Import Mocap into DAZ Studio for use on G2?
Diaspora
Posts: 440
So, I'm a little overwhelmed, and some of the articles I was able to find are several years old...
Is it possible, in 2022, to import Mocap animations into DAZ Studio and specifically to use them for G2 (my preferred character generation)?
I don't know how much it may or may not help but I own AniMate 2
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Comments
as long as it matches the figure
G2 and below are good choices as work out the box if the BVH matches
you may need to retarget it in another software to an FBX export of the figure and export a BVH
Blender is a free option to do this
some BVH files match DAZ figures depending where you get them from
if capturing your own Mocap it would depend on the software used so no one answer
I want to experiment with mocap I find on mixamo first and down the line I am really interested in getting Rokoko's suit.
Export a G2 figure as FBX and you can upload it directly to Mixamo, thus preserving G2's rig and allowing for direct importing into DS. As far as creating your own mocap, I imagine you'd need some sort of intermediate program like MotionBuilder, unless Rokoko's program has retargeting capabilities.
Plask.ai is another option
Yeah, I was reading a lot of horror stories about how even slight magnetic interference makes the suit practically useless so I think I'm just gonna do a multi-kinect ipisoft setup instead. For a multi-thousand dollar product to have such a vulnerability hardly feels justified. And yeah it sounds like ipisoft natively supports DAZ studio.
I'm gonna obtain one kinect tomorrow and try out the free 30 day license, I'll write back here how it goes.
iPiSoft actually works pretty well, but it is not very good at calculating twists. And for multiple kinect setups, you'll definitely want Azures for their better availability (everything else is discontinued), driver support (you can run two of them on a single computer right out of the box), and especially their ability to synch with a regular old 3.5" audio cable so they don't interfere with each other.
It's important to record the scene with another camera so you have reference footage to later correct the twists manually.
Good luck!
" you'll definitely want Azures for their better availability"
:( I hate to say it but I think you're working on outdated information, I tried to get it from Microsoft, even called their number, and they told me they're out of stock and have no way of knowing when they'll be in stock.
On Ebay, the average price of an Azure is always, smh, double the MSRP. Phew, I really hope to someday soon live again in a time when scalpers hold very little power over the market.
"(everything else is discontinued)"
This IS true BUT Kinect V2s, Microsoft made and sold over 10 million of them, so there will be more than enough of them to satisfy the mocap market for the foreseeable future. And unlike the Azures, on the second hand market Kinect V2s are dirt cheap.
WOOOOOAH! I spoke just a little bit too soon, on a whim I checked Ebay again and I happened to see a very new listing with an MSRP Azure, I snapped it up immediately cause I figure if I don't like it and ipisoft, I can apparently sell it for what I bought it for on Ebay pretty easy.
"but it is not very good at calculating twists."
Oh, thank you for the insight, that makes a lot of sense if I figure how ipisoft works. I'm not too phased by that I suppose cause twists are something I could fix by hand pretty easily as long as the coordinates are correct. I mean, I'm going into mocap with the target that it can turn 40 hours of work into 10-15 hours of work, so something like needing to correct twists might just be the cost of doing business.
I suppose things could have changed, but I just bought three more directly from Microsoft about a month ago. They gave me the same spiel that they gave you, but I figured that since I already had two, I'd make do until the other two plus the spare arrived. But then I got the shipping notification in not 3 months, but three weeks.
You said you wanted to use two, and so the Azures are much less of a hassle because the older driver doesn't support multiple devices on the same computer (if I understand corectly) and they can interfere with each other, neither of which problem you'll have with Azures. And this is to say nothing of the much cleaner point cloud you get with Azures. But I admit that the v2's are not bad at all; I just didn't feel comfortable developing a dependence on hardware that I already knew was discontinued.
Cool! I think you will be VERY happy with the Azure.
Also consider getting BrekelSoft Point Cloud (much cheaper) and doing a kind of "3D Rotoscoping". For background characters, it's quite good enough.
I think you'll easily meeting your 10-15 hours metric. Fixing the twists is very easy because unlike the greater endeavor of mocap in general, it's a one-dimensional. You just increase/decrease the twist wherever it looks wrong and set a rotation key. It's actually kind of relaxing to do.