Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
She's wearing strapless underwire bra cups and panties
I use motionbuilder, and the solution there is to lock the joints. (ie. lock the shoulder bends, forearm bends for x-rotation; lock the twist bones for Y,Z rotation for the upper limbs. For the thighs, the bends have the Y locked, twists have the X,Z locked). Essentially that forces the solved data to go where it's supposed to go - the twist goes into the twist bones. That's the "proper" way to solve the motion to make it compatible with G3/G8 weight mapping. That also makes the motion more accurate, it's not a bit "off" - it becomes essentially perfect match to what you have in motionbuilder. I don't use 3DX, but one of my friends has it, and I played with it before. If I have time , I'll see if there is a solution there. But if you know offhand if you can lock specific joints, that's how it should be done
I agree, and pmx2fbx is the method I've been using too . The "major" issues like massive foot sliding, or floating, etc.. mostly taken care of
(except I use it with motionbuilder, and fbx with animated pose preset instead of bvh, because bvh has other limitations e.g you can't do blendshape (morph) animations. Some G8 HD expressions are driven by bones and morphs )
pmx2fbx is the "best" vmd transfer method overall, by a long shot. I've tried the others. But there are always problems, more than typical mocap
The quality of the FBX conversion is affected by using a matching base with bones with that specific VMD. If the VMD readme doesn't list which model type and what bones , you might chose a wrong one.
For example, I tried that TDA Teto Base with another motion , and there were some issues, intersections, because it doesn't have the arm twist bones required for that motion
That flying spirits base seems to have some IK issues - whenever a motion specifies a bend or reach down, the toes lift up
Is there a "super duper base" that works for everything ? Probably not . It can be quite finicky IMO , trial and error, unless the specific model and bones are provided or listed in the VMD readme
Not sure; I haven't really tried transferring MMD clothing . If I have time I'll check it
marble, I have been able to get decent quality animations by tweaking iray parameters and most of the time I can get 5 to 6 frames a minute. Yep about 10 seconds per frame and the trick is the compexity of the scene. All of the pics I included wereframes from animations that I did with only a few second spent on each rendered frames. I always use image series renders so I cam save and come back to continue rendering. I would love however to find more ways of adding more complexity ( more elaborate stages, lighting more background characters) and getting rendering times down. Using older generations and doing toon styling cuts down on the memory hog textures of G3 and G8. but again alway looking for new ideas.
Pose Estimation would be useful, even if it was only partially accurate. Please report back if you find anything . I don't speak/understand the language and it's very difficult for English users to navigate deep in the MMD community
Another reason I prefer no clothing - you can "see" those types of deformation issues , right at the PMX2FBX stage. If you see mesh issues, it's probably a bad PMX base for that motion. Clothing can hide problems.
Also, the "bad" G3/G8 mesh deformations can cause problems in other programs like MD or in maya, or other simulations. Cloth simulations tend to like smooth surfaces, not bumpy or gaps like the shoulder, elbow problems. The cloth can "hitch" on those problems. Or D-force. D-force is very finicky and explode because of those deformation issues. It's a similar concept to using FBX vs. OBJ in MD. The FBX is usually base resolution , bumpy shoulders where the cloth can catch . But the OBJ has been subd'ed properly in DS , smoother and simulates better and more accurately
Again, wow! 5-6 frames a minute - the best I have been able to achieve for a scene with 2 Genesis figures (3 and 8) and very little by way of furniture or props is about 2.5 minutes per frame. I could use noise reduction but that produces quite poor results to my eye. However, we are probably talking apples and melons here. I tend to produce scenes with the character much closer to the camera than the figures in the MMD dance animations and the closer, the slower the render.
yes, 5-6 frames a min seems pretty fast for Iray
What were the image dimensions ?
What is your hardware setup ?
pdr0 Like I mentioned above I am not sure why, but I always import the FBX from pmx2fbx into Ikinema the export it right back out and then import that saved FBX into 3DXchange and for some reason that fixes the hip issues I usually encounter if I just imported the FBX directly from pmx2fbx into 3DXchange. I also know could use Ikinema to clean up the animation with the ACP funtion it has and the foot penetration function, but for some reason I can't get it to work on an animation with more that a few hundred frames. Ikinema crashes alot on me too when I try to retartget I guess because I don't have enough memory. It really is an outstanding program though.
Beleive it or not that is actually at 1080 by 872 the size of my avtive window and I'm just using a standard 8gig nvidia 1080 with 16 gigs of memory. I set to scene only, 100 samples, render quality off and usualy a single light and Optix Prime on. The more items I throw in the scene the small I set image size, but sometimes I use the oversize trick by using lower samples on larger image then shrinking the output size in gimp.
Kwannie, have you tried VirtAMate? It's a game being developed that uses G2 models (G8 support coming) and has a BVH importer running on Unity so it's real time animations. Apparently you can use OBS to film the animations you produce and I've seen some pretty decent videos done with it. It also has dynamic hair in it and you can import assets from the Unity store and clothing made with MD. This user created a rough MMD to VAM importer https://www.reddit.com/r/VAMscenes/comments/9do90t/i_give_you_the_mmd_to_vam_importer/
.
Hmmmm, That is very interesting FSMC and I am absoluely looking into that as I love VR prospects. Do you think you could import the converted BVH files in that we are talking about in this thread? How would it handle the turning off limitations and unlocking nodes that can be applied in DS? I saw few videos of Virtamate with clothing manipulation (naughty samples I might add), but having the ablility to have a charater grab a skirt and flay it about while dancing is one of the appeals of DForce. How is that acheived in Virtamate.
The reason I'm looking for ideas about bringing MMD into DS is to take advantage of the toolssuch as cloth manipulation with DForce or VWD. That is one of the reasons I don't simply use Iclone, beause while it has softcloth it is not possible to key any cloth manipulation. Most music videos have alot of interaction between the performers an clothes such as MJ pulling up sleeves while dancing or frank Sinatra very suavely opening his jacket and slinging it acroos one shoulder and who can forget Marilyn Monroe slapping her dress down as the wind blows it up. Physics adds a lot but interaction and manipulation is really needed for realism. Right now DAZ is the only affordable soulution that gets closer to being able to acheive any of this. Again thats why I struggle with Iray because how do export character motions clothing motions and the interactions between them? I gotta tell you finding ready motions or poses to do any of this is impossible. I mean think of the sample of Frank Sinatra and his jacket. How do you go about finding an animation sequence for just the hands to unbutton a jacket. It should not be to create hand poses for unbuttoning but try to find a pose set or aniblock ready made. There is suck a lack of utility animations available for generall use that the reason I look too MMD is to try to facilitate the simple motions, and MMD assets are generally free.
FSMC I just looked at your DA site. uhm.....................WOW!
very nice any of your creations going into Virtamate?
pdr0 I just tried a new conversion and this one really has twist issues in the arms I'm attaching it so maybe you can look at. Its a beautiful motion except for the twist problems.
I understand the interaction part and agree, but animating in iray is just painfully slow and tedious IMO. Now that I am obsessed with VR and playing around with apps like virtamate and Unity, a game engine and real time physics is the only way to go IMO unless you do have the bucks to get Maya or Max. I never thought animation was even an option in DS till I started playing in VR and game engines, now it's totally an option. In the apps I am playing with in VR, you can add controllers and animation patterns to bring any character to life in real time and interact with it, something that would take forever to see results in DS. If you do get virtamate, check out what these guys are doing with dance and animation. It's probably the closest thing to what you are trying to do https://www.patreon.com/user?u=9712247
LOL, thanks. the app doesn't suport G3 or G8 yet, but I have created some very nice characters in it with the included morphs and the ones the communiity have created ;-)
It's the exact same underlying problem with twist bones. The data isn't placed in the correct channel
For motions /dances that have small magnitude of twist bone rotations, it might only look "off" a bit .
For the "OnTheRocksSinger" , that magnitude of twist bone rotation was lower - so the problems weren't as noticable
But for TetoThousand-Year Snow - the twist values are larger so the deformations are more severe. Especially the forearm twist. Looks like rubber arm. Basically it's unusable even from a distance
If you "show hidden properties" in the parameters tab, you can see that the x-rotation is pasted in the hidden "x-rotate" channel. You might be able to cut and paste from the shoulder bend's x-rotate to the shoulder twist 's twist if you have graphmate/keymate for DS, or in timeline in 4.12 beta . You'd do the same for cut/paste the Forearm Bend's x-rotate to the Forearm Twist's Twist . Similar for the thigh bend and twist
Or, can you edit the bvh in iclone, 3dx or webanimate ? eg. Can you cut and paste keys or animation curves ? If you can, you should be able to fix it by cutting x-rotation from the shoulder bend and pasting into the twist bone . Or maybe edit the channels in blender, but I think maybe the bvh and fbx export has issues
In some programs, configuring the "locks" on the twist bones might be called something like "degrees of rotation", or "limits" , or "constraints" - look for those words in 3DX
EDIT:
Looking more closely at the BVH directly, it almost looks like the BVH motion has problems where the x-rotation forearm data is clipped , they look like flat lines or plateaus. Also the values are very high like 550 degrees in some sections. I don't think the motion was solved correctly, or there were motion problems in the first place
Does it look ok in 3DX ? Copy and pasting keys from channels would only work if it looks ok in 3DX , but "bad" once you apply the BVH in DS
I can't find the VMD to check if the motion is the problem, or some PMX2FBX issue, or maybe 3DX issue, or some other issue
FSMC I love the idea of VR but honestly C& G Studio looks a bit wild for my taste. I actually like the idea of a vintage setting like a jazz club with singers or a theater like in 1980's Japan Music show "Night Hit Studio". I'm not Asian but I waslove the Asian styling and culture. One of my pics above shows a depiction of a 1980's AV idol I aqctually used face gen to create her. I also love vaudeville and would love to recreate some of the naughty yet tasteful song and dance routines. Thats why I would love something like pose estimation so I could actually trace some of the old vintage acts with just a video. Now I would love to set it up like I was inside a club with VR and watching a show like inside a speak easy, a beatnik club like in the 1960's. The beauty of MMD is that motions for all eras of music has alreay been traced into motions. I am trying to acheive alot of what MMD already does but with realistic characters. I definately want to explore the possibilities of real time physics. How exactly do you go about getting VirtaMate I'm not on Paetron so all I saw in the link was an update did not see an installer for the main program.
pdr0 I will try your suggestions. I think that most of the issues with the twists could be taken care of with GraphMate. I know Mcasual has a few fixer upper scripts too,so he might even have something that copies the twist bones. I do hope a few people that understand skeletol issues like you take an interest in playing around with MMD and maybe ther will be some MMD utilities made available. For now I can do a complete conversion of motion, facial and even camera in under 15 minutes thanks to the few tools I have gathered.
So I just came across another video that demonstrates the kinds of things I would like to be able to do in DS. I have the DOJO and playground stages used in the video that can be brought in to DS via OBJ. I have the animated dust particles by "The Philosipher, and a script called pedal dropper that can do the effects seen on the outside. The lighting, skydomes DOF can already be done in DS. I also have a script by butaixianran that can bring the camera motion from MMD into DS. I will try to do this scene to see how it turns out, but would love some suggestions if anyone can see how to acheive something like this in DAZ. In fact links to all the assets used are on this YT page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFjfXwVM4j4
pdr0 the motion was like that inside 3DXchange also. On thousand year snow if you tried using the vmd in MMD you would notice that the legs will not turn with the rest of the body. Some motions require disconnecting IK bones inside of PMX editor. That is why the FlyingSpirits motions include a special model to use. However that is what I was saying about filtering the FBX created in the conversion process throug Ikinema. It eleminates the issues from the hip down.
I found the motion, but had to jump through hoops to get it. The first few searches were dead ends , had to register, join some site in a diffrerent language. No thanks. Finally found another path, had to Google translate the readme, password hint not in english, translate that, figure out the number puzzle. This one wasn't that bad, but I don't know what this MMD mentality of this shell game is for some of these motion tracers. This "hoop jumping" wasn't that bad compared to others, but still good waste of time. /Rant over
If anyone cares,I found the answer of the easter egg hunt from the text in this YT video
But I'm pretty sure the problem was your PMX base. You probably didn't have twist bones . It should solve and transfer to G8 correctly without major issues. If your twist bones aren't applied correctly, the motion should still be fairly close (none of the spaghetti 550 degree forearm rotation) . pmx2fbx worked as expected for me using a TDA Luka model in terms of the arm twists and overall
Here an example of what I mean about different motion with pmx2fbx compared to MMD . On the same frame, in MMD (right side in the picture), the big toe is slightly penetrating the ground plane. But the FBX converted version (left side in the picture) has all the toes well below the ground, and the angle of the foot and toes is different too .
This was a TDA Luka model , the model was exactly the same for both MMD and pmx2fbx. The point is - the motion and curve interpretation of pmx2fbx is different than MMD , so you get lots of little problems . The FBX motion is never as clean as the original. You can call these "minor", but those multiple little problems become even bigger problems when you retarget to other characters, especially ones that have different shapes and skeletal propotions (taller, fatter, etc...) . It's just more work than you should have to do . And yet, this pmx2fbx method is still the best one overall
BTW I attached a wide veiw of the dojo that was used in the video. Isn't that cool Exterior, Interior, trees, terrain and skydome all in one file. I am not shure how to handle the alph channels on the trees when bringing it in as an OBJ file. I can get the mapped texture in but still have the white baground of the alpha channel. Anyone know how to fix that?
Chances are it's a game model which means the alpha channel is embbed in the texture. You will need photoshop or a game tool to extract just the alpha since DS doesn't handle embedded game textures.
BTW I sent you a PM
pdr0, so the arm twist issues disappear more or less using the luka model? i'm not sure if we are allowed by the MMD rules to share motions in an open forum like this otherwise I could just send you the vmd. I really really wish we had the advantatage of a few folks in the DAZ community that could help navigate some of the Japanese Korean and Chinese sites where the MMD assetts are so prevalent and help with those dang passwords, LOL. BTW if you are anyone else here has questions about places to look for vmd or pmx file I have a ton of links I could share.............some may dead by now mind tou but I have plenty to get you going.
Yes .
Look at your FBX - it's probably has the issues already. This means you probably used an incompatible PMX base . Maybe you didn't see it right away because of clothing hiding the issue. Or maybe you are just batching everything without looking.
If you load a model into MMD and apply the motion it should look correct if it has the required bone structure . That same model used in PMX2FBX should work (with the expected slight deviations and problems, but nothing major like 550 degree forearm twisting)
I would just follow that specific motion author's readme or instructions . Usually if there are "hoops to jump through", that author doesn't want it shared unless you "jump" . So that one probably is not ok to share.
Others have a direct link publicly posted, clearly visible , no restrictions in the readme - those are probably ok to share, or you can link to that post or video that shows the link to the vmd to be safe
I found another utility that seems to convert MMD into FBX but since it is Russion I can't really decipher it.
https://github.com/bm9/IM4U/releases
https://blog.csdn.net/jjiejingtazhu/article/details/60790577
Last commit was 4 years ago
OK we stick with what already works...................LOL, Thanks!
Did you get that motion working properly with another PMX base ?
Another thing you can try for the twist bone keys issues in 3DX/DS :
In the DS FBX Export options, there is a checkbox for "Locks"
I tested this and it reads correctly in some programs... but not in others
If 3DX reads and applies that data to the characterized version properly , and solve it correctly - it should place the x-rotation data into twist bone - it might save you the steps of cut/pasting keys
Arrrrgh! The frustration pdr0. I just tried using a luku PMX and like you said inside MMD she worked beautiful converted to FBX and when I tried to creatate a non standard profile for some reason the mesh around the knees stays stationary but the legs work fine otherwise throughout the motion. There is no option to map knees so it really does not effect the output to iclone motion. I brought my G8 FBX in and applied the iclone motion I just created and the arms are doing the same as with the Teto Base. Even though the two PMX files act differently in Iclone. I looked at the profile for G8 in iclone and it looks like the twist bones were already mapped.
You can see the Teto arms distorted/twisted, but the Luka arms look mostly ok in iclone (and MMD) ? Then changing to another PMX base probably won't help
I think I know what is partially causing the problem for you - it's the way HIK solves this motion (I think that's what 3DX uses, from Autodesk) . MMD model motions are sometimes better solved better by using the MB character solver. If I switch from MB to HIK, I get messed up arms in some sections too
It also involves the rotation order it uses for calculation, eg. X,Y,Z or Z,Y,Z etc... if you can try changing to Euler XZY, or XYZ , or some other combination etc...but if that fixes it for some sections, sometimes it will make other sections worse. Sometimes relaxing the rotation limits if enabled helps too. Or sometimes setting more strict limits might help - but the motion will not look as good.
Note there are some other shoulder/arm rotation issues in the original VMD to begin with . You can see them in the videos of this motion , and in MMD.
Those problems can get pushed down the arm, causing rotation issues in other bones in retargeting software. I don't know if 3DX has them, but there are "unroll" and "gimbal lock" filters that can sometimes help improve it
You can just fix it manually too - but it's nicer to reduce the amount of work required
Yep, Its just the same nagging problem, transferring motions between figures is never an exact science, at least not on the cheap. I am certain that MB is way out of my budget. I think 3DXchange does have some of the more technical feature also hidden somewhere but only the Iclone engineers could expain them. BTW, speaking of engineers, what in the world is your background, you seem to be quite a GURU when it comes to rigging. I actually have Shape Rigger Plus by Zevo any chance that could offer any assistance?
I get those rotation issues reexporting stuff I rigged myself often from 3Dxchange especially if I used Carrara as I duplicate bones and mirror them and while they import fine into iClone they export out rotated and twisted, I dare say other softwares in which rigging involves mirroring of bones would cause these issues as occasionally come across models from other sources that do it too.
I cannot ever fix it it just gets worse trying and bones start detaching from skinning
in Carrara at least I learned I have to draw every bone from scratch and just look at the parameters never duplicate anything.
what you could do and I am not sure what other softwares do this
is export a BVH as a mesh
Carrara will import a BVH and create a skeleton you can FBX export, this is easier to fix up rotation wise as it’s just primitives stretched cubes basically for each bone, not skinned to anything each cube a mesh parented to a bone.