Aniblock Wishlist

Melissa Conway

I apologize if a thread similar to this exists, but I couldn't find one.

I wonder if anyone else would like to join me in requesting specific aniblocks from PAs such as BoneTech3D and Posermocap? I own just about every available one for the Genesis 2s, but for my purposes, I could use more! And maybe they would like to hear from us on what we would be interested in buying..?

An aniblock where the figure falls to the ground as if s/he has been shoved.
Aniblocks with SUBTLE motion: standing shifting weight from one leg to another, standing with hands on hips - breathing!
Aniblocks that allow the user to control where the head is turned (if possible).
Knife-throwing aniblocks.
Crawling on all fours (not like a baby, but as if scrambling to get away).
Scooching backwards from a sitting position (again, as if to get away).

Hopefully I'm not alone in wanting this. :)

Reisormocap

Thanks Melissa for letting us know your what types of animations you're looking for.

Just so you know, we have a motion capture session scheduled for early next week and we will be trying to get through as many of the pose suggestions we have received so far during that session - including what you've already suggested in your post.

Melissa Conway

Good to know. You guys rock!

M.

animajik_6696dda723

I'd love to see character climbing aniblocks (stairs, ladders, etc). More for V4/M4 as I don't really use Genesis chars much.

I do have many of your AniBlocks already, PoserMoCap and love your work!

-AniMajik

Reisormocap

Thanks for the comment and suggestions Animajik.

However, I'm sad to say that we stopped our support for M4/V4 last year. The enthusiastic market adoption of Genesis 2, plus the relative difficulty in getting animations set up for M4 and especially V4 meant that it made much more economic sense for us to focus on Genesis and Genesis 2 Male/Female.

We can say that, based on our experience, the original Genesis figure is a real workhorse when it comes to animation, and Genesis 2 Male and Genesis 2 Female (and all their spin-off characters) are proving to be just as good at animation. We are currently converting all of our older packs to the newer Genesis figures as quickly as we can, and adding in more content.

Now, we did manage to get into the mocap studio today. Here's what we managed to capture:
* Simple walk
* Simple walk and turn
* Simple walk, stop, turn, and walk again
* Walk to Crouch
* Crouch to walk
* Duck behind cover
* Jerk back from nasty surprise
* Hands to face in shock
* Run to the edge and keep balance
* Look down into pit
* Look up in wonder
* Idle 1
* Idle 2
* Idle 3
* Idle read newspaper
* Knife throw underhand
* Knife throw overhand
* Scootch backwards in horror
* Climb short stepladder

We will be trying to get these available as quickly as we can - we have another product we're just finishing, so that takes priority. In the meantime, please feel free to add to the list in this thread. We are going to be doing more mocap this month to build up our libraries.

Melissa Conway

Wow, that sounds awesome. :-)

philiphowe

Those sound great!
Can you do any poses that are action based but not fighting- like turning and running off, dodging a gunshot (or knife throw) and then jumping away, falling to the ground, rolling, then moving off. Anything along those lines I will snap up. I'm doing a series of books that need animations for certain scenes involving action where the characters are being shot at, attacked, and trying to escape. There are a lot of fighting, karate, kicking, boxing sets already, but very few have any defense or fleeing, normal reactions to getting shot at, hit, or just thrown back, as Melissa suggested.
Also, simple movements seem to be overlooked! I'm glad you have a simple walk and turn coming. The only way I can do it now is to cut a full aniblock walk sequence, turn the figure, merge the frames, then add in more walk. It will be great to have a full walk, turn, look around, the continue to walk further. Variations on that are also good- like walk, then duck or dodge, look around, look up or down, ponder, etc. Moves that look natural and not over done are really needed. Also talk sequences would be a great add on, where the mouth moves as a sub block, then can be tweaked once the block is baked. Right now I am moving the mouth and trying to fit the sequence. The speaking tools where the mouth moves in sync to the voice of type are really rather crude and simply don't work, so anything where speaking is motion captured would be of great help. It doesn't have to be perfect, just some basic movements like shouting, speaking, etc. If they are done as sub blocks, they can be moved easily and adjusted later.
One last thing, if you use a model with feet that are not normally spaced, then it makes it more difficult to use. Some models for mo-cap have splayed feet or walk in an abnormal manner, however slight. The best models are very natural and have little or no extra movements or odd swaying. I nearly always have to go in and twist the feet back or reset the hands in graphmate to compensate for a model with slightly off beat gestures.
Thanks!!!
Phil

Reisormocap

Thanks Melissa, Philip.

Philip, I was going to send you an email to let you know that we had done some captures based on what you had suggested in the contact form on our site last month, but I see you've already got the news :)

I definitely will add some more action-based poses to the production schedule as you have suggested. Also, a lot of people have been requesting simpler poses, so those are on the agenda as well. Poses that involve crawling on the floor are a bit "hit or miss" - since rolling on the floor hides the markers from the cameras, but I'll do my best.

As far as facial aniBlocks go, I would suggest looking at facial capture systems like Faceshift Studio or Brekel Face Pro since the face is a really complex structure to animate. These use an XBox Kinect controller or equivalent to capture facial data and animate it by driving facial morphs. I'm looking at both of these to decide which will work best for my own projects.

By the way, I would be very interested in seeing your animations!

WAVEDELSH

Hi Posermocap

I've bought some of your mocaps and there brilliant ...a Friend of mine asked me to do some sample animation
for his Album, here one i use of yours
http://youtu.be/cYsEt_kktF0 I'll post the whole thing when its upload

On my wish list I would like playing Music instruments but they wouldn't be much good with out the instruments themselves
which is always a problem when theres a prop to be used as they have there own timeline

Anyway your new mocaps sound great,looking forward to buying them

philiphowe

HI Melissa,
Not sure how to reach you privately so I will just reply here.
If you want to see some of the animations you can contact me directly and I'll email you a few. I want to make sure not to release these so it doesn't hurt my chances at producing the ebook versions of the novels, fully illustrated with animations. I can, however, send you a few to watch, with sound and all. I don't recall if I used your mocap or others in the ones I'll send, but you'll get a good idea or my needs and why I was a bit more specific.
My site is http://www.philiphoweillustration.com or email me at philiphowe@comcast.net.
I'd prefer not to put them on an open site just yet.
Thanks,
Looking forward to seeing samples of the new mo cap.
Phil

Melissa Conway

Posermocap said:

Thanks for the comment and suggestions Animajik.

However, I'm sad to say that we stopped our support for M4/V4 last year. The enthusiastic market adoption of Genesis 2, plus the relative difficulty in getting animations set up for M4 and especially V4 meant that it made much more economic sense for us to focus on Genesis and Genesis 2 Male/Female.

We can say that, based on our experience, the original Genesis figure is a real workhorse when it comes to animation, and Genesis 2 Male and Genesis 2 Female (and all their spin-off characters) are proving to be just as good at animation. We are currently converting all of our older packs to the newer Genesis figures as quickly as we can, and adding in more content.

Now, we did manage to get into the mocap studio today. Here's what we managed to capture:
* Simple walk
* Simple walk and turn
* Simple walk, stop, turn, and walk again
* Walk to Crouch
* Crouch to walk
* Duck behind cover
* Jerk back from nasty surprise
* Hands to face in shock
* Run to the edge and keep balance
* Look down into pit
* Look up in wonder
* Idle 1
* Idle 2
* Idle 3
* Idle read newspaper
* Knife throw underhand
* Knife throw overhand
* Scootch backwards in horror
* Climb short stepladder

We will be trying to get these available as quickly as we can - we have another product we're just finishing, so that takes priority. In the meantime, please feel free to add to the list in this thread. We are going to be doing more mocap this month to build up our libraries.

I don't suppose these would happen to be coming out any time soon? :)

Edward_552019

I am just starting in animation and so I bought a Kinect for Xbox 360 for 20 bucks. Downloaded a trial of Brekel Kinect Pro Body and Pro face mocap software. The face software works very well with Daz Gen 2 characters - have not tried with Gen 4 chars. Impressive in fact. Very reasonable cost - less than 100 bucks. So, its on my to buy list for next month. I have demo'd iPi's recorder and mocap Studio. Their software is good, very finicky with regards to the background and is a lot more work to get the character to track your movements. Not too bad in price - works out to be 15 bucks a month to 'lease' or 'rent' the software unless you have very deep pockets. I already rent the Adobe suite, so this is not an option for me.

Therefore I can do some (at least facial) mocap's for around 100 bucks. Not bad.\

Ed

Melissa Conway

bcameron said:

I am just starting in animation and so I bought a Kinect for Xbox 360 for 20 bucks. Downloaded a trial of Brekel Kinect Pro Body and Pro face mocap software. The face software works very well with Daz Gen 2 characters - have not tried with Gen 4 chars. Impressive in fact. Very reasonable cost - less than 100 bucks. So, its on my to buy list for next month. I have demo'd iPi's recorder and mocap Studio. Their software is good, very finicky with regards to the background and is a lot more work to get the character to track your movements. Not too bad in price - works out to be 15 bucks a month to 'lease' or 'rent' the software unless you have very deep pockets. I already rent the Adobe suite, so this is not an option for me.

Therefore I can do some (at least facial) mocap's for around 100 bucks. Not bad.\

Ed

I've been keeping a close eye on Brekel; specifically interested in his Pro Face V2 (in development). I've got the Kinect for Windows V2 on my wishlist!