Excellent!

Thanks for letting us know. Hope thats a speed increase too. :)

Are the animation tool upgrades new?

Also (I know this doesn't make headline news, but it's important to me as an animator), are there any speed improvemnts anywhere?

C7 to C8 was a massive leap up for the kind of thing I do.

Thanks.

hmm. Well we take it all with a pinch of salt.

At least it's still being worked on.

I'm stuck with 8 pro anyway unless the 8 scenes import into a newer version (which they usually don't).

It would be cool to see the thing improve though. Faster volumetric lighting would be awesome.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_djzfWNwI_c

I look at the organization of the file. How to replicate in such a way as to achieve maximum flexibility with the replication.

There will be a fair amount of editing to do. Feet on ground (esp. when walking on the road vs walking on the pavement (sidewalk)), avoiding people walking through each other or through objects / walls etc.

Poke through is inevitable. However the edit within the scene option is not available as these are NOT Daz characters, they are one object file each. Instead the shading domains within the editor comes to the rescue.

Oh good. That's great news!

Thanks for sharing 3Drendero.

p.s. Manley I sniggered at the golf clap. he he.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6gzIcR4BTE

It's pretty easy once you've practiced a bit. The technique uses DAZ to create an aniblock, and edit out the start and end so that a loopable middle is left.

The technique for finding the most loopable part of the BVH import starts with finding the first frame where the actor places his left foot on the ground.

For some reason the best loops can be found with this method. Perhaps the Carnegie actor(s) were left handed or something? Anyway that foot placement is usually at the same pace as the bulk of the loop which means you'll avoid speeding up and slowing down in the loop.

The rest of the video shows how to cut the end just right.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-YePspTd0E

How to effectively use the BVH mocap data from the Carnegie collection, with Poser Figures (DAZ, Carrara). For more info and tutorials like http://www.facebook.com/scififunk.

In part 2 we tidy up the BVH file. I look at frame rates and how low a rate you can get away with (again assuming you want to have lots of animated people in your scene).

I save out and show you a fantastic (unbelievable) saving in filesize.

The good news is we don't stop there! Yes thanks to an additional saving within Carrara and the Carrara compression the final file size of the animation is completely minimal.

I take you through the basic process of creating an aniblock from within DAZ, exporting it and applying it to a low poly rigged character.

To see how to create such a low poly figure please see a pevious tutorial series here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG55S3Lir4Q

Part 3 (final part) out tomorrow, where I talk about how to loop a not very loopable walk.

Thanks 3Dlust.

I made a trial scene today with rough versions of 20+ of these BVH walk loops. It renders the full scene (33 characters, + urban future 4 + 4 spot lights)  in just 15 secs a frame! Wow. (Using a single i7 machine).

I'll explain more as the project progresses.

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZmIOlhhwpQ

In this episode I show the reduced figure imported again into Carrara and we look at the quality of the model, the shading domains, and how to attach a skeleton.

Now we import an aniblock (that could easily come from a BVH file).

Next we look at some of the issues that will arise if you model for skeletons. Particularly the legs can be a problem.

Finally without UV maps you'll be limited to colours (not texture files) with your shaders. although you might get lucky I guess at a texture file would still look ok (box mapping).

However for far away shots these figures look fine as colours and contours only as I will show in a forthcoming tutorial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZmIOlhhwpQ

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5T6LNjH2nk

Skeletons, attaching them, Clothes, UV savings,  and reducing the object file.

I won't make a fuss usually, but you need to know this info.

Steve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5T6LNjH2nk

Mark Bremmer.

If you feel this is a duplicate of my demo post, then please remove the original post, let me know and I'll edit this post to talk about part 1 as well.

Future parts 3-4 will be added to this thread.

Cheers!

Steve

Just wanted to add my approval for the model.

Looking forward to seeing it in action!

Yes. It can be applied to any CR2 file.

I only have a need to produce a crowd of cyberpunk people, but the process involves stripping everything down to a bare obj file and using a skeleton from an existing character (michael 3 is great).

I also have some DAZ animals and I'd like to do one of those crow scenes. You know where they all fly about over some misty graveyard scene.

Please be patient with me. I have to create my 50 cyberpunks first (well 40 + 10 "suits"), show the scene (which proves the method "en mass"), and then I'll explain in detail.

Thanks Animajik.

I tell you, when I (finally) get to finish episode 7 (don't forget now 2 years in the planning / making if you include 5 & 6 which are just pre-cursors to the main event), I'll have so many tutorials to do it will be a flood!!

I will do.

For now try Atangeo Reducer and BVH via DAZ (aniblocks).

I have 40 cyberpunks to make next, then I can prove the power of this solution.