dartanbeck.com - Animating with Cascadeur

Getting Animated

I primarily use motion capture data which I purchase through Daz 3D - and it's been working out great for me.

I've been having a real blast doing my own by-hand key framing edits and rebuilds for various parts of the animations - using the original motion capture to drive my edits and rebuilds.

Dynamic Character Animation in Daz Studio, The Power of aniMate 2, and Movie Magic in Daz Studio all show experiences I have with this process and teach techniques that speed up and simplify animating in Daz Studio in general, along with tips and advice for getting speedier renders as well. I absolutely Love the process!

Dynamic Character Animation - DAZ Studio

The Power of aniMate 2 DAZ Studio

Movie Magic in DAZ Studio

Content Wizard

Daz 3D Content Library

Enter Cascadeur

Cascadeur is a standalone 3D software that lets you create keyframe animation, as well as clean up and edit any imported ones.

Thanks to its AI-assisted and physics tools you can dramatically speed up the animation process and get high quality results.

It works with .FBX, .DAE and .USD files making it easy to integrate into any animation workflow.

!!! WOW !!!Chinese New Year Sale on Cascadeur Plans!!! WOW !!!

Why use Cascadeur with Daz Studio?

Cascadeur is very popular and ever-so-useful for creating game asset animations. It's fluid means of importing and exporting FBX files from and to the most popular cases available to us is Paramount, and makes for a Very Comfortable workflow.

I am not in all of this for Gaming, but for making cinematic previews and shorts - one day, perhaps, a nice little movie or series of them.

What I Love about Daz Studio is the ability to utilize assets from such a wide range of incredible 3D Asset creators - including Daz 3D themselves, who are known for making some of the finest consumer CG people - and it goes way beyond that.

I have quite a lot of friends who prefer to convert this to make use of that, collect assets, freely or otherwise, from multitudes of places, no matter what their compatibility, and convert that into....

That's too headachy to me for the most part. But even more so, while I love the idea of utilizing the power of things like Unreal Engine or other solutions, I've never found hair that works anywhere other than Daz 3D that even comes Close to how this hair works for my Rosie.

The huge upside for me in Not taking all of those additional steps is that it keeps me using Daz 3D assets in Daz Studio, so it all just works - and works Beautifully! These sequences are all shot at Test-Render resolutions and settings to get done quickly as experiments. Then I just turn them into something in DaVinci Resolve - to me it's a Huge Win WIN!!!

Cascadeur - Daz Studio Workflow

Definitely the Most Elegant Way to create our own custom animations for Daz Studio.

File > Import FBX/DAE

Importing an FBX/DAE into Cascadeur (any version) brings us to this screen

I select "Scene" to bring in my FBX but we can also use the "Model" option as well.

Below are my FBX exports from Daz Studio

Just Say Yes - You Know You Want To!!!

We don't even need to perform the simple auto-rig process!!!

Even if we did have to perform the auto-rigging process it's a familiar, easy-to-follow process of placing the correct figure elements to their proper place in this simple worksheet. If you find yourself needing to rig a character in here, check out the Cascadeur YouTube channel for their fun and simple tutorial videos.

This next stage looks kind of scary! Don't worry!!!

When we click this "Generate Rig" button, we leave this room for the next - the most exciting - that Cascadeur Animation Workshop!!!

If we need to make changes to our animating experience with our rig, there are videos for that as well. We all have custom stuff we like or need to do - and Cascadeur can take us there.

To help understand what we're seeing in the image below, the blue balloons help Cascadeur determine the mass of the figure along its various skeletal regions. The little black outlined plane-looking things are Box controllers and the black outlined capsules around the blue balloons are for the new character collision system, which allows for things like contact between multiple characters, ragdoll physics, and contact with the floor and other collision elements that may be present in the scene. The upside-down lilac colored pyramid thingy between the legs indicated the Center of Gravity while the rest of the lilac elements are the figure rig itself.

Knowing how these things works is something that interests me greatly, but we don't even need to concern ourselves with any of it using our Daz 3D figures.

Let the Animating Begin!!!

After clicking "Generate Rig" above, we come to the screen below, which is an awesome working zone for creating any kind of animation we might dream up - seriously!

The process could not be more wonderful for anyone wanting to create their own animations - or even just properly balanced poses.

Check out this cool video for getting started - and using the Free version is a great way to get your feet wet with how this all works. Everything I've done so far - bringing in our Daz Figures can be done with the Free version, and we can get settled into a whole new realm of fun while getting used to how the software works!

Very cool, right?

The Indie and Pro versions of the software include an "Export to DAZ" command, which provides us with an FBX file that we can use to create an animated (or not?) DUF Pose file and/or an aniBlock, which is my preferred way to work. aniMate aniBlocks give us additional control over how we use the animated motion on our figures, like faster or slower, reversed or mirrored, change the direction that the figure travels, etc., along with the wonderful ability to blend animations together as one.

As we progress and decide that we'd like to take our work into Daz Studio, we need to upgrade to either Indie or Pro tiers of the software. Both are wonderfully affordable, and both have this amazing command: Export to DAZ

Cascadeur Pro Tier Goodness!!!

In the images below we see that on the left I have an animation going for Genesis 8 Female, which Cascadeur recognizes upon FBX Import, so we don't even have to learn the rigging process for these sorts of figures.

Pro version offers is the ability to automatically retarget our animations from any Cascadeur rigged figure to another, regardless of scale, etc., amongst many other Pro features.

In this example (below right) I've taken my G8F animation and retargeted it to Genesis 9 with two simple clicks: Edit > "Retarget Copy" (G8F animation selected) and then Edit > "Retarget Paste" onto Genesis 9, first making sure that there are enough frames on G9's timeline to hold them all. That's it!!!

Cascadeur and Daz 3D

Definitely a learning curve, but this is the sort of learning curve I am Very Excited to traverse!

The awesome folks at Cascadeur (and they really are Awesome Folks!!!) do an incredible job of helping us all get into animating within this most amazing software.

Tutorials - They've created a series of online tutorials to get you up to speed with 3D animation techniques in Cascadeur
Video Tutorials - is a YouTube Playlist of very helpful "Getting Started" lessons before we move on to more advanced practices.
Cascadeur Documentation - is an absolute wealth of information regarding this incredible system.

Check out the Plans at Cascadeur and discover which is best for your situation. Do try the Free version first! It'll help you to really see how these tools can enhance your entire workflow - and it's free forever - not a 30 trial or anything like that. Keep an eye on their social network, however, because they often offer time-limited trials of the Indie tier.

This page has been started as a means for myself to keep track of certain things as I immerse myself into this most amazing software. I truly feel that, by getting Cascadeur Pro Tier, I'm starting 2025 in the Best Way Possible!!!

Cheers, my friends, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the page! ;)

Download Cascadeur

Check Out the Cascadeur YouTube Channel

Get the Latest Release!

Check Out the Cascadeur YouTube Channel

Download Cascadeur

Cascadeur UI

Timeline Explained

Here we get all of the hotkeys and UI instrument information that we need to fully prepare ourselves for a Wonderful Journey into Animating

Cascadeur ROCKS!!!

Download Cascadeur

The AI pose assistance is really a magical component to how Cascadeur works. For each key frame of animation we create (or just a solitary pose, for that matter). As we apply a change to the pose in even the smallest way, we're sending a prompt to the AI, which immediately calculates how the rest of the figure's body reacts according to its center of mass.

Okay, if that was too wordy - as we start to pose, Cascadeur's AI reads what we're doing and starts posing the rest of the figure automatically - which is really Very Cool!

If we want to change what the AI comes up with, we can. But it's always best to just keeping working and let the AI help - but each of us have our own specific taste - so we're really free to just create poses however we'd like.

Don't like using the AI? We don't have to. Even without the AI, Cascadeur is an impressive motion-building software in tis own right, and it works with Genesis 8, 8.1, and 9 figures!

To get the animations out of Cascadeur and back into Daz Studio, we'll need to have the "Pro" version (highest tier) - but at that point we get a handy "Send to Daz" button! :)

But Wait - There's More - A Lot More!

We've got AI assistance to get our animation plotted out with really good interpolation methods to make it all look like a really nice animation already. We can even switch between IK (Inverse Kinematics - popular for most things) and FK (Forward Kinematics allow these joints to be their own driving force) and a new Global Rotation interpolation (Arms Only) which keeps them within their global space - rotationally. They still follow everything else in translation. Cool feature for many applications.

After that we get a whole slew of additional tools that help us do amazing things to our animations - AutoPhysics features and Secondary Motions, Ballistics and a lot more... and the folks developing this thing are really Really busy making it better and better every minute of every day - it's a cool time to be an animator! :)

Non-Standard Figures Support

Cascadeur is always evolving and, along with it is the list of compatible figures that it supports. Using a Mixamo character? Yeah... you can bring that into Cascadeur and it'll recognize it and apply the rigging for you automatically - same with Genesis 8, 9, Unreal, Reallusion, Blender... the list goes on - and that's incredible!

Even if your figure isn't one of those, Cascadeur has a really nice rigging assistant to help to get your figure up and running - literally!

Check out this cool, short promotional/explanatory video

Download Cascadeur

Me and Cascadeur

At this point I have very little time - so I'm mostly just easing myself in with experimentation.

As I learn the easy process, I'm realizing that it shouldn't take too long before I'm making my own custom packs of Daz-compatible motions - motions that I wish that I had for a particular scene but couldn't find available as Motion Capture.

It's really cool that Cascadeur also makes it easy for us to repair or even just edit and change around motion capture data.

Motion Capture Acting

I don't really do motion capture myself. I purchase motion capture data - or rather, the license to use it for my work.

Browsing on YouTube, I found this fun adventure - YouTuber, Michelle Khare does a program called: Challenge Accepted, and for this one she delves into the incredibly difficult task of Acting for Motion Capture.

You think you're ready? Do you think you have what it takes?

This fun video might give you a bit more perspective on what this job entails! Very cool, indeed!!!

I'm No Motion Capture Actor

I've been part actor all my life, along with being a drummer, singer, artist... But Motion Capture Acting... we can all do it if we want. The methods for doing so have been simplified Immensely over the past several years.

Arguably, Real motion capture is best when recording Real motion capture actors by Real motion capture specialists.

We can import motion capture data into Cascadeur, but we can also use Motion Capture Acting to help us key frame what the motion actors are doing - like traditional key frame animating. In Cascadeur, however, we'll have the help of AI, Physics, Ballistics, and Secondary Motion algorithms!

I will be using Cascadeur to make a lot of animations by hand - out of my own imagination. But I'll also be getting more specific with the help of a Japanese company that specializes in recording motion capture for games, movies... the whole nine yards - and they're Excellent!!!

Motion Actor Inc

Check This Out!!! These folks are Serious Actors!

To do this sort of work, you really have to be able to Act, Fight, Dance... you need to be able to take choreograph instruction and bring it to life under a director.

I am now a Huge Fan of All of the people involved in this! Bravo to Motion Actor!

You Want More, Right?

Love These People!!!

Check out Motion Actor Inc's YouTube Channel!!! (click banner below)

Using these video captures in Cascadeur

Here's a prime example of how to translate what we see in these excellent Motion Actor videos into our own work

Download Cascadeur

First Steps

For my first run, I created a transition between an idle pose animation that I haven't made yet into an action hero stance.

In making this, I decided that I should also made an idle pose for the action stance. At first I thought about just making this one longer - all in one motion file. Then it occurred to me that, doing that would make it much more difficult - or at least not very user-friendly - to cycle the idle portion to hold that stance longer.

So was born the beginnings of my first Genesis 9 Animation Construction Kit.

So far it's just the two animations - just to try everything out and start logging some good old fashioned muscle-memory experience of going through the process.

We've got Idle to Hero Stance A, then Hero Stance Idle A, and I thought that it would be best to add a hand pose construction kit to allow users to blend together a large variety of hand gestures and actions along with however they utilize this kit as it continues to grow.

Judging by how quickly this all went from my imagination to fully realized animation, I should have a really nice pack together in fairly short order - if for no other reason than to play with it myself - but I think it'll turn out really great, meaning that I'll put it up for availability at Daz 3D - which is the ultimate goal in the investment of Cascadeur Pro.

I'm in the middle of simulating Rosie's hair on a mock-up of an imaginary Rosie 9 Character so that I can render it out and see how it all looks for real - and to have something to show you folks.

The camera navigation is just different enough in Cascadeur from anything else I use, I may just change it. For now I'm juts going to see how quickly I can get used to it - since it does use standard control for professional animation software - like Maya ands the like. But I've been finding my lack of being accustomed to these sort of action controls adds a touch of frustration to the flow of things - nothing bad, but enough to cause me to have to undo a few steps on occasion for mucking stuff up.

Still... the software is amazing to use even before we ever get to the physics side of things. I'm really enjoying this a LOT!!!

Just the Beginning

I've only just began to tip toe into this - so I haven't even really begun. But I wanted to share it with you.

More to come in the future!

In the meantime, here are some fun videos to check out!

Download Cascadeur

The Creative Cart Episodes at Daz 3D - Collect Them All!!!

Dartanbeck enjoys bringing Daz 3D content to Life in his animations and presentations, art, and helping others to connect with fun and artistic techniques - helping to get these amazing assets Out of the Library and Into the Scene!!!

Each Creative Cart episode begins as a Free online webinar and is then offered at Daz 3D as a collectible video series to add to your entertainment, inspiration, and scene-building workflows.

Check out The Creative Cart section at Dartanbeck.com

Free Live Webinar - January 18th!

Join us on an adventure of melding the imaginations of Aeon Soul, and their over-the-top, highly artistic and detailed costumes and outfits with The DigiVault, and his fantastic array of adventure zone environments!

Aeon Soul meets The DigiVault!