use, as well as the aniMate aniblock importer for Carrara and any aniblocks that might apply. I would use Carrara dynamic strand hair and Virtual World Dynamic's Cloth And Hair tool plus philemot's bridge to Carrara for that tool to transform any appropriate clothing into dynamic simulation to give better and more realistic animations. If the scene size was within the memory limitations, I would render in Octane using the Ocatane for Carrara plugin, and if the scene memory size was too large I would render with the Carrara native engine, which is very fast and which I know how to tune so that it is very close to same quality as a PBR renderer. I would use Sickleyields clothing clones to put any conforming clothing I liked onto my Genesis1 character, as Gen1 can wear anything any of the other generations can. I would use physics sims within Carrara on any scene element that needed it for more realistic animation, and I would use aniblocks and bvh motion files and poser animation files and self-made animations done within the Carrara timeline as needed, as well as any modeling enhancements of scenes or clothing that I might prefer I would do all within Carrara, and then I would use PD Howler for any animation postwork needed.
But my choices reflect my preferences: I am very familiar and comfortable with Carrara, and conversely despise using Studio. I also do not have Iclone (though I have heard very good things about it from people I respect), so I can't compare whether it would ultimately be as good a tool for the task, but I know Carrara can do everything I need/want. Even if I had access to another tool that was even 'better' at doing all of the things I would need to do, I still wouldn't use it (unless there is no time limitation) since I already know how to do all this in Carrara and I wouldn't want to waste time/trouble/frustration learning a new tool and interface.
So what I'm saying is, I think you should use whatever app you are most familiar/comfortable with, so that you can actually complete this within your time limitations with minimum frustration. Sure, there probably are limitations with whatever that tool is, but the upside is you won't have to kill yourself learning familiarity with a new interface while under a deadline.
LOL!!
Hi Jonstark, thank you so much for the info!
I've spent the majority of the day reading various threads talking about animation in Daz and Carrara, researching IClone (doesn't look as if it's worth the money considering what software I already own), Fuse (I "rent" it with the full Adobe CC, but it isn't what I need), running a couple of more tries with Mixamo (lost cause, it seems), watching videos (more to go) made with DAZ and Carrara, and considering what software and tools to work with.
Yesterday, I bought several aniblock sets that were on sale, I own Animate2 and Carrara, and have been pondering GraphMate and KeyMate. (More money, sigh.) But I know if I use Carrara, I don't need the last two, but would want some conversion software so the cost would probably even out. Still lots of reading. Hoping that animation software goes on sale, as I have several things in my wish list that weren't on sale.
I think I'll try a short test in DAZ Studio and then in Carrara to see which seems easier with my skillset. One problem with Carrara is that I find the tiny type in the interface almost impossible to read. I just re-installed it today and will try it a new monitor, which is a bit larger than the one I used the last time I had played with Carrara. (DAZ, please remember some of us have poor vision and cannot read microscopic fonts!)
I'm trying to think of a logical progression and trying not to buy too much that would turn out to be un-useful.
I so appreciate any and all insights, this conversation has really been helping me!
Oh, I just opened Carrara and I can read the menus. I don't know if DAZ changed something or it's the larger monitor, but I can read the menus and submenus without the horrible strain. Yes, it'd be great if they were larger, but at least I can read them. That's awesome.
I think I'll watch the tutorials for animating that DAZ_Steve linked, then watch some for animating in Carrara. Then I'll do a test with both. Hoping that's logical, lol...
I think part of that Viking animation I had used the Posermocap's swordplay package, But anything by posermocap is usually pretty good for animation.. & I used some of dartanback sward play aniblocks they were pretty good too. I just needed to use the feet offset for gensis 2 males when using aniblocks created for M4
I also used Freak 4 barbarian and gensis2 male Viking for my characters . just incase you might be interested
Ivy, thank you so much for the info! Everything is appreciated. :) I followed your link and wishlisted that aniblock set. :) I have Faveral's Viking Village and props, plus Merlin's Saxon village. Plus I think I have all the Viking and Norse items from PC+. I've bought several viking ships, but I'm not sure any of the ones I've gotten are as nice as the one you use in your video. Is it the Viking Longship by MortemVetus & RuntimeDNA ?
The viking boat i used was a older daz/ poser model called dakkar There is some extra avilable textures for it as well
The water pane is by Nerd3d. which is not sold here any more but you can find it at 3dhive
But like i said I had to custom make my own rowing animations. i had thought I had saved them as aniblocks, I was goning to upload them as a feeebie tonight on sharecg.com for you... but i can't seem to find them. so I'll have to get my other Hdd out of my safe and see if i may have stored them on any of those drives. if i did I'll upload them for you.
Hey, sorry for the late reply.
Using timeline isn't *quite* animating by hand but more defining poses at specific frames. Chances are that you have a variety of pose products from DAZ already. Placing one pose at frame 0 and another at, say, frame 30 will generate interpolated poses between frames 0 and 30.
I do have to echo @Mythmaker above though: a lot of figures aren't well-optimized for animation, so you'll probably have to decimate your figures before you start.
As a side note, you may want to jump into the Freebies section and take a look at mCasual's scripts. They're *super* handy for animations.
Cool, Ivy! :) That would be awesome if you could find them!! (But if you can't, I totally understand! Life happens.)
On the ship: I had bought Drakkar as a PC item, but hadn't really looked at it. I didn't realize the inside was so detailed. On the water: I've got some water and sky combos that I think are doing okay. I was going to upload some pictures, but I guess they're too big. I need to look up the forum file size requirements.
Thank you for the explanation, mtl1 :) I do have a lot of poses and was hoping that I could do something like that. With HASH Animation Master, keyframes saved a lot of work. The aniblocks that I bought are only going to cover a small portion of the type of animations that I need.
Thanks for the info on mCasual's scripts; I will definitely grab them tomorrow before I get started again. And thanks also for the info on decimating; I hadn't seen that in any of the posts I'd read yet, and I'm only a little way in on videos. Good to know! I guess I'll create a decimated version of each of my characters and use that as a base.
One more thing: micromovements are the differentiator between high-quality and low-quality animations. Mocaps partially address this issue as it captures precise movements of an actor, but adjustments may still be needed.
I believe you can create micromovements by adjusting the interpolating frames.
That's a good point, mtl1. I've noticed in so many games the characters, idle, breathe, blink, etc. I'm not sure it will matter with this game, but I'm definitely going to try to add some variation in.
You guys have given me a lot more confidence that the tools are here, and finding more threads, such as, "Be Honest, Is Daz the best for animation?" ( http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/51897/be-honest-is-daz-the-best-for-animation/p1) have really helped also. The DAZ community is so incredibly helpful; it's what "makes" the software. (Not to mention DAZ's awesome customer support!)
On another note, I may have spoken too soon about being able to read the menus in Carrara without strain. I guess we'll see.
My first priority this morning is to watch the rest of the DAZ Studio tutorials and run a test with Animate2 and maybe also just the timeline. Then I'll judge whether to run a test in Carrara. Unfortunately, my setup can't handle a bigger monitor, as the arm is already maxed, so Carrara may be out no matter how cool it is.
Off to the races! :)
As far as the breathing,blinking movements for your characters go, there are some aniblocks for that, depending on what generation figure you're using:
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-alive
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-alive
if that might be helpful.
Thank you, Jonstark, those look like just what I need. I'm currently planning on using Genesis 2, but I have Genesis content also. I guess I need to glance at who I'm going to use for secondary characters.
depending on how many charcters your planing on using. or for very large scenes that need a lot of people in the back ground. I kind of fake it by using bill board cut outs and place Characters renders on the bill boards .. this cuts down on resources and render times for characters. I have a couple of animations where i did this
in my newest film I used bill boards for the back ground people