Do you have anything to add that could speed up this work flow a bit for editing bvh files?

A -- Create new Poser scene. Insert the figure you plan to use the bvh with with no textures, hair, clothes, fancy light rigs or any other unnecessary overhead. Switch to posing camera.
B -- With figure selected import your bvh file.
C -- Save Poser scene. This will be your master if you need to come back later to lift a few more keys from it.
D (optional) -- Animate the posing camera as needed if you think it will help you pick out keys. I dont usually do this though.
E (optional) -- From posing camera render animation in preview with no antialias. I just use avi with defaults. Youre not making a finished product, just a fast render that allows you a good enough look at figure movement in real time to help you pick out key frames. (In P6 I cant seem to get real time playback in pose window even in cartoon w/line mode. grr.) Watch/scrub this file if needed to help you pick out key frames.
F -- Create a folder in pose library (the little down arrow at top right of library) for key frames, which you will be saving as poses temporarily. I named mine !!!bvh.
G -- Identify key frames (use scrub, watch for extremes of movement, transitions, etc) and save them to bvh folder as poses with same name as frame #, e.g. if you decide youre going to make frame 82 a key frame then name the pose 82 without the quotes. Hint: Its frequently easier to edit blocks of keys in the graph so I usually ignore limbs going through each other at this point and just save the pose as is. Not a hard and fast rule though.
H -- Make note how many frames your scene is. Delete all frames. Add frames back so that you have the same number of frames you started with. Save the scene with a new name.
I -- Apply all your poses to the corresponding frames, e.g. pose named 82 gets applied to frame 82.
J -- Edit your keys in the graph as needed, in blocks when you can. You can go back to your master if you missed some keys. Delete your temporary poses when youre done.

Ive omitted a lot of detail that could be added to steps G and J in particular. But does anyone have any suggestions to speed up the work flow in general? Its not really that bad as it is, but Im always game for a time saver. Thanks.

Message edited on: 02/01/2006 23:16

...oh. Needless to say this routine is not needed for 'clean' bvh files. With those I just edit individual parameters. But only about a quarter of all the bvh files I have could be called 'clean'.

Resampling of the keyframes can sometimes be of benefit.

I usually just load them in and resample them to be 25 frames a second ( for PAL ) and check that the figure is not walking under the floor. I don`t save them as pose files because animated pose files can be huge.

Message edited on: 02/02/2006 05:11

ockham recently posted an interesting Python script over at RDNA:

http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php?forum_id=45&ShowMessage=189952

Cool. Thanks for the link. Sometimes I get good results out of resampling, sometimes not depending on the movement. In this little work flow I'm not making any animated poses. Saved poses are just single frames.

Are there any instructions on how to use this utility? Thanks--T

If you mean for ockhams script there's a readme in the zip.

I did see that, but that tells you how to use Smoother once you have it open/running. I was wondering if there was more information on how to get it running. I assumed from the .py extension that it was a python script, so I put it in with the others in Poser 5 and hooked it up to a button, but pressing the button, with a bvh'ed figure selected gives me the attached error message.

--T

You might want to point that out in the link Little Dragon posted. Ockham's probably following that thread.