Hey, i made a character in Lightwave and made a test bvh in ipisoft. When i import my bvh file into lightwave, i cant merge it with my character. Also the imported bvh shows skeleton which is atleast a 100 times larger than my model. I know that the bvh file is correct because i somehow managed to get it work in motionbuilder by dragging and dropping it but thats the extent of my MB knowledge. I dont know how to add further animations in motionbuilder. If anyone can shine a light on what i am doing wrong or any way to make it work in lightwave, ill b grateful. Really need help here.

My model (FBX File)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/48363601/Chief.fbx

My BVH File (ipisoft)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/48363601/video_ ... -58-30.bvh

Set the scale of your BVH in Lightwave. to .1 or .01

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUv34Dk ... ideo_title

We made this Turkey in Lightwave as well/.

using iPi BVH.

i will post you a tutorial soon for your Cheiftan model

Thanks and Cheers

Thanks a lot. I tried to scale it down but it messes up the skeleton by making overlapping bones, dual bones, misplaced bones.. just all kinds of weird behavior. I tried size tool after importing it in but it doesnt work either. Looking forward to your tutorial. Im probably (most definitely) doing something wrong on my end. Appreciate your help. Thanks again.

My advice is that it's significantly better to import only the motion data to an existing Lightwave rig instead of a .bvh file and using that as your rig. To do this, export an FBX out of iPi and then in Lightwave use Load From Scene with Merge Only Motion Envelopes enabled. Assuming your LW skeleton matches the iPi skeleton, the motion will transfer directly to your Lightwave skeleton, and use your existing weights and controls. (You can have extra bones, like special 'holder bones' so long as they don't interrupt the main structure.)

The key advantage to doing it this is that you can reliably use a single character rig, properly weighted in Lightwave with a controls over and over again--unlike when you directly import a .bvh where you have to recreate your rig with each import. (Which would be incredibly inefficient.)

What I do is a little more complicated in that I export to Motion Builder first for retargeting (which you can do also within iPi for humanoid characters,) and then export an FBX. But from there on, it's basically the same procedure.

I will have a completed short film created using iPi DMC, single and dual Kinect Sensors, and Lightwave 10.1, posted on our YouTube channel in the next day or two that features three characters in about 17 shots which were created using the above technique.

I'll be happy to answer questions about this project and the workflow after I'm done, and in the future I want to make a few demo videos of the process. (It might later next month as I think I'm about to be sucked into a ton of OT at work.)

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Hi Greenlaw. When i try to export FBX in ipisoft, it gives out the following error: "Can not export Z:\something something. Only eEULER_XYZ rotation order is supported on export."

Thanks.

Wow. Sorry this didn't work as expected. I'm not sure what that error means.

I actually have very little experience with retargeting within iPi and exporting FBX directly from this program. I normally export FBX out of MB or Maya and it works perfectly for LW. I imagine others here have successfully exported FBX from iPi Studio for other applications as it's a fairly common exchange format, so hopefully an iPi dev or an artist who does this routinely will recognize that error and respond with advice or a solution.

I'll test it out myself as soon as I get the chance (maybe tonight after work) and let you know if I get the same error.

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

G you really are a life saver. I finally got it to work. I first exported a BVH from ipisoft, then converted that BVH into FBX in motionbuilder. Then imported that FBX into lightwave like you said, replaced the object with my 3d model, activated the bones (which i wasn't doing yesterday, little things :)) and finally it started to work.

There is another thing, when i export FBX out of motionbuilder, it exports two object files called BVH_reference and fbx_bone_hierarchy_standin. Should i import both of these or just the fbx_bone one? Also what does "Merge only motion envelopes" actually do?

And thanks again. I am really grateful for all the help that you and truebones have given me. I would be nowhere without you guys. Really appreciate it. Now i just need to figure out how to use Dual Kinects and finish my project by the end of this month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeAJUBreKjg

Here I took the Cheiftan into iPiSoft then exported the motion of of the rigg.

I used the Chieftan BVH as an import character, seems to work fine.

note I noticed you did not have an abdomen and HIPS needed to be named hip. (always as root)

Great Model... Does he have a texture?

Here is the target BVH and profile for the cheiftan.

http://www.truebones.com/cheiftan.rar

Cheers

I'm glad you're getting it to work.

In a nutshell, this is what I do:

1. Build a rigged character in Lightwave using the Motion Builder standards. Export FBX for MB.
2. Record and track motions in iPi DMC. Export .bvh for Motion Builder (use the MB specific option.)
3. Import the .bvh and Lightwave FBX to Motion Builder. Retarget and edit as needed. Export an FBX for Lightwave.
4. In Lightwave, open the character rig and select the root item. Select Load From Scene choose the MB FBX file, select only the root item in the list and enable Load Only Motion Envelopes. Load the data.

The result should be the edited iPi motions applied to the original Lightwave character rig. If this doesn't work, the problem is probably:

1. There was more than one take in the MB FBX; Lightwave expects only one take in an imported FBX and can get confused if there are more. Go back to MB, make a copy of your scene, and delete all but the desired take.

...or...

2. The hierarchy has been changed somewhere between LW and MB and you'll need to fix it.

The procedure is otherwise 'foolproof' (and I'm the fool who's proving it!) :)

I'm planning to record a simplifed workflow video pretty soon. Let you know when that's done.

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

BTW, be sure to visit Rebel Hill's website and watch his MB2LW FBX tutorial videos--tons of very useful information in there.

Another LW user, Cageman, created a couple of tutorial videos for me that also helped me wrap my head around this stuff. I'll ask if he can make those public.

G.

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

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!