3DXChange and DAZ rigging confusion
kwannie
Posts: 869
I have been dabbling with DAZ for many years now and find that no matter how much I learn I cannot seem to solve the basic requirements. There are a few areas that are problematic in DS that I hope some learned individual here can shed a bit of light on(Ironically Lighting is one of those problem areas). But, I would like to know if anyone knows what is going on between the rigging between 3DXchange and DAZ. I do a lot of MMD motion conversions and learned how to do it with 3DXchange here in the the forums. I export the charcter FBX from DAZ into 3DXchange and apply the Imotion I created from the MMD FBX . Everything looks good inside of 3DXchange when motion applied to a DAZ character. When I export to the motion to BVH that I just saw working perfect on a DAZ character in 3DXchange, and import that BVH on to the same characters in DAZ, the G1 looks good, but the the G3 BVH doesn't conform as well in DAZ ( shoulders and arms don't move correctly). Mind you, I made two seperate conversions in 3DXchange one for G1 based and one for G3 based. I am trying to understand rigging and I am yet still a total novice, so it seems to me that the same rig should move the same in 3DXchange or DAZ. Anyone have any ideas on the matter? Thanks!
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Comments
you are better off using Genesis 1 and saving that as a pose preset or evem Micheal 4
if saved on Genesis it is not too far off on Genesis 3 and there are various conversion tools free and paid for to get it to the other figures
Wendy,
Yeah, I have tried the Zaz script but I have to use the G1 BVH I created in 3DXchange applied to G2 to transfer to G3 with Zaz becauase there is no G1 or V5 to G3. The motion still looks OK on G2. The arms on G3 just won't accpt the transfer correctly though . There are places where the motion calls for placing the hands on the hips and it just twists the arm about half way on G3 after the transfer. Also when motion calls for clapping G3 doesn't bring hands all the way together. Again it seems like the twisting in the arms and shoulders are the problem. I have the same issue with the G2 to G3 converter I bought also, and the feet covert that great with that one either. The think I don't understand though is that the motions look fine in 3DXchange when applide to the DAZ characters. You know of any different converters ?
no sorry
I basically don't bother most the time either use figures that work in DAZ studio or just use iClone, I know I can get most things over to Micheal 4 from there it varies each generation
BTW did you try just loading the saved genesis 1 duf motion on 3?
you didn't say you did
50% of the time it works
How exactly do you do that again? Is it just saving a G1 animation and applying to G3? I tried before on short animations and got a lot of feet sliding in G3. but I don't remember now how you said it was done. Most of my animations are several thousand frames.
yeah like I said 50% of the time, Poses for Genesis 1 work on 3 but animations vary a lot depending on whether the hip or the root bone is the means of transformation, no easy answers other than on the spot motions not using the root
What was the process again to use the G1 duf on G3?
click and load ................if it works, as I said poses do but animation iffy
saved duf animations NOT Reallusion facekeys, better make that clear
@Kwannie Make sure you are using the The latest version of Daz studio
when importing external ,Iclone retargeted BVH back into Daz studio to Genesis 3
Daz made some updates to the BVH importer in version 4.10.xx
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/203781/bvh-import-4-9-vs-4-10-beta-see-for-yourselves
@Wendy so far all of my G1 duf files used on G3 have worked fine with major root locomotion
(walks and runs) as long as I Choose the hip as the "root "in 3DX before export
Although the hands behave a little strangely at times but nothing not easily fixed with graphMate.
Thanks Wolf,
I noticed that the shoulders and arms always seem to come out wrong no matter which G2 to G3 conversion package is used. I thought that the one by Dragonstorm was working OK on converting the arms but it looks like I'm having simular problems as with the Zaz converter. I was also getting a bit of jerkiness in the legs with the Dragonstorm script, I've had that script for a while so I'm not sure if there is an update I missed. I still was hoping to get a good bvh out of 3DXchange but still............shoulders and arms..!!!!!! I know there is at one other G2 to G3 converter in the store but does anyone know if it works any different?
Don't forget to unlock nodes and turn rotation limits off before applying a BVH or animated pose preset derived from FBX
Yep, I turned off limits, but not sure what you mean by unlock nodes. None are locked in the parameters menu. I assumed they were all unlocked when limits were turned off. The only thing that seems to consistantly be problematic with G3 is that the twist of eith the shoulder or upper arms, the just don't quite twist as far as the motion does on G1 or G2. Like I said before the motion calls for hands being place on hips and after transfer the arms are twisted to about a 45% degree angle away from the hips outward. Its the same for all the G2 to G3 conversions I try.
Every since this discovery was made by our very own Wendy
All of those various converters were sundered moot IMHO
and most of them only worked ,by default, for the Females anyway
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/
I have a long running feature length animated film project
That I am using Iclone pro pipeline to create all of my major body
motion with realtime Iclone Avatars
I retarget the motion to G1/G2 in 3Dxchange pipeline and export
BVH back to Daz.
I recently started using the G3 males in my film
any motion intended to the G3 F/M is retargeted to a GENESIS ONE
figure,imported to GENESIS ONE in Daz studio then saved as .duf animated pose file
and it will work on G3M/F with minimal Corrections needed using graphMate
ONLY a saved .duf works this way on G3
I am doing this daily.
Have you followed this procedure as described in the linked thread?
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/
I am finding lots of exceptions though
yes genesis 1 poses work on 3 and animations imported and saved the correct way
but what I cannot do for example is bake earlier generation aniblocks apply save and then apply them as AniMate adds keyframes to every body part baked
thats one example there have been many other cases so its not an all in one solution but if you do go via iClone 3Dxchange and genesis 1 and save it on genesis it should work on genesis 3 as well as it does on 1 at least just maybe not the hands and feet as well.
My problem also is many things won't work on genesis 1 either
and my best example was a lovely dance animation from 3D render people
I cannot get it into iClone either
well not as an iMotion retargetted
To be honest I have stopped harvesting the older stuff from the Mill4
aniMate 1.2xx days or other online sources like carnegie mellon etc,
since I started using Iclone for base layer motion building.
To me it iseasier and more predictable to simply use motion puppet,mixed moves and the combined libraries
of my old Iclone 5.5 thru 6.5 where I remain today.
After BVH export to Daz ,I use graphMate for final refinement after culling down the keyframe
population for easier spline graph editing
with the free Key frame reduction script from Mcasual,
.
Typically if a third party BVH does not work for Genesis1 at minimum, I automaticly declare
it not worth the effort, except in the case of Endorphin.
The ragdoll BVH, that Endorphin exports, is only completely compatible with Daz/poser Mill 3 and below
In that instance I apply them to Mike3 in poser pro 2014 and re export the BVH to Iclone 3DX for
conversion to imotion
only then does it apply correctly on the native Iclone avatars
1) Right click root node in the scene => select => select all children
2) While selection is active , edit => figure => unlock selected nodes
3) While selection is active , edit => figure => limits off rotation
Did you also make sure your bvh map is applied correctly? When you import a bvh, hit the show details button. Go through each category (e.g. hip matches with hip, etc..) You can uncheckmark things you don't need (eg. if you're not doing facial animation, there is no use applying the facial rig keys, they would just be empty keys and clutter, slowing down the system)
Do you have "show hidden properties" enabled in the parameters menu ? By default, some channels are locked off. For example, x-rotate for should bend. If your bvh has channels labelled such as x,y,z rotation, the data won't get pasted properly into that node if it's locked. G3,G8 use the "twist" bones - but they don't actually do anything biomechanically, they are only there for weight map purposes. Twist is actually x-rotation of the bone above, but with a name change. If you alter the twist value in the bone above (shoulder bend), it will be copied to the "twist bone" and vice versa. If you unlock x-rotation and set it, say 30 degrees . Load another same model and use twist of 30 degrees. Exactly the same. It's naming convention that causes the problems . Retargetting software, generic motions, generic BVH, generic FBX's will use a different name (x-rotation) for the channels and that won't get pasted properly unless it's unlocked. It's the same thing with the thigh twist. This is why you get the wobbly arm and leg motion, even though it looked ok in another program; x-rotation keys are missing
eg. here is a mmd vmd => bvh example . Left is unlocked + rotation limits off . Right is rotation limits off only
pdr0,
Thank You!
Actully yes, your suggestion did the trick. I have always been in the practice of setting limits off but I never even knew about unlocking nodes. Honestly all that is over my head a bit, lol. So unlocking allows for rotation information to be passed from other software programs that might use different naming conventions for rotations? Since you have obviously worked with VMD conversion, I am also curious about the nessecity of placeing the MMD character FBX into the Tpose instead of keeping the A pose inside of Iclone when creating a non standard character that the the imotion will be derived from. I can't seem to retatin the alignment in the arms from the original VMD when I set the MMD character into the Tpose. For example, in Happy Halloween when the character places hands in front of eyes like she is looking through binoculars, I can't ever get both the hands to like up in front of the eyes. I assume it has to do with changing to T pose.
It should be a T-pose ; but if it's not working by all means try the A-pose
Does the original FBX look ok in 3DX ? Some PMX models have additional bones , it might be that your mapping isn't correct. Some vmd motions require models that have additional bones; so if your base PMX model isn't correct, the motion in the FBX will be flawed to begin with
Does the retarget to G3F (or whatever model) look ok in 3DX? or is the issue only when you apply the BVH back in DS ?
pdr0,
I use a simple TDAbase as the MMD model and run the PMX2FBX converter to create an FBX which is then opened in 3Dxchange. I extract the imotion from the FBX then close 3dXchange, then re-open with a DAZ FBX. I usually only use a G1 FBX to re import the iclone motion I created then export a BVH. I did discover that if I simply import the FBX that was created with PMX2FBX into Ikinema WebAnimate and then save it out as a FBX (with a different name), I can remove the root bone issues it would have had in 3DXchange, ( sliding feet, clipping.....). I am wondering now if I can use a G3 or G8 FBX and apply the imotion and export to BVH, then inside of DAZ unlock nodes to remove the arm twist and sliding feet that I was getting before. As I said I normally export the BVH only for G1 then do an animation transfer to G3.
By the way pdr0, what VMD was that in your example?
But in 3DX , how clean was the FBX motion when you imported it ? eg. There might be incompatible bones with your specific motion, or PMX model issues
There should not be any major sliding feet or big issues at that stage. If there is, go back and try a different PMX base.
But PMX2FBX is not perfect, neither is any other VMD conversion method - There are always some interpolation issues with vmd to anything - motion is never 100% perfect. You almost always have to do some cleanup
I mostly use motionbuilder . It's definitely better and more powerful, but more complex. My friend has iclone/3dx, so I played with it and know the basic workflow works. Most problems are from bad T-pose or bad characterization. Same with motionbuilder. If you start with good T-pose, you reduce the amount of clean up you have to do later. For example, the base G1,G2,G3,G8 aren't in a proper T-pose when exported from DS. And some models (source or destination) are not quite normal (e.g they have distortions, some are fat which push out the arms, or some rotations are weird, or some bones are weird), so sometimes you might need to adjust the T-pose slightly
You should not need to apply to G1 then something else if you have 3dx, or any retargetting software. That defeats the purpose, introduces more errors. You should apply directly to the model you are using (G3, G8 or any other class, even non Daz)
"Whatta Man" motion trace by NatsumiSan - because you mentioned issues with hands clapping, hands on hips. This section had both - to explain the reason behind why it is occurring with the twist bones and locked x-rotation