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Cinematic Animation in Daz Studio and DaVinci Resolve - WEEK 4

Week 4 - Directing Action

Up to this point:

We're practicing our method:

• Working with a Star Character from a convenient location in our Content Library (Week 3)

• Adding essential elements that we can load directly from this custom library we've created (Week 3 Finale)

• Start a new Daz Studio session, load the main character, add an Empty aniBlock (30 frame buffer) (Week 2)

• Load an aniBlock and trim it to the length that we want to animate. This may be more than one aniBlock (Week 2)

• Bake the result to the Daz Studio Timeline (Week 2)

• With everything collapsed in the Timeline, select frames 1 through 29 and use the special "-" button to delete them (Week 2)

• Select the keyframes on frame 0 and set the interpolation type to Linear (Week 2)

Following these steps is how we will become incredibly proficient at animating our characters. There's So Much More that we can do at this point - and this is where we can let our imaginations Shine!

I've added a Bonus opportunity to this flow: (Week 2)

• Open the hierarchy of the figure in the timeline to reveal its General Properties

• Select all of the keyframes of this line except for the one on frame 9

• Use the special "-" button to delete them

This frees our vision of the entire upper area of our timeline hierarchy, allowing us to more clearly see where we make our adjustments to the motion - being able to see our keyframes as we create them.

It's a Deep Dive

It's meant to get us all practicing the process and getting better at it - faster at it - more accurate, and learning the subtleties of selecting, moving, and deleting keyframes on the timeline and remembering that all important step of changing the interpolation method.

Paul has uploaded the recording of Week 4's live session HERE

aniBlocks and Mixamo downloads, animated Pose files... these things are Great! 

Instant Action on our Daz 3D figures - and there's such a Wide Variety of different collections to choose from - it makes our job easier the more we collect and get to know all of these individual actions.

See the Motion Vendors Section for More

As we're getting better and faster at the Process outlined above, we should also start getting into Altering these motions along the timeline. Sometimes we just want a bit of a broad change that will affect the entire timeline. Perhaps a bit of Arms Twist to keep the hands from passing through the hips, for example. Other times we may want to interject additional motions, like add a head turn that actually turns the whole upper torso as well.

Working with Pose Control dials for these changes means that we are making our own, specific keyframes onto the timeline - and This is what makes it so easy and so powerful. "Seeing" where these keyframes are is easy. They're right there on the Pose Controls line.

In the example of turning the whole body to have the head look in a different direction, we can put the Head/Neck Twist, Side-To-Side, and Bend changes in the same place in time as the Torso's Waist Twist and Waist Side-to-Side. Then back up a bout one second (30 frames) and set all of those dials back to 0.00 by selecting their values and typing "0" > Enter.

For this simple example, so far we have two apparent keyframes in the Pose Controls line of the timeline. If we expand the Pose Controls, we can isolate where the individual keyframes are applied.

It's this simple process that will guide success for everything we do.

So continuing our example: if there's still a lot of animation left after our head turn, we might consider bringing it back to facing forwards again.

If we go a few seconds down and return all of those values to 0.00, we'll have a head turning to look, and then gradually coming back forward. We can change the timing of any of these motions dragging a selection around a keyframe or set of keyframes and sliding them forward or backward in time.

Another way we could do this is to hold that head turn for a while before returning to facing forward.

To do that, I would go forward in time after out initial change, but before we returned the character to facing forward, and give ecah of the dials that we've used a bit of a nudge - either keeping them near the same values or not. At this point I decide whether I want that turn to be more or less that the original. Perhaps more torso turn and less head/neck... the point is to make a new keyframe for each of the dials. Then we go forward more in time and return to facing forward by zeroing out those values.

Now we have the four main areas in the timeline that hold our changes. Just four, but we've made a considerable change in how the character behaves in this animation.

Try this technique. It doesn't have to be the head turn example, but that's a good one. 

What I want us to do is to get used to making changes along the timeline. Whether we return to original values or not is up to us. But what we do want is to make sure that we are making some kind of alteration or improvement to our motion - and we want to Practice this technique often. I never work out an animation without doing these processes - and I often have dozens of changes made - even before I start working on the face. But that's next week! :)

Paul has uploaded the recording of Week 4's live session HERE

During our Live Session, I've demonstrated a few different methods of altering animations as well as driving home the idea that we really need to save these scenes as we create them. Revisiting previous saves gives us a wealth of opportunities to speed our workflow. We can simply edit some of the changes that we made in the original save, apply completely different facial expressions, or simply leave it the same but change the lighting, the backdrop, or perhaps even the character itself (Apply a different Character Preset to the animated figure).

For me it's often a complete costume change and entirely different lighting. I'm crossing over to a different world with a different persona that Rosie portrays. She has several and more are always in development.

Optional:

For those of you who might be inspired to take things a bit further, this hour-long video follows your instructor on a journey of extracting a potion of a longer "Catwalk" animation to become something else entirely. By the time we've clipped the aniBlock to its new length, we have a completely different style of animation - walking to a door and looking out, rather than posing on a catwalk!

But that's not the end - but just the beginning!

We're going to add that door frame and use LimbStick to make a natural looking transitional 'lean' onto each edge of the door opening - each arm, one at a time. Pretty cool stuff!!!

Again, this is completely optional - included for those who, like me, Always Want at least a bit MORE!

We've reached a point in all of this where we can start thinking about making animations for a story. 

The more we start thinking along these lines, the more inspired we'll become towards which aniBlock(s) to select for the Main Animation before we start 'sculpting it into our own'.

The more we play around with this, the more practice we're giving ourselves.

The more practice, the more experience. The more experience, the easier and faster, and BETTER everything gets!

When Trevor first joined the course, he left a message - a wish - a goal.

I loved the idea from the first reading of it and knew right away that I wanted to use this concept within the course. It's a valuable outline of an idea - and idea that someone wants to put into motion. And that's what we're all here for!

Not wanting to lose the message, I used the little three-dot menu on the upper right of the message and chose > Share > Copy Link. To give this link a home, I've started a new message - a place where we can all jot down ideas and/or refer to others by sharing links to them in the same way. 

Link to an Idea

I've also had an idea to use one of Kathleen's image posts as a means of a Storyboard from which we can launch an animation. So to that end, I've added that in a comment to the main message. :)

I have a small start on Trevor's idea which I share by clicking the button below:

The best way to get into animating (with any software choice) is to Animate, and Animate Often!

"WalkFemIP" is my special nomenclature for animations that utilize Havanlibere's Walk Feminine walking motion, for which I have made a special rig for. "IP" means that the character is using the In-Place version of the animation - hence the need for a camera rig that moves the scene past the cameras as if Rosie was walking through 3D space along the Z axis.

In-Place walk animations means that there is no forward (Z axis) motion, but that there is a walking animation.

The WalkFemIP camera rig contains many cameras.

These cameras are intended to be used on Rosie when she is using the Havanalibere Walk Feminine "In-Place" animation. They are to help facilitate camera moves (or not moving at all) that work well when filming a walking actor for a movie or show. 

TrnTbl - a Turn Table camera that looks up at Rosie from the ground. A null that is centered on Rosie's position rotates the camera around her evenly.

REV - REVEAL - Name was changes specifically for this course to assist with clarity.

...Under Construction