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!
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.
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
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)
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!