Fixed BVH Export Plugin for DAZ|Studio

Ah....

As for "Absolute vs. Relative Hip Position", that is just for compatibility with other animation tools like QAvimator., the anim works just fine in Second Life either way. I have friends that I share some of my anims with (so they can tweak them how they want) that prefer to use QAvimator, and if I don't click that checkbox the resulting .bvh is all wonky in QAvimator.

The scaling sliders are there because it used to be that when you'd move the figures up/down/forward/back/etc, the amount of movement in Second Life vs. the amount of movement in Daz would be way off, and the sliders were to compensate.

For instance, if I made a crouching anim by moving the hips down, it would look great in Daz but would embed the avatar halfway underground in Second Life, so I'd scale the movement before exporting and it would work fine. If you notice problems like that, play with the sliders and see if it helps some. I think 53% is what works for me for most of my combat anims, so that is hard-coded. If people find that they just want 100% by default, it's easy enough to change in the script or I could do it and upload another version for folks.

Did that stuff make sense? I just woke up <grin/>.


.

Thanks Robby,

I am animating only for SL so the more things work for SL the better. Up to this point I am using QAvimator mostly. Though, I have just started to look at Poser 7. So that is where I am coming from. If I start using DAZ|Studio shoudl I jsut accept the defaults you have? Leave Hip unchecked, and keep the scalign at 53 all around?

Yes, just accept the defaults. If for any reason those defaults seem to cause problems, lemme know and I will check it out and change the defaults if necessary. But they should work fine, those are the defaults I use for all of my own anims.




.

Will do! Now have you had any luck with mixed gender correlated animations and scaling?

Honestly, I've never tried. I do melee combat animations, so it's not something I've had much need for

If, during the process of exploring that in DAZ, you find something that would be enhanced by a plugin, lemme know, though

.

As it is I will be scaling the whole body of one of the two avs. Either the fem down, or the male up. Or some combination of both. However, I am not sure I will need a plugin to do it. Just so I can get them together to use each as a prop for the other.

No, it's pretty easy to scale avatars without a plugin. While I haven't tried doing that for a two-person animation, I have done that to make an animation fit a specific SL avatar, and it works just fine.


.

Ok, where has the animation menu gone ? Where do I add or remove keyframes ? I can see it is somehwere in there, I can customize the menus.... but how. They interface is still so confusing. How do I make the animation longer in DAZ ?

Seems to require switching the lay-out to classic (view-> Interface layout->Select: classic), to have the timeline back as it should. Unless I'm missing something ?

ive only just started using daz, so i dont know how to put the tab on the bottom, so i just undocked the timeline and put it on upper right of my screen.

You increase the amount of frames by going to the timeline tab,and the lil options arrow at upper right,and checking "advanced view". then click on total frames and change it to higher number. the add delete keyframes is there as well.

one tip that might save u some frustration that i just found out, the first frame must be the reference pose that it starts out with when you first import slavatar. so move timeline to frame 1 instead of 0 to start your anims.

I'm having trouble getting this script into the right format on my mac. Or trouble installing, I'm not sure which. When I get to the above web page there is the script in text on the page. I pasted the entire script into a textedit file. I saved it and changed the name to exportBvh.dsb (this extension matches the extension of all the other files in the script folder).

When I tried to create a new custom action I was not able to type in a name. I could select the generic name but the window would not accept any keystrokes into that box. I was able to use browse to find and select the script file and the item called New Custom Action appears in the file menu but when I select it nothing happens. I see that the custom action has a window for inserting the script, but it won't let me enter any text there either. What can I do?

Thanks,
-Sylvia

Two things come to mind immediately...

Firstly, it should be a ".ds" extension, not ".dsb", because this is not a compiled script (that's the difference in extensions).

Secondly, since it is a script in source form, you will need the Daz Script Plugin. This can be found at http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/developer?

I will, when I have just a little more time, put up a .dsb version that probably will get around this requirement.

Hope this helps!


.

It is working now, thanks so much.

Oh, very glad to hear that


.

I've been playing around with DAZ Studio animation for a few days, and find it so frustrating that I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and get Poser. I like having the inverse kinematics- it gives much more natural motion. Also the Puppeteer feature in DAZ is a great tool if you don't need precise motions.

But the lack of any keyframe editing tools in DAZ is a showstopper for me. Particularly for walk cycles, it's hard to get the final motion frame to match with the first without a copy/paste function. I have to export the BVH file to Avimator, adjust the Y-height to above ground, copy the frames, then import to SL. Or if I need to trim frames, I guess I'll have to use BVHhacker for that.

Any workarounds that you are aware that make DAZ easier to use?

I'm in the same boat except that I am committed to DAZ because I can't get bvh files from poser 5 to upload properly and I am working on a contract project that I must finish. See /52/1d/202018/1.html

One thing I discovered today that is helping with the loop "seam". I found I can record a single frame from a puppeteer pose with a single click. I line up the puppeteer cursor carefully and record that single frame from the same pose at frame one and the end frame which works pretty well as a substitue for copy/paste.

Let's see if I understand your method - you set the initial pose in Puppeteer at frame 1, move the timeline slider to the last frame in the animation, and record another frame with that same pose? Good method!

I can't make a smooth walk cycle in Puppeteer using a mouse - I miss the pose points or slow down before the last pose in the sequence. It may work better with a tablet. Also, I was thinking of arranging the poses in a line rather than a circle, and recording more than one cycle. Then I'll trim the frames down to one cycle by reducing the total frame number, add the end pose as you suggested, and export.

Too bad DAZ didn't just add keyframe editing, but I guess then no one would buy their expensive animation software.

I can't do smooth enough animations mousing with puppeteer either. Here is what I got to work fairly well today. I create my key frames in puppeteer. I go where I want to have my key frames in the time line and click once in puppeteer to record that pose. It records two frames, not one like I thought but its still workable. The software is tweening pretty well between my spots where I have recorded two frames from puppeteer. Not perfect but much smoother than mousing in puppeteer. I am spending some time smoothing frame by frame where needed but doing less tedious by the numbers work than I was in poser so I think it will be workable. I can sometimes smooth a tween by finding the right tween between the pose spots in puppeteer.

I'm trying to get this to work, but have a huge issue that maybe someone can explain.

I set up a 900 frame looping stand animation which looks excellent in daz but when I import the BVH into sl my avatar looks tilted to the right and as the animation plays further it looks like my avatar is starting to fall over.

No matter what I try I just cannot fix this, when i load a clean character in daz an import the BVH I uploaded to sl the motion looks fine and my character is standing upright.

What am I doing wrong here ?

Also when I'm making a 900 frame animation I use a sequence like:

frame 0 - Start position
frame 200 - Start position
frame 300 - Stand pose
frame 500 - Stand pose
frame 600 - Stand pose 1
frame 800 - Stand pose 1
frame 900 - Start position

Then i cut of frame 900 to get a nice loop. BUT after i leave the Start position and reach Stand pose my character just keeps tweening to a different pose, when I want it to hold the same pose from 300 to 500 but instead it's waving its'arms like is not intended.

Is there a trick to stop the movement between keyframes that are the same ?

Sylvia - I tried your method and it isn't working too well for me. One mouse click in Puppeteer gives 4-5 frames of the pose in the timeline, producing a very jerky motion. Also, the program is inserting a lot of keyframes in between the pose points. I end up with almost all of the frames being keyframes. Any suggestions what I might be doing wrong?

Darn, that sounds so frustrating. For your mouseclick recorded 4-5 frames, all I can think of is that I am using the version for the mac and you are on a pc and it is working differently? Or perhaps difference in computer speeds or mouse settings are causing it. I use a touchpad mouse. You may be able to adjust the time length of your mouse click.

Also I am keeping my animation movements somewhat slow. If I put my keyframes from puppeteer too close together on the time line it is horribly jerky.

I am only just learning Daz myself. I'll keep you posted if I figure out anything useful.

Edit: I just tried setting my mouse to maximum tracking speed. I'm getting somewhat smoother mousing in puppeteer but still unacceptable.

Using Puppeteer with a Wacom seems to be working for me, though I do occasionally get far too many keyframes. When that happens, I just do a Select All and remove the keyframes from everything on every frame that shouldn't be keyframed.

I'll make the Daz|Script source available for a plugin that can remove keyframes for the selected nodes over a range of frames. Installation is the same as for the BVH Export plugin. See the attached pic for a (hopefully self-explanatory) screenshot.

Direct Link : http://www.daikonforge.com/downloads/RemoveKeyFrames.ds

To use it, select every node (limb, etc) that you wish to remove keyframe data for, and activate the plugin. It will ask you to define the range of frames, and will remove all keyframe data for the selected limbs within that range, leaving the keyframe data for anything that is not selected. It's pretty handy for me, so hopefully it helps someone else too.

.

That's just what I need! Thank you!

The input device does indeed make a difference. I went out and bought a Razer mouse and I am getting better results with puppeteer. I'm back in busniess afer the Poser 5 nightmare. Phew!

You asked:

"...after i leave the Start position and reach Stand pose my character just keeps tweening to a different pose, when I want it to hold the same pose from 300 to 500 but instead it's waving its'arms like is not intended.

Is there a trick to stop the movement between keyframes that are the same ?"

Try the following:

1. In Puppeteer, uncheck the menu item "Fill Skipped Frames". The pulldown menu is reached by clicking the little triangle at the top right of the Puppeteer window.

2. Select all nodes on the avatar (using Select All) and delete all keyframes between the two poses that you want to be the same. Or else use the script that RobbieRaccoon provided to do the same thing.

I'm finally getting the hang of this program, but it definitely has its quirks.