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Moves oars with hands

pierre_basmoreaupierre_basmoreau Posts: 9
in Daz Studio Discussion

Hi,

I am a newbee with Daz and I would like to make an animation with a character (here M4) in a boat and 2 oars. At the end, I want to export animation at format Collada to another software, Vue, to create environment (river, countryside...)
For animation of M4, i created 6 keys poses at different frames (0, 60, 120, 180, 220, 260, 300).
But 2 oars have to follow the position of hands.
The simpliest solution would be to place the oars every 10 frames with only rotations (oars being fixed to the boat), to best follow the hands but it is very long,
Is there another solution ?
I thought a solution with using ik-chain between oar and hand ... but dont works !
I thought too a solution with bones but is it a solution ?
Thank you for yours suggestions.
 

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Comments

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,969

    I don't know if it works with M4, but the easiest would be to get the product limbstick. Again, it might only work with G8 and G9 though, but with that, you would animate the oars and the character's body how you want it and just have the hands on the oars on the first frame, and then limbstick would move the arms along with the oars. I've done things like opened up windows in this manner before. If it doesn't work for M4, what you might have to do, and this is the hard part of animating in Daz is trying to figure out a work around to get what you want, is to create a null object and place it where the hands would be on the oar. Parent the oar to the null object and do the IK chain for the hands and parent the IK chain to the null object. Now you would animate the null object and, in theory, the oar and hands would move with it. Good luck. 

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969
    edited January 22

    Current versions of Limbstick doesn't work on M4/V4 but only on G3 +.... However, even if Limbstick can work on M4, that script just "sticks" limbs to target figure/props rather than driving the figure / prop to move...

    As for IK chains, two oars are just Props, IK chain cannot be used on Props, you have to rig it to Figure. However, when the figure rows the boat with oars, there must be a pivot point in the middle of oar which needs to be flexibily stable. So even if you rig the oars, IK chains won't work on this "rowing" case.  You still have to animate the oars separately (by using pivot point rotations...)

    Animating figure + oars by handkeys, plus ActivePose tool, Symmetry and copy/paste negative rotation values, it should be pretty quick and accurate. I roughly did a backward stroke, less than 10 minutes. https://mega.nz/file/TGogyS6L#pAbKewRDiZkC0JslovqPrvTRSIbQ-A7CAru4tCk-IYM

    As an alternative, you may convert M4 to G3M, after handkeying necessary oars animation, you can use Limbstick script.... Good luck!

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569
    edited January 22

    The way I would do it would be to animate the rocking motions of the torso - the rowing motion - just the basics to start with.

    Then animate the oars to be doing what they should be doing.

    At the beginning of the animation (I always, Always leave at least 30 frames at the beginning as a Working Zone - I call this my Buffer Zone), Pose the arms and hands into position onto each oar.

    Run LimbStick on each hand.

     

    This first run will tell us how we did on our rocking motion vs the movement of the oars. Work the torso motion a bit more to really make it look good, then repeat the LimbStick process - which is the very easy part.

     

    As to working with M4:

    Again, if this was me - I'd do all of the above using either Genesis 3 or Genesis 8. When I get the results I like, save it either as a DUF animated pose or an aniBlock, add the Genesis 3 or the Genesis 8 Poses Bone Minion to the M4 character and apply the pose or aniBlock to the Bone Minion, and play it through in the timeline - with the timeline set to Play Every Frame. 

     

    If that sounds like a lot, it's only because it's typed out in a forum post. The actual process is really simple, and the more we tweak the torso motion and run LimbStick through again, the better we can get the animation... make it really nice.

     

    Bone Minion might seem like an expense - I mean... it is. But when we have them, they're magic. Animations and poses simply work across any generation with the right Bone Minion - and since I use all generations, I'm slowly collecting all of them. When I can, I get the Bundle for what I really want to work with.

     

    Example:

    My Mixamo FBX figure that I upload is Genesis 2 Female, so I bought the Genesis 2 Pose Bone Minion Bundle, so that my downloaded FBX from Mixamo work with all generations except Genesis 9, which came after.

     

    I have an extensive collection of M4/V4 aniBlocks and animated pose files, so I bought the Generation 4 Poses Bone Minion Bundle so that I can use those poses and animations on any generation - again, up to Genesis 8.1, since these came out before Genesis 9.

    Genesis 9 has a bundle that works the other way too - the Ultimate Bundle. Instead of being Genesis 9 to x, it has Bone Minions for all generation between M4/V4 and Genesis 8.1 made for Genesis 9, so this one completes the other bundles. Nice that he did that. I'm not using Genesis 9, so I can ignore that one for now.

     

    I'm going through all of my M4/V4 aniBlocks and animated pose files and making Genesis 8 aniBlocks using Bone Minion. With all of this work being done, I'll eventually get the Genesis 8 Poses Bone Minion Bundle, allowing me to use my new aniBlocks on all other generations.

     

    I mention all of this because there is LimbStick for Genesis 3 and 8, and now one for Genesis 9. 

     

    LimbStick makes all of these sorts of animation very slick to complete.

    3D Universe has an excellent video demonstration in the store page that I think a lot of people ignore - people who are having trouble using it.

     

    In this case, it will attempt to lock the hand onto the selected geometry - the oar for that hand - and recalculate the forearm and shoulder joint rotations throughout the specified time range. If the hand gets too far away from the collar on that side, of course we'll see issues.

    At that point, try adjusting the torso to "Answer those Issues" as well as perhaps posing the collar with a bit of forward/backward, up/down and/or twist to help get a really good result.

    LimbStick processes can be undone, and it will also easily overwrite what it's done before - so it becomes a very fluid workflow to achieving really cool animations. We just have to observe any issues that come up and use that to tweak what's going on to get the results we're looking for.

     

    So in this same example, instead of tweaking the torso and/or collar, we might decide to alter the motion of the oar, etc., or maybe move to hip forward and backward, side to side, or maybe introduce some pivoting - especially since we can also run LimbSick on the feet to keep them on the floor of the boat!

     

    With that last bit, let's just say that we don't want the feet to stay planted onto the floor, but we still want to introduce some hip rotation.

    We can use LimbStick to plant the feet to the floor (One pass - select one foot, CTRL select the other foot, and CTRL select the floor - run LimbStick) to work out the animated positions as if we wanted the feet to be planted. This works out the relationship between the location of the floor and the rotation of the hip. 

    With that done, we can now use simple Pose Control dials to move the legs as we'd like, using the LimbStick result as our 'hold them steady' pass. Works Really Well and it's Really Quick to perform!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569

    I should also add that, since Genesis 1 and 2 are so similar, My Genesis 2 Pose Bone Minion Bundle works on all of my Genesis 1 motions as well, for use with all other generations. Really handy.

     

    For V4 and M4, I can load my Genesis 2 Bone Minion and use all of my Genesis and Genesis 2 motions, along with all of my Mixamo FBX downloads, which are now Genesis 2 Female animated Pose files in my library.

     

     

    ►►► Handy Helpful Links

    Dartanbeck's workflow tips:

  • pierre_basmoreaupierre_basmoreau Posts: 9

    Thanks a lot to you, Benniewodell, Crosswind and Dartanbeck.
    I saw your video Crosswind, great, it is exactly what i want.
    I will explore your answers and keep you informed.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569
    edited January 22

    pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861 said:

    Thanks a lot to you, Benniewodell, Crosswind and Dartanbeck.
    I saw your video Crosswind, great, it is exactly what i want.
    I will explore your answers and keep you informed.

    crosswind ROCKS!!! and is very knowledgeable about All Things!!! I always put my trust in crosswind!!! :)

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    Dartanbeck said:

    pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861 said:

    Thanks a lot to you, Benniewodell, Crosswind and Dartanbeck.
    I saw your video Crosswind, great, it is exactly what i want.
    I will explore your answers and keep you informed.

    crosswind ROCKS!!! and is very knowledgeable about All Things!!! I always put my trust in crosswind!!! :)

    Thank you sir ! as well as your advice ! I always forget Bone Minion's capability of converting animation, haha !  It's always a great trick to animate with a G3 first, then bring it to M4/V4. Then rock ! laugh

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861 said:

    Thanks a lot to you, Benniewodell, Crosswind and Dartanbeck.
    I saw your video Crosswind, great, it is exactly what i want.
    I will explore your answers and keep you informed.

    No problem ~ pls try and rock ! Good luck ! yeslaugh

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569

    smiley

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569
    edited January 22

    你摇滚！！！yessmiley

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    Dartanbeck said:

    你摇滚！！！yessmiley

    我和你一起摇滚 ！！laugh

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569

    crosswind said:

    Dartanbeck said:

    你摇滚！！！yessmiley

    我和你一起摇滚 ！！laugh

    yes  惊人的！我们开工吧！

  • pierre_basmoreaupierre_basmoreau Posts: 9
    edited February 2

    benniewoodell said:

    I don't know if it works with M4, but the easiest would be to get the product limbstick. Again, it might only work with G8 and G9 though, but with that, you would animate the oars and the character's body how you want it and just have the hands on the oars on the first frame, and then limbstick would move the arms along with the oars. I've done things like opened up windows in this manner before. If it doesn't work for M4, what you might have to do, and this is the hard part of animating in Daz is trying to figure out a work around to get what you want, is to create a null object and place it where the hands would be on the oar. Parent the oar to the null object and do the IK chain for the hands and parent the IK chain to the null object. Now you would animate the null object and, in theory, the oar and hands would move with it. Good luck.

    Hi,

    I tried to use limbstick with M4 and I confirm that limbstick dont works with M4.
    Then I tried your solution with null and IK chain. It is almost good but when I animate null object, all poses of M4 is disturbed. Then your solution has opened a new way and join the idea of Crosswind. I detail it here.
    When oars are in the 0 pose, horizontal on the boat :
    - set pivot point for each oar for futur rotation;
    - create null object for the right oar and place it where the right hand would be on the oar. Idem for the left oar;
    - parent right oar to its right null object, and parent left oar to its left null object;
    - at this step it is important to define a pivot point to the couple null object + its child oar, so set pivot point to right null object+child right oar and set pivot point to left null object+child left oar;
    - create null object and place it on the middle of the closed right hand. Idem for the left hand with a new null object;
    - with parameters, define a constraint for the couple null object+child oar to point at the null object hand : so, constraint right null object+child right oar to point at null object of the right hand and constraint left null object+child left oar to point at null object of the left hand;
    and .... the oars stick in the hands.
    To adjust the poses of the oars, adjust only the null object of each hand.
    When I set the 6 poses of M4 at different frames (poses were already predefined), oars follow naturally the hands.
    I was planning to export the animation to another software (VUE) but null objects and constraints are specific to DAZ, not understand for another software.
    I made others steps for that : create position keys of each oar for entire animation before unparenting oars and cancel constraints. I exported animation in a file .dae, understandable by VUE.
    Crosswind made his animation in 10 minutes .... i made it in 10 days ! wink

    But I'm thinking about the next step: continuing the project on DAZ or VUE because the VUE rendering is not as efficient as with DAZ. To be continued ...
    Now I have to explore the message of Dartanbeck.

    Good day for all !

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  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    @pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861  That's great ! It's a nice trick to use point at. yes  And good luck for your next steps !

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    This may sound to simple . But with M4 there are built in IK chains on the forearms and hands made for poser already pre-built for m4 . I would just use  IK-chains, By parenting a primitive or a null to the oar prop and connect the ik-chain to the primitive. The sets up will work the about the same as Limbstick same princeable  . so when you move the oar back and forth the m4 hands and body will follow ,  It ,may take a little practice getting use to setting up the primitives and connecting the ik-chains. but it should work good. , Plus the other positive is you can edit or create or move ik-chains  using daz studio if needed .to make it a smoother animation.  its pretty simple once you get use to it

    BTW m4 is one of my favorite characters to animate. I never tried limbstick with m4 because i always use ik-chains with generation 4 characters  next time i using m4 i'll give it a try

    But I know limbstick works for genesis ad genesis2 charaters

     limbstick demo below

     

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861 said:

    benniewoodell said:

    I don't know if it works with M4, but the easiest would be to get the product limbstick. Again, it might only work with G8 and G9 though, but with that, you would animate the oars and the character's body how you want it and just have the hands on the oars on the first frame, and then limbstick would move the arms along with the oars. I've done things like opened up windows in this manner before. If it doesn't work for M4, what you might have to do, and this is the hard part of animating in Daz is trying to figure out a work around to get what you want, is to create a null object and place it where the hands would be on the oar. Parent the oar to the null object and do the IK chain for the hands and parent the IK chain to the null object. Now you would animate the null object and, in theory, the oar and hands would move with it. Good luck.

    Hi,

    I tried to use limbstick with M4 and I confirm that limbstick dont works with M4.
    Then I tried your solution with null and IK chain. It is almost good but when I animate null object, all poses of M4 is disturbed. Then your solution has opened a new way and join the idea of Crosswind. I detail it here.
    When oars are in the 0 pose, horizontal on the boat :
    - set pivot point for each oar for futur rotation;
    - create null object for the right oar and place it where the right hand would be on the oar. Idem for the left oar;
    - parent right oar to its right null object, and parent left oar to its left null object;
    - at this step it is important to define a pivot point to the couple null object + its child oar, so set pivot point to right null object+child right oar and set pivot point to left null object+child left oar;
    - create null object and place it on the middle of the closed right hand. Idem for the left hand with a new null object;
    - with parameters, define a constraint for the couple null object+child oar to point at the null object hand : so, constraint right null object+child right oar to point at null object of the right hand and constraint left null object+child left oar to point at null object of the left hand;
    and .... the oars stick in the hands.
    To adjust the poses of the oars, adjust only the null object of each hand.
    When I set the 6 poses of M4 at different frames (poses were already predefined), oars follow naturally the hands.
    I was planning to export the animation to another software (VUE) but null objects and constraints are specific to DAZ, not understand for another software.
    I made others steps for that : create position keys of each oar for entire animation before unparenting oars and cancel constraints. I exported animation in a file .dae, understandable by VUE.
    Crosswind made his animation in 10 minutes .... i made it in 10 days ! wink

    But I'm thinking about the next step: continuing the project on DAZ or VUE because the VUE rendering is not as efficient as with DAZ. To be continued ...
    Now I have to explore the message of Dartanbeck.

    Good day for all !

     beat me too it :)

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    @Ivy

    I never use Genesis, but how could you use Limbstick on Genesis 2, any trick there ?  It popped up the error message even if I changed the node name... The only way for me was to convert G2 to G3...

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    Hi crosswinds , It was a while back since i had used limbstick. So I had forgot how i set it up. so for just for you i went back through and do a quick set-up to make sure that it did it work for genesis 2. By following the set-up insturctions for limbstick  I was able to get it to work for both genesis 8 and g2.   limbstick them together to simulate them carry a ladder in a 10 key frame walkit plugin animation cycle with g2 as the lead character. as far as I know limbstick was not created for genesis 2 but it seems to work for me.

    I am not sure if the daz studio version your using has anything to do with it.  I am using daz studo 4.12.83.    I also I did try loading the same scene I save in 4.12 in 4.16  and the script was broke in the scene and did not work along with the walkit animation plugin  so my guess any newer versions of daz studio breaks my 4.12 custom scripts panel and older animations tools,   I am not sure how limbstick works in newer versions of daz studio.. properly why I use ik-chains now days because it quicker set up and save better across newer daz studio versions

    BTW thank you for make me do a refresher course on limbstick. I totally forgot how to use it there for a minute  :)

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

    Log report from daz studio 4.16

     

    {removed about 300 morph load strings to short the post}

    --

    2024-02-02 23:01:04.181 File loaded in 0 min 16.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.184 Loaded file: Genesis 8 Basic Female.duf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.600 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.600 Loaded file: Vagina_UltraPenet-Tight_key.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.604 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.604 Loaded file: Vagina_SupPenet-Tight_key.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.607 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.607 Loaded file: Vagina_Penet-Tight_key.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.610 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.610 Loaded file: default-shape.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.625 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.625 Loaded file: !Tight Vagina.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.644 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.644 Loaded file: PHMEyelashesLengthUpper.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.647 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.647 Loaded file: PHMEyelashesLengthLower.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.651 Loaded Morph Deltas in 0 min 0.0 sec.
    2024-02-02 23:01:04.651 Loaded file: PHMEyelashesCurl.dsf
    2024-02-02 23:01:05.078 Loaded image G8FBaseLegsMapD_1003.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:05.167 Loaded image G8FBaseEyes01_1007.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:05.428 Loaded image G8FBaseArmsMapD_1004.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:05.515 Loaded image G8FBaseMouthMapD_1005.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:05.766 Loaded image G8FBaseFaceMapD_1001.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:06.003 Loaded image G8FBaseTorsoMapD_1002.jpg
    2024-02-02 23:01:50.528 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:01:50.528 Failed to load script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:02:08.456 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:02:08.456 Failed to load script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:02:18.401 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:02:18.401 Failed to load script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:02:21.720 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick (How to Use).dsa
    2024-02-02 23:02:21.737 Script executed successfully: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick (How to Use).dsa
    2024-02-02 23:04:18.720 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:04:18.720 Failed to load script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:04:26.958 Loading script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse
    2024-02-02 23:04:26.959 Failed to load script: G:/Documents/Daz/Scripts/3D Universe/Limb Stick/3DU LimbStick.dse

    Hmmm ?!

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  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    Ivy said:

    Hi crosswinds , It was a while back since i had used limbstick. So I had forgot how i set it up. so for just for you i went back through and do a quick set-up to make sure that it did it work for genesis 2. By following the set-up insturctions for limbstick  I was able to get it to work for both genesis 8 and g2.   limbstick them together to simulate them carry a ladder in a 10 key frame walkit plugin animation cycle with g2 as the lead character. as far as I know limbstick was not created for genesis 2 but it seems to work for me.

    I am not sure if the daz studio version your using has anything to do with it.  I am using daz studo 4.12.83.    I also I did try loading the same scene I save in 4.12 in 4.16  and the script was broke in the scene and did not work along with the walkit animation plugin  so my guess any newer versions of daz studio breaks my 4.12 custom scripts panel and older animations tools,   I am not sure how limbstick works in newer versions of daz studio.. properly why I use ik-chains now days because it quicker set up and save better across newer daz studio versions

    BTW thank you for make me do a refresher course on limbstick. I totally forgot how to use it there for a minute  :)

    Ivy, thanks a lot for looking back to it !  If so, I also presume it doesn't work with the current version of 4.22 that I use. Not a big deal, I'll go for the conversion if needed, haha ! devil 

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    well I reinstalled limstick and it does indeed work in daz 4.16 with genesis2 . I only have 4.16 installed so i can use volumetrics other wise i use daz 4.12 & the limbstick does work for genesis 2 now  after reinstalling  limbstick , that was wierd it was corrupted

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  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    Ivy said:

    It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

    Log report from daz studio 4.16

     

    ...

    Hmmm ?!

    Pls check the change log in here - http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/83712/start

    From your log, I can see that you still have the old version as the latest script name is "3DU LimbStick G3+8.dse". Pls update it via DIM.

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    Ivy said:

    well I reinstalled limstick and it does indeed work in daz 4.16 with genesis2 . I only have 4.16 installed so i can use volumetrics other wise i use daz 4.12 & the limbstick does work for genesis 2 now  after reinstalling  limbstick , that was wierd it was corrupted

    ...

    Hoho ~~ nice... but still no avail for me with 4.22.  Fine by me, I'll let go.  devil

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    crosswind said:

    Ivy said:

    It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

    Log report from daz studio 4.16

     

    ...

    Hmmm ?!

    Pls check the change log in here - http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/83712/start

    From your log, I can see that you still have the old version as the latest script name is "3DU LimbStick G3+8.dse". Pls update it via DIM

    I never install content with dimm. I have to many animations tools that work with 8 different versions of daz studio, that  I can run all at the same time along with poser 11 & 12 so I install everything manully via zip files . I know my content folders very very well and how to trouble shoot issues when animating on the fly this way. Though it takes a little knowledge of how to install SDK files to make the daz studio versions work . But this work flow, works for my needs  so every now and then if something may get corrupted it may just need to be reinstalled to resolve the problem

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 3

    It really helps if you have a lot of screen moniter real-estate. I use 2 - 32 inch samsung  4k monitors running on a old windows 2015 i7 12 core server,  with a discontinued external Dell Alienware Graphics Amplifier with a brand new 1000 watt power supply holding  2 used rtx 2080ti gpu pushing 12 gigs of vram.  its old but its paid for & does the job , use computer/server parts are cheaper than new ones and much easier to find and replace.

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569

    Ivy said:

    pierre_basmoreau_44d01e6861 said:

    benniewoodell said:

    I don't know if it works with M4, but the easiest would be to get the product limbstick. Again, it might only work with G8 and G9 though, but with that, you would animate the oars and the character's body how you want it and just have the hands on the oars on the first frame, and then limbstick would move the arms along with the oars. I've done things like opened up windows in this manner before. If it doesn't work for M4, what you might have to do, and this is the hard part of animating in Daz is trying to figure out a work around to get what you want, is to create a null object and place it where the hands would be on the oar. Parent the oar to the null object and do the IK chain for the hands and parent the IK chain to the null object. Now you would animate the null object and, in theory, the oar and hands would move with it. Good luck.

    Hi,

    I tried to use limbstick with M4 and I confirm that limbstick dont works with M4.
    Then I tried your solution with null and IK chain. It is almost good but when I animate null object, all poses of M4 is disturbed. Then your solution has opened a new way and join the idea of Crosswind. I detail it here.
    When oars are in the 0 pose, horizontal on the boat :
    - set pivot point for each oar for futur rotation;
    - create null object for the right oar and place it where the right hand would be on the oar. Idem for the left oar;
    - parent right oar to its right null object, and parent left oar to its left null object;
    - at this step it is important to define a pivot point to the couple null object + its child oar, so set pivot point to right null object+child right oar and set pivot point to left null object+child left oar;
    - create null object and place it on the middle of the closed right hand. Idem for the left hand with a new null object;
    - with parameters, define a constraint for the couple null object+child oar to point at the null object hand : so, constraint right null object+child right oar to point at null object of the right hand and constraint left null object+child left oar to point at null object of the left hand;
    and .... the oars stick in the hands.
    To adjust the poses of the oars, adjust only the null object of each hand.
    When I set the 6 poses of M4 at different frames (poses were already predefined), oars follow naturally the hands.
    I was planning to export the animation to another software (VUE) but null objects and constraints are specific to DAZ, not understand for another software.
    I made others steps for that : create position keys of each oar for entire animation before unparenting oars and cancel constraints. I exported animation in a file .dae, understandable by VUE.
    Crosswind made his animation in 10 minutes .... i made it in 10 days ! wink

    But I'm thinking about the next step: continuing the project on DAZ or VUE because the VUE rendering is not as efficient as with DAZ. To be continued ...
    Now I have to explore the message of Dartanbeck.

    Good day for all !

     beat me too it :)

    Right. What I was saying is to

    1. Animate Genesis 3, use LimbStick
    2. Save the animated pose or aniBlock
    3. In a fresh scene, load your M4 character
    4. Apply a Genesis 3 Pose Bone Minion made for Generation 4
    5. With the Bone Minion selected, apply the saved pose from the LimbStick'd Genesis 3 animation
    6. Go to the timeline and make sure it's set to "Play All Frames" (or you'd have to play the whole thing through several times to get all keyframes) 
    7. Press Play and let Bone Minion do it's magic!

     

    That might sound like a lot of work doing this and that, but I love it! It actually goes really fast. Bone Minions and 3DU tools have really upped my game!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,569
    edited February 4

    Ivy said:

    crosswind said:

    Ivy said:

    It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

    Log report from daz studio 4.16

     

    ...

    Hmmm ?!

    Pls check the change log in here - http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/83712/start

    From your log, I can see that you still have the old version as the latest script name is "3DU LimbStick G3+8.dse". Pls update it via DIM

    I never install content with dimm. I have to many animations tools that work with 8 different versions of daz studio, that  I can run all at the same time along with poser 11 & 12 so I install everything manully via zip files . I know my content folders very very well and how to trouble shoot issues when animating on the fly this way. Though it takes a little knowledge of how to install SDK files to make the daz studio versions work . But this work flow, works for my needs  so every now and then if something may get corrupted it may just need to be reinstalled to resolve the problem

    Wow!

    I started into all of this with Poser (from 3ds Max when I was only really doing UV Mapping via a plugin) and so... yeah... I got really good at 'knowing my content folders' - and I still work that way - but WITH DIM! 

    Working with that many versions of Studio? Ummm... not for me, thanks! But still, I'd love to see the benefits of it. Ivy, it's time to do another Digital Art Live course! Teach us how this all works!!! 

     

    Your animations have been inspiring me since I saw my first taste many, many years ago. Karate Girl really stole my heart! Whoa... I mean... wasn't that Fluidos when you ran the sea plane on the water? I freaking flipped a lid! Remember? Back then I was All About Carrara! Look at me now. Nay-sayer eating his own words - and then preaching about it!

    I must say... Thanks to you I Love aniMating in Daz Studio!!! Thanks, my Friend! Love Love LOVE your stuff!!!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 4

    Dartanbeck said:

    Ivy said:

    crosswind said:

    Ivy said:

    It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

    Log report from daz studio 4.16

     

    ...

    Hmmm ?!

    Pls check the change log in here - http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/83712/start

    From your log, I can see that you still have the old version as the latest script name is "3DU LimbStick G3+8.dse". Pls update it via DIM

    I never install content with dimm. I have to many animations tools that work with 8 different versions of daz studio, that  I can run all at the same time along with poser 11 & 12 so I install everything manully via zip files . I know my content folders very very well and how to trouble shoot issues when animating on the fly this way. Though it takes a little knowledge of how to install SDK files to make the daz studio versions work . But this work flow, works for my needs  so every now and then if something may get corrupted it may just need to be reinstalled to resolve the problem

    Wow!

    I started into all of this with Poser (from 3ds Max when I was only really doing UV Mapping via a plugin) and so... yeah... I got really good at 'knowing my content folders' - and I still work that way - but WITH DIM! 

    Working with that many versions of Studio? Ummm... not for me, thanks! But still, I'd love to see the benefits of it. Ivy, it's time to do another Digital Art Live course! Teach us how this all works!!! 

     

    Your animations have been inspiring me since I saw my first taste many, many years ago. Karate Girl really stole my heart! Whoa... I mean... wasn't that Fluidos when you ran the sea plane on the water? I freaking flipped a lid! Remember? Back then I was All About Carrara! Look at me now. Nay-sayer eating his own words - and then preaching about it!

    I must say... Thanks to you I Love aniMating in Daz Studio!!! Thanks, my Friend! Love Love LOVE your stuff!!!

    Thank you Dartanbeck ,  you made my day :)

     Lets see if I can make some sense into why i have so many daz studio versions, I run a old windows 7 server  its a beast but has limits when it comes to what version of daz studio i can use.

    My work horse version of daz studio is 4.12.  I use 4.16 to edit and render volumetric's only . so that is the newest daz version I am using is currently 4.16.

    I think to make another tutorial i would need to be at least using daz 4.22 and those newer daz versions would make me have to update to a newer GPU driver which I am not willing to do.

    Then i would loose the ability to control Optix prime acceleration in my gpu server & without the Optix prime acceleration it breaks some of my animation & rendering tools , Which brings to why i have so many version of daz studio running on my system..  Over the many years of animating with daz studio I have gathered a lot of some rather unique & very useful animation tools for daz studio that can not even be found anymore. I acquired  a NVIDIA perpetual Tomcat GPU server license with software , which requires I have GPU drivers that have control over Optix prime acceleration, which does not run on the new NVIDA drivers because NVIDIA newer drivers set Optix prime be on at all times with no why it shut it off.  So I am not willing to give up $1000's of dollars of animations tools , plugins , modeling tools and render software & server apps yet . unforeunetly it break all that old animation content i have for my daz studio if I were to updated my gpu drivers to run a newer version of daz studio above 4.16.

    I keep a copy of daz studio3 for my partical animation tool, and I keep a copy of 4.5  SDK daz versions so I have access to the Script develpament and the bare roots of daz to keeps things running

    for my needs 4.12 renders under 10 seconds a keyframe  and 4.16 get around 34seconds a rendered keyframe .for the same scene on my system set up. any newer GPU drivers makes my old system a brick. ha Ha ha.

    Btw I do have a new karate Girl animation coming,  Ive been rather slow getting done, because flying high end drones has been so much fun that it takes up most of my time :D cheers

     

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • pierre_basmoreaupierre_basmoreau Posts: 9
    edited August 9

    Hi,
    I contacted you at the beginning of January to animate a character rowing on a boat.
    Several of you (Benniewoodell, Dartanbeck, Crosswind) gave me very useful directions for animating the character and the oars at the same time. My discussion was widely commented on beyond the topic raised. One problem announcing another... smiley
    But I managed to “tame” my problem smiley.
    My plan was to see the character in a bucolic environment built in VUE software.
    The transit of characters from DAZ to VUE does not work well even with the DAE format.
    The secondary characters were still imported in DAE into the VUE software.
    But the animation of the main character, the rower, was preserved in DAZ. In the video software, I just applied an overlay of the rower on the background of the VUE landscape.
    Everything is not perfect, for example the rower's jacket which I wanted longer to better hide the pants...and others things.
    I just wanted to share with you the result after hundreds of hours of preparation and dozens of hours of rendering:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k0UBdxw0iIpuSG15Bt-wVGOErJtHr5nK/view?usp=drive_link

    Thank you.
    Sincerely.

    Post edited by pierre_basmoreau on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,969

    It's a pretty good animation esp. with its background music which is one of my favorites. And a good animation doesn't have to be perfect. Nice work !

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