Humor - Thunder Dances - One of my first Animations! - 3DAllusions

TheAllusionist · #1 (**permalink**) 02-17-2004, 02:31 AM

Just a funky animation based on my dancing technique:

http://www.3dallusions.com/images/Di...DancesPost.wmv

rondo · #2 (**permalink**) 05-28-2004, 12:58 PM

funny ... better make room for you on the dance floor!

as a critique, if the character was on a floor, it would translate the motion better.

TheAllusionist · #3 (**permalink**) 05-28-2004, 03:03 PM

Thanks rondo, it was my first animation, and though it is very rough, I still get a kick out of it. If only I could dance that well! LOL I purchased Motion Builder months ago, but have not had the time to play with it, let alone learn it, but some real character animation is on my "to do list".

rondo · #4 (**permalink**) 05-28-2004, 03:09 PM

are you exporting from TS into MotionBuilder? How does that work for ya?

TheAllusionist · #5 (**permalink**) 05-28-2004, 08:44 PM

Well I haven't had the time to work with it, but exporting a mesh out of TS isn't a problem, but you won't be able to use TS bones. The part that will be difficult is getting animation back into TS and may not be worth the effort since all the major players offer FBX compatibility. What I tried with my personal one year version was try to export out the animations into BVH and then into TS via TrueBones.

The animation did not come in correctly and I could not get it into Poser correctly to fix it for TB. Now I found a tutorial on how to use poser with MB, so I should be able to to get the animations back into TS via BVH to Poser BVH via TrueBones. I just haven't had the time to work with it.

Clear as mud? Well I need to install my MB 5.5 upgrade also, before I play with it, by the time I can get to it, it will probably be at version 6!

rondo · #6 (**permalink**) 05-28-2004, 09:18 PM

yeah, if TS could import BVH, that would be cool. Especially in Motion Studio (which I hear may be coming in v.2)

Have you heard anybody that has used that cheap motion capture setup using multiple web cams? Looked promising.

TheAllusionist · #7 (**permalink**) 05-29-2004, 02:08 AM

All I know about the video camera to BVH is third hand at best. Someone on the Caligari forum was saying it was cool and he was using it I believe. But, someone else at another forum said it was a joke and not worth the wasted effort. Glad I could clear that up for you. If it worked that well I imagine others would be using it and we would here a lot more about it. I get the feeling it is for entry level hobbist.

There are tons of free BVH and FBX animations out there, the trick is finding something to blend them together and animate your own portions so it doesn't look like a bunch of chained pre-canned animations. Supposedly you can now use TS's NL clip copy and paste to add them to a scene and let the keyframing blend them, this is how I believe it works in other programs as well. You have to have a skeleton with the same skeleton setup for each of the animations you join together, or so I believe.

I bought Motion Builder so I could learn proper character animation and then bring it into whatever new package I end up getting. It seems to be a really cool program, and I hope to get the time to use it! LOL FWIW