Hello evryone.

I mess around with ipi fo many times. I am able to record a .bvh animation. But then there is the big problem: what should I do with this .bvh file?

All the method to retarget the .bvh to a 3d model skeleton are too much pain in the ass.

Is there a method to just put the .bvh file into a 3D charachter and then the software auto put inside the motion into the charachter?


I try to use: Cinema 4d, Motionbuilder, Blender, Daz. Never find a solution.
Give me the simplest method ever. Please. I'm really frustrated about that.

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You do know you can import characters right into iPi to view the animation after simple retargeting?

Other than Blender, I don't know of a good free editor resource, I am not sure if GMAX (similar to 3ds Max) allows file import, but it's free, you can probably look on youtube for tutorials if it does.

Not really sure what you are expecting, but just to look at the animation free on an auto rigged character that you have to download, you can try autodesk character generator, export it as an FBX character, then use a free trial of WebAnimate, an online service that's easier to retarget the character to see your animation exported as BVH or FBX from iPi Studio.

WebAnimate full version to export your animation back out after cleanup isn't free though, it's a paid subscription, but you can at least view on a character for free through your browser. (FireFox browser recommended).

View tutorials first on youtube, you can also import your own custom rigs and retarget the bones in them.

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I agree with Snapz. For the simplest and most direct retargeting method, just do it in Mocap Studio.

If you want fuss over editing, however, especially for characters with odd body proportions (like our Brudders characters), you can use Motion Builder. The program may seem complicated (yes, it does have a steep learning curve) but if you set up your target rig correctly, it's a fairly straightforward and predictable process.

Our workflow is fairly specific to our productions so I don't know if it will help, but maybe it will give you some ideas:

We like to use Motion Builder and LightWave. Our characters are rigged and shaded in Lightwave, and exported as FBX for Motion Builder. The bones are named to correspond with the defaults in Motion Builder to make retargeting simple. The FBX is then imported to MB and characterized to the default control rig. This allows us to use MB's IK and pinning features, as well as animation layers.

Over in iPi Mocap Studio, after tracking and editing our data our motions, we export a MB compatible .bvh and characterize the .bvh to the control rig. Now both the iPi data and the LightWave character share a common control rig so retargeting can happen. To retarget, just the the Controll Rig Input for the character to the .bvh control rig, and then bake the data to the Character's control rig. At this point, you can choose to make further edits or modify the motion, and then export a new FBX for LightWave.

One nice thing about LightWave is that it can extract only the motion data from the FBX and apply it directly to the character in a scene, so it can already have its native weighting and shading system prepared as well as any program specific animation controls. To do that, we open our rigged character in Lightwave, select the command Load Items From Scene, select the Motion Builder FBX and enable Merge Only Motion Envelopes, and in a few seconds we have an animation on our character.

That might sound complicated but once the workflow is established, the whole process only takes a few minutes. (Plus any additional time spent editing in MB of course.)

If you're using another 3D animation program, the process is mostly the same. It's not necessary to use Motion Builder either...Webanimate more or less does the same thing. I'm told that the latest release of Reallusion with 3D Exchange also works.

For me, if iPi Mocap Studio also supported keyframeble pinning for feet and hands, I think I could drop Motion Builder because that's mostly what I use it for.

Alternatively, I guess you could just bind the .bvh skeleton directly to your mesh in you animation program and then adjust the bones/joints to fit the mesh, but that can get a tedious and messy if you have more than a few scenes to setup. I know a few 'hobbyists' who do it that way but I don't recommend it.

G.

P.S., the way I learned Motion Builder years ago was to watch the free videos at 3D Buzz. The videos are really old now but they cover all the essentials that still apply today. Digital Tutors has some pretty good ones too but they're not free.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

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You know you can pin the feet/hands in iPi without affecting the rest of the bones trajectories of the legs/arms?

You just select the foot/hand, or any bone really, and while rotate tool is up, just hold the mouse button down on the tool, (stays orange), advance frame with the >/. key and move the mouse slightly and it will snap to the same position as the frame before, don't move it to far though or you will start to readjust the bone, but you may want to do that as it comes out of the needed pinned area, it's fairly fast way to make corrections on any bones, mostly useful for hands and feet though and saves on adjusting ROI to use the copy/paste bone feature.

Do it before you run the refine task and it will keep those adjustments, but you can do it and run the refine task again, but you have to run the refine task first, not just the JR after corrections.

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That's good to know for quick fixes. Thanks for the reminder.

However, most of the time when I need the pinning, the feet and hands must to be locked absolutely and I can't risk having it come undone by other processes. Also I need to be able to gradually release the constraints with frame accuracy. This is another reason why I still use my old copy of Motion Builder for mocap editing. Because I have no intention of upgrading to a newer release of MB, I'm always on the watch for programs with equivalent features at affordable prices.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

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Yeah, it comes in handy, I did make a mistake though, if you do the snap method way you can't run refine or JR again... that's the final correction before exporting.

But, if you do it where you slightly are moving each key step to closer match the video as you track through, you can run refine again as it then will read it as individual
keys and not just one position and won't try to re-correct it back to what it was.

Even just manually making the corrections, if you do it well, you don't need to re-run refine or JR and it will help that much more when you get it into MB or another
editor.

I didn't have to use it that much on the feet with the Eyes, more on the hands with the Moves issue I was having, but I see it is much more needed now with the Kinect feet stabilization.

6 to 1 on whichever you want to do, if going to make corrections anyway in another Pro editor, probably just as easy pinning there and using an adjustment layer, but at least inside iPi you can use the video as a guide easier while it's in there if that bone is too far off.

I have also been interested in the MODO program, they have made a bunch of upgrades to it in version 901, check it out again, but it is around $1800 USD.

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Where I generally find a need for pinning the feet is body twisting and jumping motions. When twisting, it's very pretty obvious what needs to be fixed--the feet rotate like crazy. This isn't a Kinect issue btw--the same thing happens when using PS3 Eye cameras, but it's easily fixable if you have keyframeable pinning available. When jumping, what happens is that the feet will slide backwards before the jump, which can look really odd. Being able to pin and release with an envelope is essential for fixing both issues.

BTW, the jump issue is probably more likely with the 90 degree config, and probably less noticeable with 180 dual or triple+ recording. I believe it happens because there is no 'backside' to the capture data when recording with the 90 degree setup. (That's one of the first thing I'll test with the quad Kinect v2 setup next weekend.)


I've been a Modo user since 101 but I stopped upgrading at 601. It's a great modeler but I never use it for animation. The rigging system is based on the ikinema system so it shares similarities to Webanimate--that not a critique of course, there's a lot to like about Webanimate. I'm just not sure how robust rigging and animation is in Modo yet since this is a fairly recent addition to the program. Also, I'm well vested in using LightWave for animation because I've been using it steadily for work since the late 1990's. I do like Modo and still use my 601 license for special modeling tasks but I also feel like the new owners have priced me out of their market.

BTW, this weekend I upgraded my iClone Pro 5/3DXchange Pipeline licenses to version 6. Reallusion has an excellent upgrade deal right now that was hard to resist, and at a fraction of what it would cost to upgrade our old Motion Builder license! I'll start learning the new tools while I wait for rest of my hardware upgrades to arrive. Version 6's editing system looks like it's gotten more capable and it should make a strong companion to iPi Mocap Studio. (I believe you already had some experience with that.) After we get our next two films completed, I have a small web-series in mind for iClone's realtime renderer, . (We'll continue using LightWave for our 'A-list' projects but we also want a faster solution for the web-series.)

Stay tuned for new R&D reports coming soon. :)

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

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Yeah, iClone 6 looks to be a usable product, I haven't had much time to delve into it fully, they just patched 6.2 with the basic character generator upgrade, haha very basic, but it lets you enhance iClone CC characters only I think, has upgradable packs for clothing and skins and such, I am not really interested in though.

I wanted it for use as a demo stage for animations and the price was reasonable, so grabbed it and easy to get iPi animations to load into it.

If you are integrating your own characters into iClone through the Xchange, you won't get all the cloth/hair physics or springs, I am not sure yet if they can be added in Maya and imported with all that, possibly though, maybe you are more aware from v5 of it.

I have been sidetracked in recent weeks with other projects and then Windows 10 upgrade and then Kinect v2 on top of it all, but should have everything back on track shortly.

I guess MODO has upgraded a lot in recent version, even to its animations capabilities just from reading through the site, but I have WebAnimate and 2014 versions of 3 autodesk products, so I will be good with that for a bit longer, just threw it up in case you wanted to look.

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