Animating in DAZ Studio - a big disappointment!

Thomas Windar

mjc1016 said:

It was explained in the video tutorial...there are extra bones in G3 that Active Pose does not know how to deal with.

Well, now I am exceptionally curious...

Custom figures work perfectly with the Active Pose tool - makes me wonder what are the problem bones...
I gotta experiment with Genesis 3 when I get home...

wolf359

"

Well, now I am exceptionally curious...

Custom figures work perfectly with the Active Pose tool - makes me wonder what are the problem bones...
I gotta experiment with Genesis 3 when I get home..."

 

 

 

Hi 
Along with the obvious face rig bones there is at least one extra bone in each shin and forearm of the G3 rig.
reportedly to accomodate a better "twist function"

"Well, I have sent a help ticket about this Genesis 3 issue. Now waiting for a reply.......Lol, no thank you!
I am tired of workarounds and buying stuff for things that DAZ is too lazy to fix. DAZ simply has to fix the Active Pose Tool for G3F - and nothing else. Since G3F is a DAZ figure and Active Pose Tool is a DAZ Studio function, I do not want to be forced to buy a third party product just to make things work, that should work by default.
Come on DAZ, please fix this problem! Thank you!"

Just FYI technically you dont have the buy another product in fact My personal experience is  that the Free G2-G3 animation retargeting script in the freebie section from "zaz777" actually gets me a better result than the paid one from Draagonstorm
( no offense to Draagonstorm)

As far as your help ticket goes.. dont be dissapointed if no fix is forthcoming as your problem is an animation problem
and does not really affect the Majority of Customers who only render still images.

Thomas Windar

wolf359 said:

Hi 
Along with the obvious face rig bones there is at least one extra bone in each shin and forearm of the G3 rig.
reportedly to accomodate a better "twist function"

Indeed there are - but my question is more of "why would it be confused by that"? I moved a 36 link chain before with the Active Pose tool and the pins were functioning correctly.

 ...found it.
Shin is the bugged bone. Or so I believe... cannot confirm it.

Every bone on the body behaves perfectly normal when pinned. The active pose seems to work fine everywhere else. 
The exception is the shin bone. Pinning the shin bone will indeed hold it in place when moving the feet - but trying to move the thigh or anything above will cause the figure to freak out. 

When you pin the shin bone and try to move the feet - it functions correctly. It looks like the thigh and above are ignoring some information that is coming through the shin.
Why do I think that? Because when you pin the shin and move the feet - the IK functions for the feet, heel, toes, metatersal... it's like the IK information stops somewhere in the shin and goes get a drink when you move the hip and thighs during pinning...

I don't know how to fix it. 

 

Also - apparently Genesis 3 can touch her right colar with the sole of her right foot.
Dem gymnasts... 

kitakoredaz

I do not think,, daz studio Active tool work for animatijon. and not think it is IK tool.

 if I pose  figure with Active tool,,then set key  I  will  need to fix all frames where I have not set key to actually pin the node position.it is not only about genesis3,, but genesis1 genesis2 too. this pic is genessi1 , just drug foward with all fot pined by Active tool. then set key frame 0 and  10 (about all nodes of genesis)

when I grab by gizmo,,with Active tool,,  I  see , the Active tool  pinned node not move at all. (about genesis1 genesis2  then, after I drop gizmo,, ds seems re-calculate all node rotation. to follow the current pin node position. , only about same frame,,I can say, Active tool pin working. but between keyed  frames, DS  not keep infomation to pin the node position.

I think DS offer IK in pose tool. but it seems very decent IK , with easy move pin. after all, There is no real IK tool for posing and Animation in current DS.

kitakoredaz

compare what I say ture IK.

just set IK for foots. then pose other node. set key frame 0

keep foot IK (not touch), then pose other node, set key frame 10

start animaiton.  between 0 to 10,  foot never move. non slide.  keep positon, then  can animate , pose easy.

 

wolf359

Thomas Windar said:

wolf359 said:

Hi 
Along with the obvious face rig bones there is at least one extra bone in each shin and forearm of the G3 rig.
reportedly to accomodate a better "twist function"

Indeed there are - but my question is more of "why would it be confused by that"? I moved a 36 link chain before with the Active Pose tool and the pins were functioning correctly.

 ...found it.
Shin is the bugged bone. Or so I believe... cannot confirm it.

Every bone on the body behaves perfectly normal when pinned. The active pose seems to work fine everywhere else. 
The exception is the shin bone. Pinning the shin bone will indeed hold it in place when moving the feet - but trying to move the thigh or anything above will cause the figure to freak out. 

When you pin the shin bone and try to move the feet - it functions correctly. It looks like the thigh and above are ignoring some information that is coming through the shin.
Why do I think that? Because when you pin the shin and move the feet - the IK functions for the feet, heel, toes, metatersal... it's like the IK information stops somewhere in the shin and goes get a drink when you move the hip and thighs during pinning...

I don't know how to fix it. 

 

Also - apparently Genesis 3 can touch her right colar with the sole of her right foot.
Dem gymnasts... 

If indeed you "fix" it you will likely break every piece of Genesis 3 content you own or plan to own. This is a baked cake. Leave it alone.

laststand6522732

What an informative thread.  It may save me some cursing.

Thomas Windar

 

wolf359 said:

If indeed you "fix" it you will likely break every piece of Genesis 3 content you own or plan to own. This is a baked cake. Leave it alone.

You are absolutely right here - fortunately for me, I don't know how to fix it. 
I was hoping this is something super simple, like maybe renaming a node. (I know this might sound dumb - but let's remember programming errors happen when you are one letter off from a variable name....aside from other things.)

Turned out its not. All I can say that it's something in the Shin bone. Or at least - it seems like it from the tool's behavior. 

 

 

kitakoredaz said:

I do not think,, daz studio Active tool work for animatijon. and not think it is IK tool.

 if I pose  figure with Active tool,,then set key  I  will  need to fix all frames where I have not set key to actually pin the node position.it is not only about genesis3,, but genesis1 genesis2 too. this pic is genessi1 , just drug foward with all fot pined by Active tool. then set key frame 0 and  10 (about all nodes of genesis)

when I grab by gizmo,,with Active tool,,  I  see , the Active tool  pinned node not move at all. (about genesis1 genesis2  then, after I drop gizmo,, ds seems re-calculate all node rotation. to follow the current pin node position. , only about same frame,,I can say, Active tool pin working. but between keyed  frames, DS  not keep infomation to pin the node position.

I think DS offer IK in pose tool. but it seems very decent IK , with easy move pin. after all, There is no real IK tool for posing and Animation in current DS.

Ah I see.
You win - it does do that. XP

Although funny thing - it only does that when you need feet to stay still. There are completely no issues if you move anything above the hip. 
...I have no clue why it does that. 

.....and it seems to prefer altering the left foot....

mjc1016

Thomas Windar said:

wolf359 said:

Hi 
Along with the obvious face rig bones there is at least one extra bone in each shin and forearm of the G3 rig.
reportedly to accomodate a better "twist function"

Indeed there are - but my question is more of "why would it be confused by that"? I moved a 36 link chain before with the Active Pose tool and the pins were functioning correctly.

 ...found it.
Shin is the bugged bone. Or so I believe... cannot confirm it.

Every bone on the body behaves perfectly normal when pinned. The active pose seems to work fine everywhere else. 
The exception is the shin bone. Pinning the shin bone will indeed hold it in place when moving the feet - but trying to move the thigh or anything above will cause the figure to freak out. 

When you pin the shin bone and try to move the feet - it functions correctly. It looks like the thigh and above are ignoring some information that is coming through the shin.
Why do I think that? Because when you pin the shin and move the feet - the IK functions for the feet, heel, toes, metatersal... it's like the IK information stops somewhere in the shin and goes get a drink when you move the hip and thighs during pinning...

I don't know how to fix it. 

 

Also - apparently Genesis 3 can touch her right colar with the sole of her right foot.
Dem gymnasts... 

It probably has a lot to do with how the bones are set up and named...in the case of the extra leg bones, those are 'twist' bones and have one rotation...twist.  But are 'connected' to the other thigh bone which handles the other rotations.  Looking at the tutorial video, it looked to me that the translations/rotations on the thigh bones were about 2x what they should have been,,,which can be explained if it's treating the paired bones separately.

wolf359

"It probably has a lot to do with how the bones are set up and named...in the case of the extra leg bones, those are 'twist' bones and have one rotation...twist.  But are 'connected' to the other thigh bone which handles the other rotations.  Looking at the tutorial video, it looked to me that the translations/rotations on the thigh bones were about 2x what they should have been,,,which can be explained if it's treating the paired bones separately."

This appears to be the same "issue" that is making Characterizing G3 in Autodesk Motionbuilder such a chore.

Can someone explain to me what practical , real world advantages these extra limb bones bring to us Character animators???

Richard Haseltine

wolf359 said:

"It probably has a lot to do with how the bones are set up and named...in the case of the extra leg bones, those are 'twist' bones and have one rotation...twist.  But are 'connected' to the other thigh bone which handles the other rotations.  Looking at the tutorial video, it looked to me that the translations/rotations on the thigh bones were about 2x what they should have been,,,which can be explained if it's treating the paired bones separately."

This appears to be the same "issue" that is making Characterizing G3 in Autodesk Motionbuilder such a chore.

Can someone explain to me what practical , real world advantages these extra limb bones bring to us Character animators???

The problem is that in general the bend are localised - at the knees and elbows for example - while the twists, being two bones turning relative to each other, run along the whole length of the joint. As a result they require completely different weight maps, and the general weight-mapping used in Genesis 3 (and in most other CA tools to my highly limited knowledge) allows only oen weight-map per bone. As a result splitting the bend and the twist into two bones is, I gather, pretty common.

wolf359

"As a result they require completely different weight maps, and the general weight-mapping used in Genesis 3 (and in most other CA tools to my highly limited knowledge) allows only oen weight-map per bone. As a result splitting the bend and the twist into two bones is, I gather, pretty common."

Thanks this is quite correct.
I just had a look at some other rigs I have in Lightwave 2015 and Maxon Cinema4D.

However these other riggs Will accept  their own BVH files as long as the naming convention and actual number of bones is correct.this is how we are able to use Dedicated motion creation apps like Iclone or motionbuilder to create motion in real time and send it back to our main rendering app to apply it to the H i res rig  the final render.

Genesis 3 will not accept its own BVH files back in DS exported Directly from Daz studio or from a properly Characterized genesis 3 Rig animated in Iclone  pro.

I have opened G3 BVH files in a BVH viewing app and can see the extra twist bones are present during playback.
is this just some  limitation of the Daz studio BVH importer??

kitakoredaz

The BVH problem about G3 is most serious for me.  I remember BVH things are clear reported by other uesr,  afer daz release G3 figures.

I think,, it cuased by how daz set up parameter,, about , G3 twist rigs and parent (bend , side-side) rigs . DAZ use Alias to controll and limit X,Y,Z rotation for two linked bone .  

then hide other rotation. when  we  select  "side -side" and " bend" bone,, and twist,, "twist bone" weight map work and  it twist. , then when we select "twist" bone,, then "side-side" and "bend",, actually parented bone weight map "side-side" and "bend".works. the problem is may be,, those nodes parameter not represent actually each node parameter. (x, y, z rotation)

I feel it cause difficultiy about those export import things.  

May be if we set up same way (eg remove Alias, then trun visible, actuall all  rotation  parameters) , in daz studio,, then all weight map are visible,, after that,,  export and import may  work more easy I feel.  (and DAZ seems not allow us to set Alias about those rotation parmeter, as same as G3 figures. at current. I may get no answer about these things when I ask support)

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/71366/can-i-make-clone-alias-of-rig-rotation-properties

XoechZ

Hello!

I got an answer from Tech Support about this issue. Here it is:

 

"I apologize that Genesis 3 figures don't work correctly with the Active Pose Tool. This is a known issue that has been submitted to our QA Team and they are looking into it. I'll let you know as soon as this is resolved."

 

So let´s hope the best...

DrGonzo62

I am late to the party, I know..

So, it seems that G3 animation is currently pretty much limited to within DAZ, besides iClone?

DrGonzo62

DrGonzo62 said:

I am late to the party, I know..

So, it seems that G3 animation is currently pretty much limited to within DAZ, besides iClone?

I was able to find a tutorial for Genesis 3 import/exports to and from Motionbuilder - so, never mind..