Animation IK System Problem. Why ?
moreffector_3290526
Posts: 55
Hey hi.
I want to ask something about Daz animation system.
When i want to start making animations with Daz, i can not use IK system correctly. Characters feet and hand always moving with body. Not pinning on ground.
Of course, i know Daz has a pin system but, i dont say that. I want to use like poser or like Maya IK system.
Select the "hip" and moving down. Legs and knees doesn't stable. Everything moving down.. And i can not make animations with Daz.
Please update this or fix that. AniMate2 or keyMate not fixing.. I want to walk animation step by step but i cant. This is very simple. Daz is a great software but we want to make animations..
Poser is more more simple. But animations / IK system very good. Working like Maya (basicly)
Please, someone make an update or fix :)
Anyone know how can i fix ?
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Comments
Did you try this issue ? I dont know if i use stable feet IK system like Poser or Maya. I hope..
I´m still missing a proper totorial on how to use it. No matter what i try the pinning doesn´t work with my figures at all.
Yes
i don't know why Daz not fixing this ? I really dont know
I managed to get this to work really reliable by using the active pose (bone) tool which has a pinning function when you press space. Somehow this is different to the pinning from the translate tool.
Active Pose is a different system from the Universal Tool and its derivitives, and does not use the IK system.
I've been playing with both. I've been using Active Pose for several months but the pinning is less than reliable in my experience. Feet and hands slide around and won't stay put. Now that the 4.12 beta has been released, I tried the pinning options with IK and have to say that my experience of this has been even worse - limbs twitching, and even bending back on themselves into impossible contortions. As mentioned, a user guide is needed to explain the various parameters and limits, etc.
Not that I am a longtime user yet with Daz IK. Time is a bit short yet for me.
Odd to hear about any twitching. Used to see that. Not anymore, yet anyway. Can use the free rotate of lower abdomen while figure is on all 4s in a complex position, and it bends, twists, side-to-sides really well. Have seen bending back occasionally but that's usually my fault, cos I went to fast and failed to approach the body as a natural organic thing you need to gradually shape, especially for more difficult preexisting poses.
If I had to suggest some tips that seem to work for me (without knowing the actual IK programming & best way to compliment them) :
Would say it feels more like an intuitive art-form working with IK. But it's fun and seriously powerful when you get it figured out for posing.
If you have a pose that you are having problems with, maybe post it here or in a new thread. Have a done a fair bit, but not enough that I can say yet with confidence that IK works for me all the time. Overall though remain thrilled with IK for posing. If you do post one, maybe DM me the thread. Am busy with other things right now and might miss it.
Thanks for your considered input and the offer of help. I think I'll leave IK for a while now until DAZ decide to release some documentation and, hopefully, a tutorial. I've been watching some generic IK videos comparing with FK and, other than bone parenting, I still don't get the idea of when to use IK and when not. It seems to be something that is very difficult to explain without going into complex mathematics (and my brain doesn't work that way anyhow). I do think that my problems had something to do with limits though but I'm not sure where to switch them off.
So then Universal Tool is using IK and ActivePose is not using IK?
I am using Maya with Daz. I can make animations every style. And Maya has lots of options IK/FK or etc. Also i am rendering with vRay.
But,
I really wonder why Daz too horrible to making animation ?
NEGATIVE ISSUES FOR DAZ ANIMATION
- You can not use timeline perfectly. If you buy keyMate or aniMate this is not changing.
- You can not use IK system. Character pinning is not stable. Not sticky. If you select all over the body, pin every parts. And select hand and move. Body moving always.. But we pinned ? Why is that moving ?
- I can not copy paste keyframes. (actually i can not use keyframes..) I can not edit keyframes. this is interesting; character's feet -> yTranslate option is locked. If you open and use parameters with yTranslate, body crushing..
- Always you must use aniMate blocks or something ready like BVH..
- If you want to make walking cycle animation step by step, Daz will be horrible for you. You moved left feet, but right feet moving together.. Ah..
I love daz content library on the net. Lots of content but i want making animation for myself. I mailed Daz for this but i dont know are they read it..
Hi I use Iclone pro pipeline for "base layer" character motion/locomotion
But I add secondary animation and lipsynch in Daz Studio using mimic live,graphmate & keymate
In the interest of not having my post promptly eradicated
I wont comment on the new IK system in 4.12
However I do know for sure that graphmate & keymate are now free included in version 4.12
and yes you can copy & paste keyframes even cull down mocap keyframes to an editable number with a free script.
Well I was told ActivePose posing is using IK and now I read it's not but the Universal Tool and it's subsets (Rotate Tool and Translate Tool) are using IK. I wish I knew for sure.
Maybe using scripts i can do sticky foot. I never make a walking animation wth keyframes on Daz.. And my card is ATI . :( i cant use CUDA..
All the damnes found me..
That's not very specific, which makes it hard for anyone to address
Have you tried 4.12? In any event, I suspect too much pinning may compound the issue as there's no give left to accomodate the requested movement.
As noted, keyframes can be copied and pasted in the plug-ins, or in the new Timeline in 4.12. I'm not sure what is happening with the feet, again there isn't really enough information.
Again, look at the 4.12 beta and if it still doesn't meet your needs please provide more detailed feedback - either in the forum for discussion (best in the 4.12 beta thread) or, once discussed, in a support ticket to Daz.
Thank you for your reply.
I didn't mean it isn't an IK system, but it isn't the IK system that is used by the Universal Tool and which has been the subject of the recent updates.
CUDA is needed only for Iray rendering on the GPU. dForce uses OpenCL, and IK doesn't use the GPU at all.
I can render with my CPU (AMD 8 core) - not CUDA. I can render with iRay so... But not fast and quality like CUDA of course..
Hmmm, well OK. Thanks. I didn't think I was imagining things when I was told that ActivePose has IK. This is the 1st I've been told definitely that it's the Universal/Rotate/Translate Tools that are receiving the current IK tool enhancements.
When those enhancements are complete though, it would be nice if intended use cases could be given for ActivePose vs Universal/Rotate/Translate Tools as they seem redundant except the the IK systems that get invoked aren't the same but put their results on the same timeline? And have to figure out if the keyframes, and graphs on the time line where created by which system? Or doesn't it even matter on the timeline as by the time it's there it's an FK system? And if that's the case, when I edit a curve graph on the timeline does that get applied to a running IK system for that frame?
Example, I have an FK create animation now not when I look at either the Timeline or the graphMate tab I seen not graphed curves? That makes me think that graphing of the movement only happens with IK? That doesn't make sense to me.
Also, ugh! I've just discovered for of the 110 frames I manually posed amd animated and the 220 frames total, that the timeline now has only the default 31 frames ranging from 0 - 30! Procrastination can be good but I guess I will file a bug report even though I remember someone said they reported that bug a few DS PBs back!
OK, I found out aniMate Lite/aniMate2 is not being initialized with animation data from the DAZ Studio Timeline when a scene is opened. This means if you have created an animation on the Timeline in a scene and then go to the aniMate Lite/aniMate2 tab and do practically anything in the aniMate Lite/aniMate2 tab the DAZ Studio Timeline with then get initialized with essentially blank animation data from the aniMate Lite/aniMate2 system and you'll loose your DAZ Studio Timeline data that creates the animation you had saved in a prior session in your scene file.
Below are the specific steps I used to reproduce this bug, but it's going to be able to be reproduced in many other ways. I am using DAZ Studio 4.12.0.67.
If you mix using aniMate Lite/aniMate2 with the DAZ Studio Timeline I recommend you don't if you are using DAZ Studio Public Beta 4.12.+ until they fix this bug. I don't know if this bug is present in prior versions of DAZ Studio.
Below is the text of my DAZ Help Desk Ticket 307064.
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Animation Timeline lost the FK frames in my scene and it happens not during the save of a scene or the opening of a scene but when I go to the animate2 tab and
a) When I originally opened the scene, the Scene tab always has the Aslan Theatre ASL3 !Pre_Full-ASL3_Floor selected (In my scene tab path is Environments (group) - Theatre (group) - ASL3 !Pre_Full - ASL3_Floor). The Timeline tab is the current tab at the bottom.
b) In the Scene tab I go to Characters (group) - Daffy Duck (group) - Toon Duckie (for G3M) and select.Toon Duckie. The timeline shows multiple black carets in rows on the Timeline. Ugh! I can't really tell which row of carets goes to which model in my scene tab!
c) With Toon Duckie selected in the scene tab I scrub back & forth in the Timeline and watch him animate. There a 221 frames ranging from 0 to 220. The FPS is 30. The current frame is 97 when I stop scrubbing.
d) I see no graph lines on the Timeline. Is that because I created this animation via posing FK methodology?
e) I look at the keyMate tab. It looks normal. I would be nice if on the timeline and keyMate if the black carets & graph rectangles where instead assigned different colors per color that matched the color of the text the model name was written in and that we could change the color of those model name descriptions & that would also change the color of the the black carets & grey rectangles to match.
f) I press play in the keyMate tab and let the animation loops through once from 0 - 220 and then stop it at frame 84 which has no keyframe.
g) In the keyMate tab I select the 1st key frame before 84. The current frame remains 84. The key frame selected is at frame 83 and it turns orange. Toon Duckie is now unselected but the group Characters which contains the Daffy Duck group that contains the Toon Duckie character, is selected. I go to the scene tab and reselect Toon Duckie.
h) I look at the graphMate tab. It shows no graph lines at all and nothing in it can be selected. It shows a white line at frame 84 and that's it.
i) I look at the Mimic Live! tab but do nothing in it.
j) After doing e) through i) I check the Timeline tab. It is still as I left it.
k) I now look at the animate2 tab. In the list of models in my scene on the left column I see ASL3_Floor, ASL3_Ceiling, ASL3_GR_Up_Trim, ASL3_Gr_Up_Trim (2). The grey upside down caret with the black upside down sub-caret is just before frame 3. The number of frames is 1 - 26 with frame 0 & 27 being unlabeled at each end of the row. At the bottom is a scroll bar to pan past frame 26 on the animate2 line but when I try to pan that scroll bar disappears and the grey & black upside down caret is repositioned to frame 1.
l) I check the Timeline and the frames to my animation have disappeared. It seems that doing anything on the animate2 tab is likely to cause that to happen. It seems animate2 was initialized with data from the ASL3_Floor selected (see step a to see what was selected in the scene tab when I originally opened the scene) or more likely not initialized at all by DAZ Studio Timeline data. It seems that the animation data in the DAZ Studio Timeline should be passed on being opened to initialize aniMate2 (or aniMate Lite for non-license holders) because otherwise when the aniMate Lite/aniMate2 tab is accessed the aniMate Lite/aniMate2 system will falsely initialize DS Timeline with it's incorrect data.
m) To avoid losing the animation frames I had already done, I close DAZ Studio without saving the scene.
Thanks.
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OK, thanks.
Nodes? I'm not sure that those are. Frames? Keyframes? Individual bones in a rig? The "joint" between two bones in a rig?
Or are nodes something like those 'node' dots that one has to create when using "Puppeteer"?
It would be nice if the UI showed then the IK "Reach" in percentage on the node if you hovered over the node as one of those yellow sticky note things. It would make it easier to now what is effective and so what needs to be edited when not to the animator's satisfaction.
Hold on, I will make a screen shot.
a) OK, so you see I have the Timeline showing with the graphmate (port to Timeline) hidden (which shows no graphing despite FK animation, why? - Answer - because I didn't drill down to the specific model body rig bones that I had animated) and on it
b) I chose Toon Duckie and drill down all the way to the Lower Jaw and I see Properties. Listed under Properties one sees General/Transforms/Translation - X Translate | Y Translate | Z Translate & then General/Transforms/Rotate - Up-Down | Side-Side
c) I choose the Property Side-Side and if I show the graphmate portion there is a pink line graph shown the graph motion of the Up-Down animation of the Lower Jaw.
d) If I go back to the Keymate portion of the Timeline I see a white capital T in a black circle at Frame 0 but nothing else on the row that the Up-Down Property is located on. Is the T the node you are talking about? Despite making multiple keyframes for animating only the mouth, neck & head of Daffy there is nothing on that Lower Jaw Up-Down rotate but the T at the beginning & I don't see any clues as to what I can do with the T as far as editing on the Timeline. Right clicking gives menus that are available right clicking elsewhere on the Timeline. Left clicking and dragging lets me move along that particular Lower Jaw Up-Down Property row to different frames.
e) Clicking on the Pointer with the question mark at the top right of DS and then clicking on the T only shows nothing. No Help Notes yet (it turns into a red null & won't let me select the T).
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It would be nice that when I select a Key Frame if there were both these abilities:
1) Expand all elements of that have graphmate graph lines present and jump to the first 1 on the time line. N goes to next graph line P to the previous graph line.
2) Collapse all elements that have graphmate graph lines and deselect currently selected graphline.
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So if I undock Timeline/KeyMate/GraphMate/Mimic Live!/AniMate2 as one floating tabbed window and move it to another screen will they be 5 different windows or 1 window with 5 tabs?
Thanks.
Nodes are the things you can select in the scene, listed in the Scene pane. Frames are the ticks or steps in the Timeline. Keyframes or keys are the frames for any individual property in which its value is set, rather than being interpolated between explictily set values in earlier and later frames. Bones are the parts of a figure, shown with a bone icon in the Scene pane.
OK, thanks I would not of guessed that's what a node was
The questions from me & others shows how badly a new set of documents & tutorials are needed for the new timeline & for the new IK system.
And I did find out I can undock the whole group of tabs at one on the bottom on another screen and it is great. I now have room on both my viewport & my animation tabs to see what is in them.
Well, that's useful to know. I often find myself confused about the terminology so this is a good summary. Thanks.
General definition of node is a point where things join or converge so the term will be used in many other functions of Studio.
I guess many questions here are due to some basic documentation missing and also to most daz users not being familiar with animation, plus 4.12 being a beta so a work in progress with possible bugs. I did not get 4.12 myself since I have no time to do beta testing. But from my experience in animation with lightwave and blender I can clearly understand what the daz studio tools are meant for so I'll try to make some light here.
1) The active pose tool uses dynamic ik to pose the character. It is not meant to do animation but posing. The technical explanation is that ik goals are not persistent between keyframes so the interpolator takes control and may move what was pinned in keyframes.
2) The new ik system is meant for animation. It defines static ik chains with ik goals that are persistent among keyframes. That means you can rely the ik goal to try to keep its position during the animation. But depending on how the ik chain is built and the actual poses of the character that may not be possible. This is why some animators prefer to use for example "floating" hands and feet with bones that are not parented to the body but are simply defined as ik goals, so they always stay in place.
3) The puppetter tool is a good way for hand made mocap.
All the tools above can be used together to do animation. Specifically, the active pose tool is good to pose fk chains in animation, such as a tail on a character. The new ik system is good to pose ik chains in animation, such as hands and feet. Then once you get your animations done you can bake them to aniblocks and use them together with puppetter or any other mocap you got.
If you look at the Video for the DSON based DEX plugin you can see that the plugin completely discards the Daz pose controls when he activates the Maya human IK system that gives 100 % priority to the
HIK control rig in Maya.
Even in the Old poser system the IK feet and hand pinning actually "works" until you try to mix in keyframe Data generated by the Pose dials in poser ,and then the IK system tries to override those frames with its hand and foot solving ruining the entire session.
A rig for still posing and a rig for animating are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
This is normal. When importing a character you can always apply new ik chains and controls to the existing bones. This is also done by the blender plugin that provides some different rigs to choose from.
Technically there's no need to a rig for posing, that's what dynamic ik is for, to avoid building a rig.