Luuk Steitner
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Posts posted by Luuk Steitner
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The Action continues to reference the bvh file, I just tested it. Delete the bvh and the action is empty.
I didn't expect that. It appears in A:M like it's baked so I assumed it was. I wonder why capturing a sequence takes a minute but reloading the action does not. Maybe it is baked but deleted when the BVH file is missing.
This could be tested by swapping names of BVH files to see if the other action is loaded. I'll check it out later.
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When you capture a BVH sequence the animation is baked into the action. After this the BVH file is not needed anymore, if I'm right. I give my actions any name I want, that shouldn't matter as long it's obvious to you which action it is.
I was planning to add contrast/color adjustment in a future upgrade. But experimenting with the configuration settings should always do the trick if the lighting of your video is good. I understand it's not always easy to get good lighting so adding such a control might add value for some people. I was able to track all my videos without having to edit them first. Some of them were pretty bad.
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Did you try closing your action/chor windows and reopening them? Sometimes that solves things like this.
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I still don't understand why this would be necessary...maybe I'm missing something.
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EDIT
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I should have been clearer. Why would the BVH bones need to rotate with the chest? All that is needed is the data from the BVH bones to drive the face...which is parented to the rig's chest.
You're right David, but constraining the face bones directly to the BVH rig is easier to do for those who aren't that experienced with setting up poses, expressions etc.
Rotating the BVH rig is a simple solution, but I think your method of driving the face is the best way to do it.
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Cronos,
I have found a very simple solution. The BVH root can be rotated by expressions in the chor.
To make it orient like the chest:
1. Select the model under the chor in the PWS.
2. switch "show more than drivers" on
3. switch to skeletal mode
4. click on the BVH rig in the chor window
5. now one of the BVH bones is selected select the "shortcut to BioVision BVH File1" in the PWS
6. in the properties window open transform->Rotate
7. select rotate X, right click, choose edit expression. in the expression for Transform.Rotate.X add: "..|..|..|..|..|Chest.Transform.Rotate.X"
8. now, select the rotate Y property in the same way. in the expression for Transfrom.Rotate.Y add: "..|..|..|..|..|Chest.Transform.Rotate.Z"
9. now, select the rotate Z property in the same way. in the expression for Transfrom.Rotate.Z add: "-..|..|..|..|..|Chest.Transform.Rotate.Y"
Note: The 'Y' is controlled by the 'Z' of the chest and the 'Z' by the inverted 'Y'. this is because the orientation of the bones is different.
Now the head should move when you move the chest.
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I'm getting some more questions from MAC users asking if they can run my app on a MAC with VM or parallels.
Is there anyone out there with a MAC with Windows who is willing to try if it works?
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Thanks David, it's clear to me. I hope this won't be too hard for some people
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Apparently it's not possible to add an orient like constraint to the BVH object. I was taking a look at the Squetch rig because it works OK with that rig, although you have to rotate the head by hand. I noticed David used expressions to constrain the Squetch face. I'm not sure if that is what makes the difference.
David, if you read this; how did you do it?
A simple workaround would be to add a model with just the face rig and constrain that rig to the BVH rig. Add that model to the chor, constrain the root bone of that rig to orient like the chest of your model, and orient the face to the face rig.
I'm sure there must be better ways to do this (like David's) so any suggestions would be welcome.
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William Sutton has the 'grandaddy of all BVH toots' at zandoria.com but I'll sum them up.
A BVH motion capture file is a skeletal motion file that imports nicely into A:M (Make a new action and import a character. Select New/Biovision BVH/ and then find the file you want to load and load it. The BVH will load frame by frame and may take a while for a longer BVH. You will then see a series of BVH skeleton bones in a tree separate from your characters rig. You will need to select THE parent BVH bone and rotate/scale/position it to your rig, whether just the face or the whole body, as close as possible. Then- using 'Orient Like/Constrain To/ Aim at' and other constraints you can 'nail' your rig to the BVH's bones...one by one. Then adjust adjust adjust until happy. The beauty of it is that once you have one installed you can then go back and load another BVH action over the first (Good time to use Save As...) and avoid all the constraining the 2nd 3rd 4th time 'round.
Happy Animating!
In case of the Zign Track BVH files is not not necessary to rotate/scale/position the rig. You only need the 'orient like' constraints (with compensate) Only the rotation of the BVH bones is used.
I should make special tutorial for this but I don't have time for it at the moment. I found the use of BVH files very easy when I did it the first time. I hope others will find it's easy too. (is that correct english?
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If you get a message about the project file being incorrect I would think the file is corrupted. If you can post the file we can take a look at it.
Are you able to save new project files and open them?
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It is a great first test Ernest. Thank you for showing this.
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Not all MoCap software is that expensive. It could be done with Syntheyes too, but it will still cost you a lot more, you will be needing more cameras and it's much more difficult to use.
With some practicing you can achieve pretty good results with Zign Track. Some people out there get better results than I do
The results you get with those very expensive software might be a little bit better, but I'm working on some improvements to really compete with their results. It will take some time and feedback from other users to make it better, so my question to all Zign Track users: Show us your results and tell me how you think it could be improved. Together we can make it better than good enough
(oh, and; please buy it... LOL) -
No holidays for me...
1. The background color in the chor is set the background color in the camera properties.
The color on the floor in the default chor is caused by the light color of the rim. You can alter the surface properties of the ground or just the light color of the rim.
2. If you want to connect bones in a model, open the bones tree-view and make the bones you want to connect parent-child by dragging them.
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I do have 1 question Luuk. The AVI that I have imported into Zign Tracker shows frames 1 to 225 frames. However, when I export the BVH file and create the action in AM, it imports into AM with keyframes 1 to 195. But, it doesn't seem that it's truncating the BVH file; all the 'action' in the original AVI seems to be there. (That is, all the mouth movements to dialogue are covered and keyframes set for the words mouthed). I'm guessing that it might have something to do with Zign using 30 FPS and my setup in AM is for 24 FPS? I'll try a project setup for 30 FPS and see if that is it.
From what I have managed to render out for test videos so far, I could not be happier or more overwhelmed with possibilities. Luuk, YOU are DA MAN!!
Zign Track uses the same frame rate as your video file. It could be that if your A:M project has a different FPS the length will change. I have not tested this.
If you set your project FPS the same as your video it should work fine. If you want to alter the FPS of your BVH file you could use Dave Dub's BVH hacker that has a re sample to 30 FPS function.
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I just found out I forgot something
During Beta testing I made a lock in Zign Track which disables the Beta on 01/01/2008. When I released Zign Track I forgot to remove that lock so if you have downloaded and installed it before you saw this this message you should download it again from my site, if you plan to use it in 2008
. I have uploaded the new setup file.I'm sorry about that...
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Hi Ernest,
I don't think copying parts from the squetch rig would be the best idea. As far as I know you'll have to add all relationships yourself then.
How is the face rig set up in your models? If it's a bit like this example it is easy to constrain: FrenchMan.zip
If your face is driven by poses you could also let the BVH rig drive those poses. You'll have to add some bones or nulls, constrain them to the BVH rig (orient like only, don't forget compensate mode). Now those bones or null can be used to drive your poses.
In my example the face rig looks just like the BVH rig. Except for the sneer and cheeks, those are driven with a smartskin. So that's the third possible method.
I hope this helps.
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good news , please support "Import Folder as Frames" ( .tga , .jpg , .png ) , is more flexible that AVI files
example : frame0000.tga , frame0001.tga , frame0002.tga ......
I was thinking about that. I'll put it on my to do list, but I'm not sure how soon I'll get to do that.
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Luuk,
Could you describe the current payment system? It looks like we give you our email, then a day later you email back an invoice? How is payment made with this invoice?
thanks!
-Jim
After I have received your order you will receive an PayPal invoice. You can pay with your PayPal account, credit card or bank transfer.
When the payment is received you will get your license key.
Looks like it converts to $172.55 USD...right?The current rate is 1.486, so that's 144.99 USD at the moment. I can't charge VAT to customers outside Europe.
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It looks like we're ready to roll!
I was waiting for the transfer of my website to my new web host and just this morning it was activated. Zign Track appears to be running without errors, so version 1.0 is released now. I will finish the 2D tracking part (which was intended to be experimental) later and keep working on improvements as people tell me what they like too see. In the mean time I will give a 10% discount and 1.xx upgrades will be free of charge so there's no need to wait.
To get Zign Track go to the Zign Track webpage
I will launch a new website in February with an automated payment system.
If you experience any problems email me at support@zigncreations.com
I hope you like Zign Track as much as I do
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If nothing is working for you, you might shutdown all applications can can 'hook' to other applications like virus scanner, key logger, translating tool etc. It should not be the cause but maybe it's worth a try.
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That looks great Paul! I have no clue what song it is, but I don't know much songs from the 50's.
If you're having problems with your internet speed that can also be caused by a busy YouTube server. Just try again later.
Btw, you've called it Zine Tack again...
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Cool
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That looks great Al!
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I did learn a lesson with this video. The actual problem was that my sister had her head titled backwards at the first frame while Zign Track needs the model to be in a neutral position at the first frame. This was causing bad offsets which I reduced by hand and because it didn't all work out like I wanted I reduced some enforcements too.
I made a new BVH file, this time starting at a neutral position. I had to leave the first seconds but now I was able to use this BVH without having to adjust the constraints. It looks a lot better now. To make it perfect I should have to add a few poses for the mouth by hand, but it might be better to show a demo without manual added poses so everyone can see exactly what was doen by Zign Track and what the animator might add to the mocap.
Here's the new video
Facial MoCap experiments
in Showcase
Posted
With a slow camera like that the chance of feature swapping gets really big. If the markers are close together and you move, it could be that a marker has moved to the position of it's neighbor on the next frame. 10 FPS is probably too slow for good results (it sure is too slow for lip syncing). But if you like to play with it first you'll have to manually adjust the first 3 dots first. You can place the features on some frames were it's hard too track by hand and track again till the neck, fore head and chin feature are tracked correctly. Once those are tracked like it should the Motion guide will use this features as reference to predict the position of other features. Check other features per pair and try to track them. Lock the features that are tracked correctly to save some time.
If this is not working out like you want you really need a better camera.