How to import BVH animation properly
witcherask_a3dd58a1c6
Posts: 194
So i exported my gen3 char to unreal using bridge then i retargeted unreal animation to gen3 char.
After that i Imported animation to blender and converted it in to bvh animation.
And then when i export it in to daz It doesnt work at all . Char face gets stretched. Arms and legs rotation arent proper and hip bone doesnt move at all
Is there a way to properly to import animation to Daz??
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Comments
sell a kidney and get MotionBuilder from Autodesk?
see this thread too
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/250726/so-if-an-animation-is-saved-using-genesis-it-works-on-genesis-3#latest
Your question is a bit weird. It implies that an animation could be imported into Daz incorrectly.
Daz correctly imports all BVH animations, in the same way.
There is no special menu to import animations which have been successively processed by different softwares.
Besides, a BVH file is in text format, so there is no mystery
At each stage of your process, you can export your BHV file and compare it to the original with the Winmerge software.
https://winmerge.org/?lang=fr
You will know if your BVH file has been modified and at what stage this possible modification occurred.
wats difference between bvh from blender and motion builder.
Didnt saw anything regarding bvh in above thread
Problem is when i import animation it doesnt work properly in daz.
It works fine in blender when i preview it
I thought it had been mentioned there that BVH import works on Genesis 1 and earlier legacy figures
adding twist bones to Genesis 3 + broke it for DAZ Studio's importer
I don't have MoBu but everyone who uses it confirms it works with D|S
I don't know anyone successfully using anything else directly
otherwise using G1 as the export/mport figure like me can work but needs a lot of tweaks such as moving the bone root, if you read through that thread
the best BVH import results are actually with M4 and V4 and earlier
however I am interested to see how Willy2 has gotten it to work
@witcherask_a3dd58a1c6
Each software will apply its own default rotation values to the joints of a BVH file.
The only way to maintain those values across different software is to have built-in retargeting profiles/templates of the original Daz hierarchy that forcibly re-applies the Daz joint rotation to the re-imported BVH file.
Reallusion Iclone does this quite easily for genesis figures (1-8)
Iclone and Autodesk MOBU have retargeting tools that will create a bespoke BVH for genesis.
I have been doing it with iclone for years
If you cant afford iclone or MOBU you may wish to try “Casadueur”
Daz has made some videos on how to use it with Daz studio.
The BVH format is used in the same way by all 3D softwares. There is no variant for DazStudio or Blender.
However, there may be a problem with the axes (X,Y,Z) because not all 3D softwares uses the same axis system.
A BVH file is always associated with a bone structure (an animated skeleton-armature), organized hierarchically.
In your case, you must verify that this hierarchical structure has not been modified during your process.
By using, Winmerge which I gave you the link, you can check this very easily.
In addition, you must check if during your process your BHV file has not been converted into another format during an import. Some 3D software, immediately after importing the BVH file, use their own native format to process animations (it must be understood that BVH is an old motion capture format, which is not well suited to recent developments in 3D. The Biovision company that created this motion capture format no longer exists)
A BVH import, followed by an export, is never neutral, due to the conversion to the native format made by the 3D software:
[import BVH] > [conversion in native format to process animations] > [export BVH]
During this double conversion BHV -> native format and native format -> BVH, the output BHV file may be different from the input BHV file.
It would be nice if a big company like Pixar or Sony Pictures Imageworks, for example, would create a new motion capture format that would replace the old BVH format.
In psychology, we often do this test which is very amusing.
We take a line of people standing behind each other.
One person, at the start of the line, gives a message to the next person. And so on. At the end of the line, the message received is totally distorted (In scholarly language, this is called the Shanon paradigm)
When using several 3D softwares, the problem is the same, except that the information processed is much more complex and hierarchical.
The lesson to learn from this story is that you should limit the number of 3D softwares you use and know very well the structure of the information you are exchanging.
Doesn't Maya have the same retargeting capabilities as motionbuilder?
Debatable.
however the OP still needs to be able or willing to pay for a Maya subscription $1785 annually(nonsale price).
Just to create BVH files to import into Daz studio
I would be cheaper to pay the one time cost ofIclone 8/CC4 at $900 USD
or try to sort out that Cascaduere to Daz studio method Daz has show cased.
And there is always the option of just rendering his animation in unreal engine since that is where the retargeting seems to be working just fine.
I used to think that DS just couldn't correctly read a simple BVH. While there may be some things with rotation order that it will sometimes incorrectly assume and produce nightmare fuel upon import, now that I've spent more time researching and trying different things, I now know what the real problem is: Orientation.
BVH as a format knows nothing about the Genesis framework. So it reckons angles from the un-oriented rest position. Daz Studio, of course, reckons angles from the oriented rest position. That's part of the reason why they deform so beautifyully. So the further you get from the hip bone, the errors stack. For example, change a G8's Left Thigh Bend. That's rotating around its local X axis. But notice that the leg does not rotate in a plane parallel to the YZ plane. It's angled outwards a bit. That's the Left Thigh Bend's orientation that the BVH file doesn't know about.
So DS is probably importing the BVH as best as it can, but there's only so much it can do, since whoever made you the BVH could not possibly have known about the bone orientations. It will never be perfect because BVH has no notion of orientation; rotations are always reckoned in the parent bone's space, precisely.
I think FBX does have a notion of orientation, I've seen the option in a Blender FBX addon, but although I've never tried, I don't think DS handles importing animations from FBX very well.
The tools @wolf359 and @WendyLuvzCatz are talking about, and the one I'm working on, know what bone orientation is, and do the math to correct for it.
PS - Well, actually, the other problem is that the BVH holds Euler Angles, and might not reckon the limits in the same way that Daz does, and again... nightmare fuel. A better, more modern solution is to use Quaternions, but a trip through the SDK forums show that there's a strong case saying that there's a bug in the way DS converts between the two, at least with Daz Script. *sigh*
Motionbuilder is still much faster at baking, more reliable, and has a few filters that Maya doesn't.
There's still Maya Indie for less than $300/yr if the user lives in an eligible country, I believe.
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
Also a big problem with G3-8 are the default Limits which have to be disabled by script or manually
before applying even a bespoke BVH retargeted by Iclone 3DX.
And of course G9 Breaks all existing Genesis 3-8 aniblocks and retargeting presets.
Moot for me As I replace All of my Character rigs with ARP rigs but certainly a killjoy for Daz studio user hoping to migrate over to G9.
a philosophical discussion while amusing as you said is not helpful here
have you successfully imported BVH motions into DAZ studio or are you just ruminating about it?
Can you tell me how you do it with iclone ??
@witcherask_a3dd58a1c6
Yes but that is a discussion better suited for the official Reallusion forums.