Fixed BVH Export Plugin for DAZ|Studio

A quick plugin for DAZ|Studio that solves both the naming (joint capitalization) and, more importantly the floating point value (rotation inaccuracies) problems.

This replaces DAZ|Studio's borked BVH Exporter, and makes the program useable for creating animations for SL.

INSTALL STEPS
1) Download http://www.simulacity.com/secondlife/daz/bvh-exporter-1.0.0.zip
2) Copy the file "exportBvh.dsb" to the DAZ scripts directory (by default
this is: "C:\Program Files\DAZ\Studio\scripts"
3) Open DAZ|Studio
4) From the menus, select Edit/Customize
5) Look for "Custom" in Actions list, then right click and select "new Custom Action..."
6) In the dialog that appears, enter the following:
(i) Menu Text field: Export BVH...
(ii) Description field: Escort's BVH Exporter for Second Life (or whatever...)
(iii) Ensure that the "DAZ|Script File" checkbox is enabled and use the (...) button
to browse to the script "exportBvh2.dsb" that you just copied
(iv) Click accept
7) In the RHS pane of the Customize dialog, select the "Menu" tab and open "Main Menu/File"
Drag the custom action from the LHS to the RHS into that menu
9) Click Accept
10) Use it!

To add to the Toolbar too...
1) Open Edit/Customize dialog
2) Right click on the Custom Action "Export BVH..." and click "Change Icon..."
3) Browse to \DAZ\Studio\resources\images\icons and find "exporticon.png"
4) On RHS select Toolbars tab and open the Main toolbar
Drag the custom action from the LHS to the RHS into that toolbar
9) Click Accept
10) Use it!

Report BUGS to me, not failures to RTFM

/esc

Hi Esc

Just a little question...

I'm testing your script to test animations and it works right but... when I load the BVH file in Avimator (or Qavimator) the manequin appears to be down the "floor". The motion works ok but is a hard to work with it into Avimator...

Is there any way to solve that.

Thank you

Erm, this wasn't designed for integration with Qavimator, but it's about the first frame insert. You can manually edit the pos/rot of the hips in the first frame of the BVH motion section to "correct" that for Qavimator, but my integration effort is with SL not other animation progs!

Erm, this wasn't designed for integration with Qavimator, but it's about the first frame positioning (which I have not looked at in Qavimator at all).

You can manually edit the pos/rot of the hips in the first frame of the BVH motion section to "correct" that for Qavimator, but my integration effort is with SL not other animation progs!

best
/esc

Thank you Esc for the response...

I realized that Avimator was not needed, SL works right with the animations that your plugin exports.

This morning I was uploading a series of modified animations and my doubts dissapear. No other program but DAZ was needed.

Esc, GREAT WORK

If you export a static animation (all the frames are the same) and try to upload it to SL, SL will refuse to read it.

Beyond that it works great ^_^
I just wish Daz would show keyframe locations.

The next version beta I'm working with auto-inserts an initial keyframe to allow SL to initialize 'one-frame' animations. Unfortunately, Daz 3D has another platform bug in it which prevents me creating a robust importer that will remove it on import. So for clarity I didn't release that feature in the current plugin. I'm following that bug and will include the auto-insert feature if I can get the other bug fixed or find a suitable workaround.

/esc

Hey there...

I have followed your steps for installing the avatar, but I'm not sure of step 8. Can you explain it further? Drag the what to the what??

Oh - didn't see your post until now Amelia - basically LHS and RHS refer to "left hand side" and "right hand side", so you simply drag the custom action you created and is visible on the left"into the menu tree" that appears on the right

Escort --

I tried oout your plugin and noticed the following behavior which I had not expected:

I had a pair of characters (AVs) loaded in DAZ. I then selected one and chose to export BVH. I then selected the other and did the same. In both cases I got the same animation exported. I had to remove character from scene, then export, relaod the scene and remove the other character then export again to effectively get both anims.

On another note, do you know a way to change the floor position in DAZ? I bounce back and forth between DAZ and QAvimator a bit. If a create somethign in daz, then bring it into QAvimator the av is burried in the floor, and I have to hand tweak the hip on each frame. This isn't so bad if the hip doesn't move... but when it does it makes for some bad math... I think, and I may be wrong that in DAZ the character's hip is at 0 and the floor is relative to that maybe -43.5285 and in QAvimator the av's hip is at 43.5285 and the floor is at 0. Either something like that, or somethign else... Anyway that I can compensate so that I can still bounce back and forth?

-- Absinthe

Anyone tried to get the plugin working on the Mac? I installed it, but when I activate the custom export nothing happens. I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or that the mac and windows plugins are not compatible.

Meni

Links aren't working for me... anyone have a copy of this, would love to test it out with Puppeteer.

Unfortunately, seems like Studio still has these awful errors in the latest version, if this plugin fixes it, would love to have it. Maybe upload it to the thread itself if its small enough?

What you need to do is deselect (make it invisible) the characters you do NOT want exported. I'm at work and can't test, but I think it's a little "eye" looking thingie next to each avatar in that pane on the left-hand side of the screen. There is no need to remove/reload.

Drop me an IM in game and I'll see about emailing it to you. Insofar as teh "awful errors", if your'e referring to the renaming of joints in the BVH export, then yes, it still has them and yes, this plugin fixes them. There are other errors that still annoy me, but overall, the 1.7 version of Studio is a great enhancement.

Here is a link to mine, which was originally based on Escort's, but has some extra features: http://www.daikonforge.com/downloads/export_to_secondlife.ds

Here's a snapshot for those interested: http://www.daikonforge.com/downloads/daz_bvh_export_dlg.png

You can specify which of the figures to export, as well, which I think addresses a comment above.

Installation is exactly the same as Escort's.

.

Hey Robby, is it necessary to uninstall Escort's first before installing yours?

No, not necessary, if you just create a different item for it, and a different button on the toolbar.

They will live side-by-side just fine


.

Cool, Robby! I will try this tonight on 1.7.. It may all be accademic since I have poser now. But who knows... maybe I will still like Daz Studio better

thanks Robby! Got it, will be playing with it tonight.

The reason I wanted to see if its nicer than Poser is that 1.7 version of Daz Studio has the Puppeteer, and it looks like a really fluid way to build blended animation. But if I couldn't export to BVH I was kinda hosed!

I am still not sure I have figured out what puppeteer does...

I've been kind of interested in Puppeteer. Please do let us know what you think of it


.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZRYJC9RV8

YouTube video shows it in use - you can make a set of various poses which are saved into that grid, and with your mouse, you can dynamically blend the animations together by mousing over them, and recording the keyframes as you do it.

WHOAH! I totally missed the post where they said 1.7 was out!!!

Downloading now. Thanks for the vid link, Hypatia!

[EDIT] Quick note: If I had known how cool Puppeteer was, I'd have bought it long ago!!! And now it's free, yay!!!


.

Ok, got it installed! Now what is all this scaling stuff? I see the three sliders and the checkbox for scaling all equally...

As well, what is the significance of absolute vs relative placement of the hip