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Canine movements- mocap for animals! Anything out there that works for Daz figures?

philiphowephiliphowe Posts: 53
in Product Suggestions

I keep buying lots of supposed mo cap or keyframed animations for various animals but frankly none of it is good. Its usually so distorted or won't match up to the Daz animals. FBX, for example, can't be imported as there is no bone sync. The solution is to go into Motion Builder (Autodesk) and re-rig the figure based on a daz bone set for each animal, then, hopefully, it will work. Or output the figure in obj, then import into Maya or Max, then rebuild the bones, export to Motion Builder, import the fbx mocap, then export the whole figure, with animation intact, back into Daz. I've even tried overlapping the rig or bone set, etc. None of these seem to work.

 If anyone knows if there is a company making canine motions, that work in Daz, please let me know. I have a large project with a wolf and a Boston Terrier, both models I have, that there is no animation for, short of my keying each, which I've done but it doesn't look smooth or natural. I even used various morphs then filled in, but that still looks clunky. Hopefully, someone will have a few ideas. Renderosity has a pack of keyframed animations for animals, but they look dubious. The companies that create the mo cap have very few dog motions and they charge a lot to have new ones made. All I really need is a run, walk, jump, turn, growl, sequence. I can fudge the rest. Thanks for any help. Phil

 

Comments

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,219

    You can try using BVHacker to duplicate and rename bone hierarchies on human walks.

    Taking legs and making them arms.

    A BVH export of the animal will give you the naming conventions needed.

    In D|S after importing the motions you could tweak postures etc, I do not find it easy to do such stuff in studio though but the keymate plugin might help.

    This is all much easier to do in Poser which I also use for retargetted motions I do in iClone 3DXchange, I believe Ikinema also does it but BVHacker is free.

  • philiphowephiliphowe Posts: 53

    Hi.Thanks. I was trying to avoid re-rigging. I can work in MotionBuilder as well, but you would think someone out there would be savvy enough to create usable mo-cap or quality key-framed animations for animals, especially dogs. I just need a wolf and small dog. Part of the problem is, after redoing my main dog character, morphed down to Boston Terrier size, whenever I try to import or use any animations, he always resizes back up to default dog size. If I can get the animations to work, then I'll save them as both bvh and Animate2 files which should work with other quadrapeds. 

    I haven't tried Reallusions iClone animations yet, but see that they have some for the german shepard, similar to the wolf. I can buy the movements, use 3DXchange  and bring them into Daz, but from what I am seeing on their site, the motions are poorly keyframed and either stiff looking or amateurish. At this rate, I might as well do my own keyframing. Just thought someone might know of a good source for Daz directly. 

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,219

    I am afraid they have to choose to sell them at DAZ to help you here, I certainly have a few I bought elserwhere.

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