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Question about animation reference

SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,596
edited May 2021 in The Commons

I'm trying to come up with a way to use a video or GIF as an animation reference in Studio, but you can't place it in the background and I can't import an secondary animated 3D figure alongside a Genesis 8 figure because of Studio's abysmal FBX import. Does anyone have any other suggestions - besides saying to just animate it in Blender?   ;)  Thanks.

edit: Oh, and also, is there any sort of absolute bare-bones Genesis 8 model or unskinned skeleton that can be used for previewing animations in real time without rendering it? I've tried using Decimator, the developer version, and different viewing modes and it just doesn't seem to be possible.

Post edited by SnowSultan on

Comments

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,969

    You could do one of two things for the reference. What I do is I have the reference video on a timeline in premiere with all of the key poses marked so I can count frames, and then I just keep hitting alt+tab to go back and forth to visually match the bodies. It was easier when I had two monitors, but now I'm using a 42 inch TV for my monitor and concessions had to be made for mega monitor lol. I guess I could divide the screen in half and put each program up, but that's one way in a nutshell. 

    Another thing you could do is take screenshots of each key pose and place a plane behind the character and just add the screenshot to the plane so you can match it up behind them. I haven't tried that, but it seems like it should work. 

    And the only way I can get anything to play in near real-time is if I have just the character in the viewport. Nothing else even loaded. Don't put materials, maps, nothing and it should play as close to real-time as possible. I know that's hard to do if you're trying to interact with an environment, but you could get the base down and then know that works, bring in props and such and then tweak here and there. Before I render, I always do an Open GL render of the shot and see if anything looks wonky. 

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,596

    Thanks for those ideas, I was thinking about something like the planes one but that exact method didn't come to me. Will experiment with those methods soon.

    Is your 42" monitor 4K? How far away do you sit from it?

    As for the real-time problem, I am only using a character with no textures and still can't get anywhere near real time. Do you happen to know if animation preview speed is based on the CPU or the GPU? My GPU is quite a bit more modern than my CPU.

    Thanks again!

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,969

    Nah, it's 1920x1080. When I went to get a new monitor, I saw that the 22 inch 4K monitor was twice as much as what I spent on this TV and since it doubles as a TV for me, I figured it was fine. I never do anything higher than 1920x1080 anyways since I do mostly animation so the extra resolution doesn't matter. I've got a 5K iMac that I'll use for video editing for footage that's 4K. Sitting though, it's at the edge of my desk so maybe two feet away. When I throw on a movie or play PS4 though, I move back about eight feet so I'm not always sitting right in front of it. 

    Hmm, but I would have think it has to do with the GPU. In my old computer, I have a 1080TI and when I have just the character, it's blazing fast, same with my new computer with a 3090. But if I add just one material setting, it starts to go slower so that blows my mind that you're having this issue with just a character. Unless someone else swoops in with an idea on what to do, try your best to gage it and then render out an open GL version and run it through so you can see it in real-time, and then when you make tweaks you don't even have to redo the whole timeline, just redo the frames that are from the first and last keyframes that have changes between. 

    Let me know if the planes method works for you! 

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,596

    Thanks, I'll keep experimenting and see if I can get something close to real-time. It's strange though, I have a 2080ti and reduce the figure to base resolution, nothing else in the scene and still can't get it. Thanks again!

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,462
    edited May 2021

    I think for previewing animations, Unity is the best tool.

    Check out how many characters I have rendered in real time, including Jazz 8.1

    And no, I do not have a super computer, just regular one with Nvidia card with 8 GB VRAM.

     

    Post edited by Artini on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,462

    Also check out how easy is to export items from Daz Studio to Unity using https://www.daz3d.com/daz-to-unity-bridge

    on an example with EmotiGuy:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/492886/importing-emotiguy-to-unity#latest

     

  • AstraffelAstraffel Posts: 211

    I know this thread is over a year old, but since I've been struggling with this for a while, I thought I'd share an alternative solution I that seems to work.

    DraagonStorm's Animated Textures Script:  https://www.daz3d.com/animated-textures-script-pro-for-daz-studio-3-4

    Would using this for animation reference cause any issues? I'm having a fierce internal debate over which method is better: animated textures or an external program (blender's video editor)

    Thanks for any help!

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,596

    Thanks, I had completely forgotten about this. I ended up not needing to do it and it's not all that bad assembling animations using aniblocks anyway.  :))

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