I have Mimic 1 and I'm thinking of buying the DAZ toon characters.

Will it work at all?

Snekkis

I am currently using mimic2, so I really can't say for sure....but both "sammy" and "dee-dee" work for me. Are these the cartoon characters you are talking about? I do have mimic one, but I will have to sift thru all my cd's to find it....that was what I really disliked about the first version.........it won't work unless you have the disk loaded in the computer drive bay.(: genny

I don't know if it is the same as you mention, but Kitty and Puppy charachters. Yeah, and that toon parrot too.

I will go give those a try, but if I remember correctly, they don't. (: Be back in a few.

No....none of them work in Mimic2, keep in mind I am trying this in Mimic2Pro, so I really can't swear that they will work in Mimic1 or not.....but I somehow doubt it. The best I got was the kitty.......who would only open/close/blink his eyes. The Housemouse does work if you install a freebie by "little dragon" here in the freebie sections. I even tried the goldfish and he crashed my computer. LOL! genny

At least, do they all open their mouth, some how, syncronized to the speech? If not, is there ways of making them Mimic ready and how do you do that? What is the requirements?

snekkis: Toon Parrot? GOD! I need one of those! Are you talking about the Pheonix? I have that one but what I REALLY need is a toon parrot. Do you have a link to it? Thanks in advance! Joe

Yes, the Hatchling Phoenix. That a Parrot right???

The more phoenetic morphs a mesh has, the more realistically it will work with Mimic. I've used Mimic with the DAZ Gremlin (which doesn't have a lot of mouth morphs) with very satisfying success.

I used mick with mimic 1 over two summers ago for project, it worked great.

There are actually only 5 or 6 morphs that Mimic uses. I'm looking for which ones they are. I have it written down somewhere but can't find it. I think it says which ones are used somewhere in the Mimic 1 documentation. I'll update this thread if I can find it. MAN I hate it when I can't find stuff I know I have. Joe

snekkis: The Hatchling Pheonix is actually a baby Pheonix. It's a bird that rose from the ashes or something like that. LOL It is myth... Somebody bail me out here. Anyway... He isn't a parrot although the Hatchling kind of looks like one. I also know he won't work with Mimic because he has no phoenetic morph targets at all. Joe

Attached Link: http://www.3dtutor.homestead.com/files/Mimic_Influenced_Morph_Targets.pdf

These are mentioned in that FAQ: Phonemic Morph Targets targetGeom OpenLips targetGeom Mouth O targetGeom Mouth F targetGeom Mouth M targetGeom Tongue T targetGeom Tongue L Body Language: Emphasis and natural blink targetGeom LBrowUp targetGeom RBrowUp targetGeom Blink Left targetGeom Blink Right Body Language: Translate Head Geometry (nods, moves side to side for emphasis) rotateX bend rotateZ side-side rotateY twist Body Language : Keeps eyes aligned to vanishing point when head moves for emphasis. actor rightEye:1 rotateY yrot rotateX xrot actor leftEye:1 rotateY yrot rotateX xrot

FOUND IT! Waving Mimic produces a pose (.PZ2) file with keys in the tracks for Open Lips, Mouth O, Mouth M, Mouth F, Tongue T, and Tongue L

Whow... Cross post. Great info daverj!

What I really found to be amazing is.....that characters, that were not created to use with mimic, Work, and those that you would think would work, Don't. For instance, "Spike" the bulldog can talk, so can the Mil Cat. Sammy and DeeDee, characters from Daz work equally well.........but none of the toon animals do? Go figure?

Ah, but it's easy enough to "spawn" morph dials based upon other facial poses. For example, if you have a figure with a dial labeled "Mouth Open" but not "OpenLips" (the most basic and vital parameter needed for Mimic), you can turn the "Mouth Open" dial to the degree you want, click the "drop" menu for object and select "spawn morph target". You are given a window to provide a name. Type "OpenLips" with the same case structure and no spaces. Click teh button to accept your input and a new dial appears. Return the "mouth Open" dial to "0.000". Test the "OpenLips" dial. The mouth of the character should open to the degree you want. Now when you apply a Mimic multi-framed pose, the figure should respond. Little Dragon created custom dials this this one so that the Toonimal Puppy could talk. At one time he had a link to a clip demonstrating it. Sincerely, Bill

Passing this on from you-know-who: There's a way to easily convert any figure that meets certain requirements to Mimic-compliancy. This can be done within Poser. 1) there must be a modicum of facial positioning morphs. Otherwise, you have to make them. But if you have things like Open Smile and Frown and/or Roar available, you're usually good to go. The more facial position morphs the non-mimic compliant figure already has, the better. Of course, you can always create custom morphs, but that takes more work and can only be done within Poser by using magnets. 2) The mouth should be part of the Head. For instance, most dragons and some animals have a seperate 'jaw' body part, and possibly even a posable tongue. These will not work. There are ways to make them, but well beyond the scope of what I'm going to explain. Okay, now for how: a) Load up the figure. b) for each of the morphs in this list: OpenLips, Mouth O, Mouth F, Mouth M, Tongue T, Tongue L, LBrowUp, RBrowUp, Blink Left, Blink Right 1) Adjust the dials on the available morphs so that you create the expression thus described. Look in a mirror and make the sound for the phonemes, if you need to. If you have to, you can even tweak what you get with a magnet. As a for instance, let's say we wanted to make the P4 lion Mimic-compliant... For OpenLips, I actually adjust the mouth closed a little, to look like a human with OpenLips applied. For Mouth O, I use Mouth Open, Mouth Closed, and Snarl in combination. For Mouth F, I use Mouth Closed and Snarl in combination. For Mouth M, I use Mouth Closed and then Mouth Snarl at a negative value. For Tongue T, I use Mouth Open at a negative value, and then Snarl. I use a similar combination to that above for Tongue L, too. If you have P5, you can split Snarl. Otherwise, you need a magnet to add RBrowUp and LBrowUp. Or you can do without them, as your other morphs contain enough eyebrow movement anyway. Blink, unless you want to try and magnet it, you're SOL on, but Mimic (1, anyway) doesn't put enough blinks in anyway, so you might not even notice. 2) When you'e gotten a face that looks like it's saying 'F' or 'M' or 'L' or whichever one you're working on, spawn a morph target. Use the exact name you see up above there. 3) go on to the next one. c)Save your now Mimic-compliant figure. d) Record some voice acting, run the parts through Mimic, load up the Mil Girl and your now talking Lion, and add a nice dress and do the scene where Jill first meets Aslan in The Silver Chair.

That would be an Xpost.

Yes, I've successfully used the Toonimal Puppy and Hatchling Phoenix with Mimic; I had to spawn or create new phoneme morphs. Making these things talk is a hobby of mine.

PuppyTalk (MPEG format, 372KB)

If anyone wants the Mimic updates for either figure, I can probably dig them up. I'm sure I have them tucked away somewhere for future use.

I've Mimic-ified the Poser lion and DAZ Charger, also, among others.

There is SO MUCH COOL STUFF being shown lately. This is another thread I'm saving into my GREAT TO KNOW threads!

Attached Link: http://brian.curiouslabs.com/animations9.html

Little Dragon,

I haven't bought, Kitty, Puppy, House mouse and Hatchling Phoenix, because I wonder if it will be able to work like you made the Puppy talk.

That would be great if you could provide these characters updates as Mimic ready, like you did with the House mouse.

Will you put it on the Free Stuff or in the MarcetPlace, in that case?

Snekkis

Attached Link: the interview

(WARNING MILD PROFANITY)

snekkis: I'll upload the Mimic updates sometime this weekend; I have to install the cat first. Gary Price did his own Mimic update for the Phoenix some time ago, but I don't believe he ever officially released it.

That ROCKS!

Here's something I did with an earlier version of the file, last year:

http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1287266

That is so great! Thanks,