Steady feet on standing animation

mazinkaiserzero

Hi, I recently got keymate and graphmate to get into animation on Daz so I'm trying some simple poses first. First thing I tried is animating some sort of fighter up and down standing pose where the feet shouldn't be moving from their place (translation I mean). I normally use the posing controls manually for each part (bending, twist, etc) to change poses for renders but I thought it would be hard to get the feet in the exact same place that way because the way bending the legs, knees, etc. work, so I figured the best way would be to pin the feet translation and rotation and lower the hip directly with the universal tool on the viewport. The keyframe where I do this does look decent enough, but the feet on the frames between the first keyframe and that keyframe still move out of their place a bit making it look a bit wonky. It's like it doesn't calculate good enough how much to bend the legs to counter the hips lowering and keep the feet in their place.

So, I'm wondering if there is a better way to do it other than manually fixing each frame (which would be pretty hard not having some sort of onion skin option), like maybe it's better to first create and save the key poses and then load them on each keyframe instead of posing directly on them. Also, I'm trying to make short animations, like 8 or 9 frames long, so I don't know if maybe it's also a problem, like needing to use more frames to let Daz do a better job on the interpolations. Here's a link to the animation so far: https://giphy.com/gifs/5zf32CEHHe6aGW43Jc

Thanks for any feedback!

PD. Btw, is this tutorial worth it? https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio--getting-started-with-animation I went through the pinned animation tutorials thread but most links don't work anymore or are videos of reaally old versions of Daz so I'm not sure if the info there would be still good.

 

SixDs

You could try this, by mCasual:

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts7/mcjmovehiptopinthis

 

Learning3D

mazinkaiserzero said:

PD. Btw, is this tutorial worth it? https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio--getting-started-with-animation I went through the pinned animation tutorials thread but most links don't work anymore or are videos of reaally old versions of Daz so I'm not sure if the info there would be still good.

Also not sure if it is worth it. She has recorded it in 4.9 so it should be somehow relevant and teach some solid basics I guess? Did you buy it already?

rames44

The mcasual script you probably want to look at is https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts6/mcjautolimb2015 if you want to keep the hip position as animated and adjust the legs  

this does a really good job of fixing foot and hand position. Once you've done that, then https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjkeeporient Will keep the feet flat

Ivy

mazinkaiserzero said:

Hi, I recently got keymate and graphmate to get into animation on Daz so I'm trying some simple poses first. First thing I tried is animating some sort of fighter up and down standing pose where the feet shouldn't be moving from their place (translation I mean). I normally use the posing controls manually for each part (bending, twist, etc) to change poses for renders but I thought it would be hard to get the feet in the exact same place that way because the way bending the legs, knees, etc. work, so I figured the best way would be to pin the feet translation and rotation and lower the hip directly with the universal tool on the viewport. The keyframe where I do this does look decent enough, but the feet on the frames between the first keyframe and that keyframe still move out of their place a bit making it look a bit wonky. It's like it doesn't calculate good enough how much to bend the legs to counter the hips lowering and keep the feet in their place.

So, I'm wondering if there is a better way to do it other than manually fixing each frame (which would be pretty hard not having some sort of onion skin option), like maybe it's better to first create and save the key poses and then load them on each keyframe instead of posing directly on them. Also, I'm trying to make short animations, like 8 or 9 frames long, so I don't know if maybe it's also a problem, like needing to use more frames to let Daz do a better job on the interpolations. Here's a link to the animation so far: https://giphy.com/gifs/5zf32CEHHe6aGW43Jc

Thanks for any feedback!

PD. Btw, is this tutorial worth it? https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio--getting-started-with-animation I went through the pinned animation tutorials thread but most links don't work anymore or are videos of reaally old versions of Daz so I'm not sure if the info there would be still good.

 

,Hi mazinkaiserzero,

That tutorial you linked was made for daz 4.10 but, everything in it still applies for daz4.12 , minus information on using the new graph & key-frame editor. . We do have a new tutorial planned for daz 4.12 and aniamting with deforce  &  the new IK-chain system with the new improvements for the timeline is planned , when its going to be ready for web cast, i can't say at this time. I am still waiting for a few things to be addressed.

As far as the question with keeping the feet from sliding around , That has been the achilles heel in daz studio since i started animating with daz 11 year ago.   My foot slip issues are not so much with the idles sequences, as much as with walk or action cycles..,so there is a few things you can to to off set some of the foot slipping such as moving the hip {y} axis to the floor level that sometimes helps fix issues with older generation aniblocks and feet slipping specially if you were using a animations conversion scripts. . if you hand keyframe your animations you will find foot slipping a huge problem especially if your using pose to pose animations sequences mostly do to how the FK works in daz. . With those cases for me its pains-taking slow to create those type animations in daz because it usually requires going key-frame-by-key-frame, one at a time to corrrect the area of the slip & it comes with mix results . I find ti easiet now to plan for those type animated sequences ,  So over the years I learned  become creative with my camera's POV  to try not to film the feet during those trouble animation sequences. trying keeping the camera view about the knee level, which turns out in most cases  that type of close up POV will give you a little more dramatic results for high action scenes anyway..

There is a plugin called walkit by generationX found here http://www.pilning.net/  that allows you to create animations by follows foot prints you place along the characters path that works well for walk cycles and being able to interact with hard surfaces like a hilly ground or stairs. it was created for daz 4.10 as well,  but I have been working with it in daz 4.12 so the script still working for 4.12 for me.

Unfortunately Daz Studio Ik-chains does not have a hard surface pinning solution for the feet to ground,  like other software like Maya or Unity has. which would sure make animating much easier. Pinning the translations and rotations of the FK joints  will only give you stiff  rigging. and would not be a good solution ,  .So The foot slip is going to remain a issue even with the use of the new IK-chain being pinned 1 at a time for each foot step. I know I have tried it a bunch of times. .  But I am hopeful for the futures as daz add's and improves the animations tools  & timeline for daz studio. . I know it has been mention already but you may want to take a look at Mcasuals Autolimb jet script for hip placement https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts6/mcjautolimb2015

But as far as the tutorial you have posted above. its about a year old.& all the learning material & content was made for daz 4.10 as a beginners course. & will still apply for daz 4.12 minus the missing information for the new graph & keyframe editor that has been added to the daz 4.12 timeline,  which at the time the tutorial was made daz 4.10 did not have those features.   That tutorial was created to help learn the basic of animation with daz studio,  to help get a beginner started quickly, So for the basic knowledge of animating with daz studio is still good course for that information. like i said though minus the keyframe and graphic editors improvements which have been since added to daz 4.12

Thank you for your interest.