Houdini KineFX animation
Robinson
Posts: 751
For those interested in Houdini, they had their keynote yesterday. I found the new animation tools very interesting. I note we now have lots of exporters/importers but not one for Houdini (though it does import fbx). Houdini is probably top of the list for me to learn, though once again, in order to get decent Daz character fidelity in there I'll have to work out how to smooth the mesh without messing up the weight mapping!
Anyway thought some here may find the presentation interesting.
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Comments
@Robinson
Did you see how drop dead easy the "characterization" process was?!
The more I learn about Houdini (currently very little), the more I find myself thinking that Houdini is simply How It Should Be Done. If it is possible to get a G8 into and out of Houdini, I swear I'm going to jump in with both feet.
I've dabbled with Houdini, but it's really not for the faint of hardware. Nonetheless, I'm going to spend next week throwing myself wholeheartedly into learning Houdini in anticipation of my forthcoming monster system.
Let us know if Houdini can handle JCMs and HD morphs. The latest video was talking about more improvements coming for animation but it really made it sound down the road.
@Kevin Sanderson
I was actually thinking that if one can already import a G8 into houdini via FBX, then if Houdini can export BVH, then Houdini wouldn't have to support JCMs and HD morphs. You could just import the BVH back into Daz Studio and then export again via Alembic and get all the JCMs and morphs.
That's essentially what I do with Motionbuilder today, and it works perfectly. Motionbuilder is not confused by the G8's orientations, and I wonder if Houdini will understand them, as well.
Hope so. Could only find info on importing BVH files into Houdini so far.
G8 has a very standard rig, it can be imported in anything. I wouldn't worry about JCM or other functionality Daz Studio has because any animation can be imported back into Daz from any other program.
I use FBX as an in-between format. It can store animation which means you can import an FBX in Daz, save the animation as a pose preset, then apply the animation to any Genesis character.
@Faux2D The problem is not importing, it's in retargeting. In that sense, G8 are anything but standard: twist bones, so many bones in the spine, and pre-rotations all make them look absolutely beautiful, but they require more flexible retargeting tools like Motionbuilder to come out right because mocap rigs never have any of that.
Are you sure this works with anything beyond G2? @Wolf359 noted that FBX transfer worked with G2s but does not work with G8s. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be incorrect about it, but I do not think that I am.
You can do JCM and HD morph type behaviour inside the SOP, but it's not automatic or easy (nothing in Houdini is, until you know how of course). There was a guy on their forums who was into this. I don't know if he finished his importer. I do know that the guys at Houdini want to make the process easier. I'm not sure it's a priority for them at the moment, though they've got some great tools for integrating with Unreal Engine. It's only a matter of time before they have something for Daz.
JCMs are very much needed to get things to look correct. An easier process in Houdini would be appreciated as it is still more like rocket science though it has improved.
100% FBX works with G8. There are a ton of FBX versions though and it's a trial and error process to figure out which works with which but it does work.
Twist bones don't matter. They can easily be removed or ignored without losing any motion. They're there as a workaround to adding more weight maps for the same skeletal bone. It's a very old trick, one which Daz fixed way back in the day with their TriAx weight technology. Most rigs you see from video games have a ton of bones that are not standard. They add motion capture data by using an in-between rig. Then they do a lot of post work.
So this guy was working on something but appears to have stopped because there wasn't enough interest. I think perhaps sometimes you have to put it out there to generate the interest in the first place. Also Houdini is not an easy package to learn to be productive with, so I suppose the market for it was always going to be kind-of small, at least until the one-click solutions are available (like his!). But here's the thing: who wouldn't want to leverage the Daz content library with any 3rd party tool they're familiar with.
Anyway it's a shame, is all I can say.
Once again it looks like compositing is the way to go. Do what you can in DS and composite what you can't as what Hollywood has been doing for years. Houdini special effects look great, but as the creator of Rosa did (the most ambitious one person short project I can recall) he composited in flames, etc. from vfx effects packs and there are much better affordable ones available today.
Especially in animation some things need to be simulated. For example, volume preservation for muscles, etc. Even things like flames, where you miss the bounce lighting, reflections and so on aren't so easy to do that way. Anyway my interest is in a tool chain from Daz through to Unreal with as few stops on the way as possible. I'm always on the lookout for simpler ways of doing it.
Yeah, me too. I saw a new YouTube video mentioning Unreal animation and it was disappointing.
I have had great luck retargeting mocap to Daz characters using the new KineFX tools. The issue I have is creating the material networks in Mantra, it can be tedious and painful. So far the Daz to Maya fbx export followed by an import to Houdini solves a lot of the problems for me. Maya sets a t pose that also speeds up the process.
Hi. I don't see dates on any of the posts (not sure if that's a forum limitation or a setting I need to tweak somewhere). I'm writing this on 6/27/21 - wondering if anyone has a good (or good enough) way to get a textured figure into Houdini (perhaps in combination with Amembic Exporter which can bring in the animated figure). Sure wish this was (or hope this is) one of the Bridges DAZ was/is working on. So much potential if we could bring DAZ content into Houdini in a relatively pain free, if not seamless, manner.
Anyone know if the other Bridges can help in this regard?
yeah need help with getting daz to houdini...the textures are all jumbled up or not displaying
do you get the textures to show up correctly? mine isnt showing or only certain parts