Free Animations for DAZ People...

Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740

Well, not really self-created, but...

In June this year, Animation Studio Mixamo has been bought up by Adobe. Which you may or may not heard of. You can't currently buy their animations during the process of integration into their company, but Adobe has been generous (aside from their free PDF Viewer, when have they ever been? wink).

10 free test animations you always got for just signing up, and now you can choose freely from their entire catalog (from over 2,200 for human beings alone) aditional 20 (yes, no typo, twenty!) completely free animations, which are within their included web editor riggable to the DAZ People Victoria 4 and Michael 4 and can be exported to several file formates, including BVH and FBX. You'll have also the ability to import the skeleton layout of 10 of your own Figures, which could be Genesis/Genesis 2... or even an older Generation. There are no prices up there currently, but those who knew Mixamo from before can tell that they did cost around 30 US $... a piece! That`s thirty high quality animations for less than an apple and an egg.

I don't know if or what you'd choose... I got mine. laugh

«1

Comments

  • LintonLinton Posts: 542

    Are you able to use them in DAZ studio? I am not seeing .duf files as an option, but I am not experienced with the animation side fo DAZ yet, hoever these are someincredible animation files, and some freebies in this area would be most welcome.

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740
    edited October 2015

    Yeah, sure you can. Just choose the "Biovision (.Bvh)" format option (Without skin) and save it as a .bvh. In Studio, with a figure selected, choose "File" and "Import", set it to "BioVision Files (.bvh)" and browse to the folder you did save your files to.

    You can also create an aniBlock out of those in aniMate2 by rightcklicking somewhere on the aniMate2 Tab and choose "Create aniBlock From Studio Keyframes" (if I remember correctly, even the "Light" version lets you create new blocks, all that you can't do in it is edit them). Choose a name and save it. That way you can chain up different motions more easily: run, jump, run, roll over...

    The motions can be rigged to the Gen4's by default, but you can use those on Genesis and Genesis 2 as well. I created a pose adjustment for G1/G2F a while ago [Even free as well laugh]. They have to be plugged into a Sub-Track within aniMate2 to have the right effect. I fear you'd need the Pro version of aniMate2 to do that, as I've been told. If you're up to do serious animations within Studio, it's IMO a must to have that anyways. Or you can still try to rig it to an imported Genesis/Genesis2 skeleton layout. I might try that again, still have ten free rigs left...

    ExportOptions.jpg
    1024 x 676 - 106K
    Import.jpg
    1024 x 1456 - 299K
    aniBlock.jpg
    1024 x 1456 - 276K
    Post edited by Arnold C on
  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740
    edited October 2015

    Just got an e-mail from Mixamo/Adobe. From today, 5th October, all their animations and services are freely available "for a limited time" for everyone. That's around 2,463  high quality animations at your disposal for just signing up. You can harvest to your hearts content from their entire catalogue... without any restrictions.

    "Whether you’ve been by our side through the years or you’re trying out Mixamo for the first time, we send you our heartfelt thanks for your support and patience while we settled into our new digs at Adobe. To thank you and to open the doors to creatives everywhere, we’d like to invite everyone to use all Mixamo assets and services completely free!"

    I'm, um, away... smiley

    Post edited by Arnold C on
  • DigiDotzDigiDotz Posts: 515

    Mixamo got confusing there for while, i bought fuse, then it was free for a while, now  well ......gonna start animations downloady now...

    still no way of getting rigged fuse/custom models ino daz studio though?

  • NoermanNoerman Posts: 19

    I bought too within Steam along with DLC and it's free now. But with the characters (old and new) also free rig and free animation I'm not really complaining. I just need to find a best way to suit DAZ with Mixamo.

     

  • artd3Dartd3D Posts: 165

    These are great, Thanks for the heads up.

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740
    DigiDotz said:

    Mixamo got confusing there for while, i bought fuse, then it was free for a while, now  well ......gonna start animations downloady now...

    still no way of getting rigged fuse/custom models ino daz studio though?

    Can't answer that, I'd never used Fuse before and didn't plan to change that in the near or even far future. I'm fully satisfied being able to use their motions on Gen 4 to 6 characters in Studio.

    artd3D said:

    These are great, Thanks for the heads up.

    Yes, they really are.. and you're welcome. smiley

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    I tried Maximo before I found Daz as I was looking for something to work with for game creation (2D games)

    When I found how much it was going to cost me to get everything I needed (something like over 120 different animations and 20 some characters) I looked elsewhere and found Daz :)

     

    Now I need to try and figure out how to get all these free animations from Adobe/Maximo (I see the Free 11 animation samples kit but don't see how to set it up with Gen2 figures)

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740

    When I found how much it was going to cost me to get everything I needed (something like over 120 different animations and 20 some characters) I looked elsewhere and found Daz :)

    Now I need to try and figure out how to get all these free animations from Adobe/Maximo (I see the Free 11 animation samples kit but don't see how to set it up with Gen2 figures)

    Yeah, me, too. The quality is excellent, but around $30 a piece was a bit too much for just a hobbyist usage.

    Hmm, it seems they have dropped Mike & Vicky 4 from their default character list. sad I still have both in my character assets, seems I was lucky to choose them both as rigging targets right away when I registered. Genesis/Genesis 2 were unfortunately never a default option, but there's still the Auto-Rigger option for importing your own characters. They have a Tutorial and Troubleshooting Guide up explainig the steps to get them into.

    Then, when you leftclick on an animation sequence, the build-in editor will show up. There you can select the "Change Character" option to apply it on your character. To get it into DAZ Studio you can follow the steps given in the 3rd posting above. Good luck.

    Mixamo.jpg
    1024 x 604 - 108K
  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,958

    Is this still active, I didn't have time before to grab mine, but I would do it now if possible.

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740
    edited October 2015

    Is this still active, I didn't have time before to grab mine, but I would do it now if possible.

    You mean if Mixamo's services still free? They are. When the free period will end Mixamo/Adobe haven't yet decided. In Mixamo's forum an employee told, that it will be that for a while.

    She also told there, that whatever you grab now during the free period from their inventory into your assets, will stay there (still free of charge) once the free period is over.

    Post edited by Arnold C on
  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,958

    Thank You for Your answer, I better get to work then :) I might ask more questions in the future, but I hope I will be able to make it work.

  • DigiDotzDigiDotz Posts: 515

    Well, as per their guide (sort of) I exported unclothed gen2 out of Daz as Fbx, uploaded it to mixamo, applied an animation and downloaded as fbx with skin

    After importing fbx into daz I load a new Genesis 2 figure and use mCasual's mcjCopyPoseAnim script https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts5/mcjcopyposeanim

     

  • AtiAti Posts: 9,130

    Thank you for this information! This was really helpful!

    I spent the last 2 days downloading the animations, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. :)

    Were these sold at 20-30 dollars per animation? So they are basically giving us at least 50.000 dollars worth of animations for free? Wow...

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740
    Ati2 said:

    Were these sold at 20-30 dollars per animation? So they are basically giving us at least 50.000 dollars worth of animations for free? Wow...

    Yep, roundabout they were. Yes, they are. And... totally agree. wink smiley Chistmas came early this year. laugh

  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,958

    Thank You. I made it work. Now downloading. Lets see what I can get.

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740

    You're welcome, Milos. I'd suggest everyone to download their animations in the BVH format as explained above, so you could use them on all your various characters alike, with minimal adjustments.

  • MilosGulanMilosGulan Posts: 1,958
    edited October 2015

    I will for sure, I was thinking of staying all night but will continue tomorrow. Wow, I can make so much with this :) I never thought about animation before but this really is good and usable. I am hoping to try it soon :), I just need to fit all things together.

    Post edited by MilosGulan on
  • Faeryl WomynFaeryl Womyn Posts: 3,628

    The one thing I  can't figure out with these or the anim2 stuff that comes with daz is going from one animation to another smoothing, I always get repositioned and don't know how to fix that.

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740

    The one thing I  can't figure out with these or the anim2 stuff that comes with daz is going from one animation to another smoothing, I always get repositioned and don't know how to fix that.

    Hi Faeryl,

    you can check if your "Reorient" settings are set correctly (see pictures below). Leftclick an aniBlock, then leftclick on "Reorient Start" and "Reorient Loop" and check if they're set to "On" and "Vertical Auto". That should prevent your figures from jumping back to 0, 0, 0 at the end of an aniBlock. The aniMate2 User Guide could also be of great help.

    You may also encounter the problem of empty keyframes on an aniBlock when creating one from a motion of less than 1 second duration (the minimum length for selfcreated aniBlocks from Studio Keyframes), resulting in an oddly frozen pose at the end.

    The solution for that is as follows: leftclick the anBlock, then either choose "Go into Keyframe Mode" oder doubleclick it again. In Keyframe Mode, look for "grey boxes" at the end of it. That are empty keyframes, without any data in it. Leftlick on the first one and hold your mousebutton pressed, and move it towards the last empty keyframe. You'll see you did right when each of them shows a red border around it afterwards. Rightclick the aniBlock and choose "Crop To Keyframes", the empty keyframes will be deleted then. Save your aniBlock. When reopening it again, the animation will have the correct legth and the Scrubber Stop will be correctly AutoAdjusted at it's end.

    Reorient-1.jpg
    1024 x 706 - 143K
    Reorient-2.jpg
    1024 x 706 - 144K
    Crop-1.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 150K
    Crop-2.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 150K
  • Faeryl WomynFaeryl Womyn Posts: 3,628

    Ok I saved the page to my computer, cause it has the bvh info as well.  Thank you.

  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,507

    For anyone wondering about commercial use, this part of their FAQ helps:

     

    Can I use Mixamo commercially?
    Yes. Characters and animations from Mixamo can be used for commercial projects.  Mixamo is a technology preview and is available free, without license or royalty fees, for all users with an Adobe ID.

  • AtiAti Posts: 9,130

    How often are new animations added?

  • Arnold CArnold C Posts: 740

    Hard to tell. Between my July posting and the 'good news' of October 5th they added about 200+ new animations, f.e. all the "Torch" ones, and if I remember correctly the "Log Bow" ones, too, when they still sorted out the change in ownership. The amount of available animations changed from around 2,250 to 2,463 during that period. But even if they'd only add around 10/month or less, their animations are of an excellent quality, no "clunky hands" f.e.; nice hand movement is one thing the most animation Vendors on the DAZ shop are either unable or unwilling to deliver. sad

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    So I sent a G2 character to Mixamo and selected an animation, saw the animation working on the G2 figure nicely so I downloaded a whole bunch of animations in BVH format.

    Now when I import the bvh files into Daz and set all the nodes from Mixamo to match the ones in Daz (or even if I don't) I don't get any animation. The whole model bobs around on the hip node, but frozen in pose :(

    I've tried every combination of checkboxes available on the import screen, but nothing seems to work.

  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,168

    Thanks for the heads up. However devotees of the Insane Clown Posse may take umbrage with Mixamos logo.

     

     

    Unknown.jpeg
    225 x 224 - 7K
    Unknown.png
    225 x 225 - 5K
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,941

    So I sent a G2 character to Mixamo and selected an animation, saw the animation working on the G2 figure nicely so I downloaded a whole bunch of animations in BVH format.

    Now when I import the bvh files into Daz and set all the nodes from Mixamo to match the ones in Daz (or even if I don't) I don't get any animation. The whole model bobs around on the hip node, but frozen in pose :(

    I've tried every combination of checkboxes available on the import screen, but nothing seems to work.

    Same here.

  • tomasballtomasball Posts: 81
    Taozen said:

    So I sent a G2 character to Mixamo and selected an animation, saw the animation working on the G2 figure nicely so I downloaded a whole bunch of animations in BVH format.

    Now when I import the bvh files into Daz and set all the nodes from Mixamo to match the ones in Daz (or even if I don't) I don't get any animation. The whole model bobs around on the hip node, but frozen in pose :(

    I've tried every combination of checkboxes available on the import screen, but nothing seems to work.

    Same here.

    same here.

  • same here

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited April 2016

    So I sent a G2 character to Mixamo and selected an animation, saw the animation working on the G2 figure nicely so I downloaded a whole bunch of animations in BVH format.

    Now when I import the bvh files into Daz and set all the nodes from Mixamo to match the ones in Daz (or even if I don't) I don't get any animation. The whole model bobs around on the hip node, but frozen in pose :(

    I've tried every combination of checkboxes available on the import screen, but nothing seems to work.

    I have had the issue as well.  I had some success though using the BVH motion, with V4/m4 and then if the mothion is what I want I'll save it as a aniblock. then I just use the saved aniblock in Genesis 2 with genesis feet off set applied.  and if all else fails and I really need the BVH motions sequence & I can't do by hand well. .. then I will fire up daz 3,  which I never had any issues using bvh files with V4/M4  and convert and save them to aniblocks for reuse. But that it is just my work around though.

    Post edited by Ivy on
Sign In or Register to comment.