Animate issue with Genesis 3 Figure?

junkbox124

I have searched for answers to this problem I am having but haven't been able to locate anything so I had to post here hoping someone can offer some assistance.

I have Daz3D Studio 4.8 and when I test animate lite on Genesis, and Genesis 2 figures they work just fine and move correctly. However, whenever I try to run any of the same animations on a Genesis 3 female figure it has a major problem where it looks like all the joints are locked straight and won't bend during the movement. So the translations work as far as raising and lowering the character up and down but the arms, legs and torso stay frozen in the 'base pose' although it appears that the neck joint might work.

I had tried to remove everything and just have only Genesis 3 loaded into Daz in case there was some kind of weird conflict but it made no difference.

Help?!

Arnold C

You'd need this product to convert Gen4/Genesis/Genesis 2 animations to be used on Genesis 3. There's no real issue with aniMate, the reason the animations don't work is because

A) Genesis 3's joint nodes are named differently, and

B) DAZ had additionally split "Bend" and "Twist" for most joints into two seperate nodes, when those had been a single node on Gen4/Genesis/Genesis 2.

You may export the animation in BVH format and do the needed corrections by hand in a text editor, but that's a very lengthy process... and you need to have at least an idea what you're doing exactly.

junkbox124

Does this apply even to the default animations in aniMate lite that came with Daz? All I am trying do do so far is to use the ones showing up in the animations tab (like walking and hand to foot dance) rather than any other content that is specific to previous models. I appreciate the help, just trying to get clarification on this point.

Arnold C

Unfortunately, yes it does. The default animations which are delivered with DAZ Studio are exclusively made for the older Generation 4 figures, Victoria 4/Michael 4, etc. They mostly work on Genesis/Genesis 2, too, because they still use the same node names as Gen4, although some joint rotation parameters will look more or less odd since the Genesis /Genesis 2 figures have a different zero pose (known as "T-Pose") than the Gen4 ones. Most of the "Expression" aniBlocks won't work, because the expressions had some nodes named slighly different. And aniMate needs to know the exact node name for a joint to manipulate it. Any slight difference, like "Hip" would be renamed "Hip_1" on a new figure f.e., then aniMate isn't able to find that hip node.

The screenshots below shows one of the differences between the Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 node layout: what is named "rThigh" on Genesis 2 (NODE_1) is named "rThighBend" on Genesis 3 (NODE_2). You still have shin bending on Genesis 3, since that node name is the same as what's used on Genesis 2, but any other node which is named differently aniMate can't manipulate.

Hope that helps a bit.

junkbox124

Seems very strange for Daz to supply an animate ability that doesn't work with it's latest model. Since I had started with Victoria 7, I would have had no way to know that I needed to get older models to get it to work.

Anyway, thank you very much for responding and letting me know why it wasn't working for me. I appreciate it!

Arnold C

Yes, sadly true, that problem is resident since DS 4.0 and the introduction of the Genesis figure. I guess the main problem about that is that DAZ doesn't own theese animations, they're bundeled with DS because of the free aniMate trial and light versions, which is property of the GoFigure! vendor. Unfortunately this one seems practically to be out of business for a few years by now, their latest product was published in Dezember 2012, and the latest aniBlock product even dates way back to August 2010. It's been said that about that time GoFigure lost access to their motion capture studio, and that that would be the reason why they didn't publish anything new.

Another drawback would be that animations in DS are treated stepmotherly ever since, although Dreamlight 3D proofed more than once with their tutorials and shorts, and this spanish award winning guy named Jesús Orellana, that one can do some very nice things in DS beyond just rendering stills. (Although rendered in Blender, all animations were previously prepared within DAZ Studio and then exported for rendering. Production time being said was about 10 month with a budget of around $100.00).

The only chance I see would be that someone may rummage up some change, buy GoFigure out and revive that dead horse and finally send "stepmother" back to hell...

 

Ruphuss

and then i ask myself

why this

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/62001/you-ve-seen-eva-7-but-have-you-seen-her-in-action/p1

why ???

Arnold C

Well, Ruphuss... YANA. You Are Not Alone!

Or THIS one... (YEAH DAZ folks. I have!!! And if you'd offer more animation-specific content and support, there could be the next Ridley Scott, Orson Wells and who-not waiting around the next corner creating animation masterpieces which'd bear "Powered by DAZ3D" in the credits... and drive Disney into bancruptcy! Just a vision...)

SKAmotion is the only vendor at the time publishing excellent animations, usable out-of-the-box, but sparse. GoFigure! does the "Dodo", Posermocap are unfortunately too lazy to include proper HAND positioning into their animations... like any other amateur motion capture artist(s) using iPi Mocap Studio for the creation of their products.

Using animations just for advertising purposes is such a waste of a large potential. With a more proper dynamic cloth and hair system, paired with basic rigid body physics, a basic particle system, and maybe basic fluid simulation, too, DAZ wouldn't have to hide behind software solutions which offer some of or all of that already out of the box, like, even free, Blender f.e. I'm not saying that they should give that away for free, too. I'd willingly pay for additional features like that.

But I guess they don't have the intent to get a place among the top market leading software products. Everytime I compare DAZ Studios due to SmartContent and Content Management most advanced and unrivalled user-friendly interface, and the recently added Iray renderer, with any other software of that kind, I cannot as much as I want to.

Almost 4 years ago they did a clever marketing move offering Studio Pro for free and relying income just through sales of additional content. Must kinda paying out, or else they'd be charging for DS again.

And I'm with you, too, on your comment about the senseless integration of animations into the "Poses" categorie. But at least on this one DAZ doesn't stand alone, all major DAZ/Poser market places do that. For whatever unknown and for me unintelligible reason...

If one of you is interested, Mixamo has currently their whole catalog of animations given away for free atm. Since they dropped some time ago DAZ figure support, it wouldn't be that easy anymore to get them into DS. But they're "industry standard" and of excellent quality...