Animated Sprites
kwannie
Posts: 869
in The Commons
I am wondering if anybody knows how to use animated sprites in DS. Sprites are just a 2D representation of 3D animation that was rendered to an image series. It would be great for animated background characters, or in my case an animated 2D band playing behind a singer. I know there are plenty of billboard products for stationary characters but I am looking for an animated solution using 2D sprites or billboards.
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I'm not sure it's possible, because DS doesn't support animated textures, which is how you'd use it in a billboard context.
The only thing I can think of is to use an animated textures product, but you would have to render your sprites beforehand, so I am not sure how much time you would actually save. If it's a matter of saving resources (so the scene fits in the GPU, for instance), geometry is rarely the bottleneck, so you could just use any of a given texture reducing techniques for the background characters.
I know that MCasual has an animated billboard product that is used for animated smoke but I am not sure if other pictures could be use in the image series. I thought the primary reason for billboards was to decrease render times.
Billboards speed up renders by saving on resources. If you're planning to use a crowd, unless you already have a crowd scene available, you'd have to render the sprites out yourself, which would negate the time savings.
Actually I am interested in animating background characters that I could use over and over as just an audience with minimal ambient motions and reactions. I try setting up scenes that have a stage, a few tables, backdrop curtains a few visible stage lights. If I add a singer with fairly decent textured clothes and skin I am usually tapped out on resources. My biggest issue is that I am an animator so I try to keep each frame render under 15 seconds. I'm pushing the limits I know. So if I can get a few more people in the scene that are just backgroud that would be great.
What about animating the crowd against a transparent backdrop and comping them in?
You mean doing layers in something like Sony Vegas or hit Film? I don't think DAZ inputs layers
If I'm understanding this right, you don't need to do layers in Daz, only in Sony. Also I don't see why layers couldn't work in Daz, if billboards can be used, it's kinda like a layer. I'm trying to visualize this so might have it wrong.
I render png sequences and layer them in Hitfilm Express which is the same thing.
TexAnim will work with a billboard but I don't know if you can do more than one.
Most other softwares do animated textures so maybe venture out of DAZ studio.
Not sure if this will do what you want inside Daz Studio, but there is an Animated Textures script for purchase in the Daz store. The only drawback to getting the script is the vendor is no longer around. Draagsonstorm passed away a few years ago, so there won't be much in the way of support if you have any issues figuring out how to use the product. Luckily, Daz has a great return policy. There's a video on the product page which shows the product in use. It should show you what it does and if it would be of use to you.
There are two Animated Texture scripts in Draagonstorms catalog. This one is the newest one that came out a few years ago. I have no idea if it still works with the latest version of Daz Studio:
https://www.daz3d.com/animated-textures-script-pro-for-daz-studio-3-4
I better give a link for TexAnim too
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/texanimfords3
Knittingmommy, I actually do have that product. I was not aware that Draagonstorms had passed away, that is such sad news to me. It seems like so many of the innovative Creators in the DAZ community have passed in recent years. Draagonstorm contributed so many amazing products. I have not found a complete tutorial on how to use the Animated Textures product, do you happen to know what the steps are to get it to work? I was trying to just apply an image series I rendered before to the surface of a regular plane but I can't seem to get it to work.
Wendy I do have Texanim also but I am wondering if Draagonstorms process would be easier.
no idea as I don't own the Draagonstorm product.
I find DAZ studio extremely annoying with it's lack of native animated textures as a mainly Carrara and iClone user, every other software I have used including Poser, Blender etc supports animated textures too, D|S is the outlier.
There's this video on Draagonstorm's YouTube channel. I wasn't sure if it was still up, but it was there when I went looking.
Unfortunately, I don't think there was ever a pdf or any documentation that went with the script. It's been a while since I've played with it. I do remember getting it working, but I don't remember the steps I tooks.
Knittingmommy, I watched those videos but I'm still not getting it to work. I'm not sure if you need a special kind of image series but I tried applying a series that I had already created before and I can't get anything to work.
I need the steps, from beginning to end, required to make it work.