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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 3:34 am 

Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 9:58 pm
Posts: 24
Greetings,
If i rig my character with Ipisoft skeleton. Do i need to retarget it every time with new mocap files? I am actually a Maya user. Advance skeleton is a beautiful tool for rigging. Especially Heatmap skinning option is a big releaf in Maya. But what if i import ipisoft skeleton and just model my character on it and rig it. Isn't it will safe time and cost. Please help me.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 10:41 am 

Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:34 pm
Posts: 2423
Location: Los Angeles
I haven't used Maya with iPi Mocap Studio but as long as the bones/joints names and hierarchy are consistent between the iPi skeleton and your character's skeleton, it should be compatible and you shouldn't have to re-rig. You can do your retargeting in iPi Mocap Studio or you can export the animated rig from iPi Mocap Studio to Maya and be able to retarget the data to your rigged character there. Once you set up a character template, either in Mocap Studio or Maya (or Motion Builder or whatever,) and stick with those conventions, it should work for every mocap motion you create.

If you're new to Mocap, retargeting is either referencing or transferring the data from one skeleton (usually with mocap) to your pre-rigged character. (Actually, there can be lot more going on during retargeting but that's the essential bit.) In other words, you shouldn't need to bind your character to the iPi skeleton, you only need to grab the animation from it and apply it to your own rig. You can create your target rig in any program so long as it follows the usual mocap standards. If you use an auto rigger, it probably has an option for a mocap skeleton with controls on top of the skeleton so you can non-destructively edit the original motion data. The whole point is to rig your character only once and then you can reference the rig that has the mocap (the iPi skeleton in this case) or you transfer/copy the animation from that rig to your own rig. Once you have a standard rig and template, you can pass any new mocap data onto it without re-rigging, and you can have additional controls on that rig so long as it doesn't break the basic hierarchical structure.

Sorry, I can't be more specific than that--it's been a long time since I last used Maya, and I normally work with iPi-Motion Builder-LightWave, but the process is more or less the same for many 3D programs.

Hopefully somebody with more recent Maya experience will pop in and share additional info. :)

G.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 2:53 pm 

Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 9:58 pm
Posts: 24
Thankyou for your reply. Its well detial. But i want to ask for example.

In UDK game engine, We have 70 to 90 animations of a single skeleton. We start modeling and designing a new character on that skeleton. So our character will have all those animations. If i export default skeleton from ipi and skin my character to that. Do I still need to retarget?

The other thing is Can we have a plugin for Maya as Faceshift and other have special plugin for maya.

Thank you for your time. Good wishes and have fun.


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 3:45 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:34 pm
Posts: 2423
Location: Los Angeles
Are you thinking of binding the same character to every export from iPi Mocap Studio? Sorry, I'm probably not understanding your situation but it sounds like you wish to avoid retargeting and with to bind the character directly to the individually exported mocap skeletons. If so, that's probably not an efficient way to work. Normally, you would rig a character in your animation program and just apply the mocap data to it through retargeting, either in iPi Mocap Studio or your animation program. But if that's not what you mean, please disregard this paragraph. :)

BTW, when done properly, retargeting usually means more than just applying the motion to your rig--it's also making automatic adjustments to the data to compensate for different body proportions, which is especially important for the character's footsteps. This means you can have characters of different shapes and sizes and the motion should more or less look correct for that character. How well this works depends on the software doing the retargeting.

In Maya, I know there is the HumanIK system for retargeting. I've never used it but I think it works very similar to Motion Builder. You might want to look there for answers. There are some tutorials online (YouTube?) for using it with iPi Mocap Studio.

Sorry, I don't anything about getting the data into UDK.

Good luck! Hopefully users who work with mocap for games will respond soon.

G.

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Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)
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Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 4:16 pm 

Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 9:58 pm
Posts: 24
Thank you. Well I did level 7 diploma in adavance 3d animation... So rigging is now not a problem anymore. Once again thank you for your time and Good wishes


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