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[3ds Max] [Skyrim] MoCap Animations Tutorial


Supertin

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This is an advanced guide for bringing MoCap animations into Skyrim.

If you're new to creating animations I suggest you check out the tutorial and resources by pornphile as you require the same tools for this method, plus atleast basic understanding of 3ds Max.

 

Animation Tutorial by Pornphile

 

Skeleton Controller Rigs by Pornphile

 

 

This tutorial doesn't cover how to record MoCap animations. It only covers how you can integrate your mocap animations into the established 3ds max workflow. You have to decide & figure for yourself what method you want to use to record mocap. Personally, I'm using Ipi + Kinect, which is a relatively cheap way of getting decent motion capture data.

I have only done tests with .bvh mocap files, but technically .bip and .csm files should work too.

 

For this tutorial I am using the 2012 version of 3ds Max. This should work for 3ds Max 2010/11 aswell, no guarantee for any later versions.

The scene is built upon the Controller Rigs that pornphile made and transfers motion capture data between the 3ds Max Biped and the Skyrim Skeleton Controller Rig.

 

 

If you think you have everything that's needed, let's get started:

 

 

1. Open the MocapFINAL scene file. Once loaded, select Pelvis of 3ds Max Biped. [1]

 

2. Under Motion [2], navigate to the Motion Capture sub menu. Import your Mocap Animation onto the 3ds Max Biped (.bip, .bvh, .csm) [3]
 

 

 

post-538130-0-92351200-1463523367_thumb.png

 

 

 

3. During importing, check angle for knee/elbow.

 

 

 

post-538130-0-03029300-1463523385_thumb.png

 

 

 

4. You most likely will see the Biped changing size. You need to fix this by adjusting scales/size after importing. Recommended values:
- Resize entire Biped in the Structure sub menu to 128; Activate Figure Mode for the menu to show up [spoiler1 & 2]
- Select the calfs of the Biped. Then select Non-Uniform Scale and input 96 for the X axis (This lines up the legs and knees much more accurately) [spoiler3]
- Most likely you will need to rotate the entire Biped by 180° (depends on your mocap file) and adjust the height position of it, so that the feet of the skyrim skeleton touch the ground (the feet controller should be positioned at 6,0 on the Z-axis) and the character faces the correct way [spoiler4]

 

 

 

post-538130-0-34162700-1463523383_thumb.png

 

 

 

 

 

post-538130-0-07059400-1463523381_thumb.png

 

 

 

 

 

post-538130-0-22338200-1463523379_thumb.png

 

 

 

 

 

post-538130-0-73567500-1463523376_thumb.png

 

 

 

5. Select all controllers (orange & red), then navigate the Menu Menu to Export -> Export Selected, export as .fbx and put a file name

 

6. In the fbx Exporter, Tick animation, in the sub menu tick the box for "Bake Animation" and adjust the length to that of your animation. Last untick "Deformations" (Not sure if unticking this is necessary)

 

 

 

post-538130-0-86488700-1463523374_thumb.png

 

 

 

7. Open Regular Scene File ("Import-Ready" file) and select Import from the Main Menu

 

 

 

post-538130-0-19575400-1463523373_thumb.png

 

 

 

8. After importing, select the skyrim skeleton bones. Then select 'Rename Objects' und Tools. Remove the First 5 digits.

 

 

 

post-538130-0-57788100-1463523371_thumb.png

 

 

 

9. Done. From here you can continue as you would with any other key framed animation. You can make adjustments or export as you normally do.

 

 

If anyone has any questions, issues or suggestions feel free to ask.

 

Hopefully this will be useful to some people out there. If done right, this can save a lot of time, while still producing decent to great animations.

For example, I made a ~2000 frames long animation, comprised of greatsword swinging in about 2-3 hours, including some basic clean up. If people are interested in seeing what kind of results I got with this method, let me know and I might post a .gif or short video or whatever of it. :)

 

 

 

Also a Big Thank you to Pornphile for helping me out with some problems and issues I had getting all of this to work and obviously for his Controller Rigs, which are invaluable to anyone who wants to create animations for Skyrim nowadays.

 

Another Big Thank you to ShadeAnimator for helping me out aswell. He is also the one who managed to do something like this quite some time ago and made me want to do this kind of stuff myself.

 

 

 

MotionCapturePackage1.0.zip

 

 

 

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post-538130-0-57788100-1463523371_thumb.png

post-538130-0-19575400-1463523373_thumb.png

post-538130-0-86488700-1463523374_thumb.png

post-538130-0-73567500-1463523376_thumb.png

post-538130-0-22338200-1463523379_thumb.png

post-538130-0-07059400-1463523381_thumb.png

post-538130-0-34162700-1463523383_thumb.png

post-538130-0-03029300-1463523385_thumb.png

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  • 1 month later...

Looks really complicated thanks for this for tutorial. i was always curious about these mocap since the movements can't get anymore realistic then this. Animating by hand will never look as good as this.

 

I never done any mocap before was wondering how is the process looking do you need special eqiupments to provide these types of animation like glasses, gloves etc.. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, i have a few questions about this...

1. Can you say which mocap motion files you used in the demo video and where to get them? I ask this because i noticed you were able to import motions with finger animations, i presume you didn't use BVH since from what i tried, they aren't supported in BVH files, this is why it's important to know which motion files you used on the demo video and which file formats.

2. In case of mocaps with nonstandard bones names/hierarchy (i even tried second life's free mocap files) what can we do about this, the only way is to manually edit in the ascii file? I tried to do that with one like that, and unfortunately even tough the edited BVH file opened and played the animation correctly in Blender and Bvhacker, even after i put the same bone names that it's used in 3dsmax, unfortunately the arms seem to be all twisted and somehow the angle of the animation (in the arms only, the head and legs are correct) is wrong (not even the post-adjustments you talked on the thread helped anything), not sure if you are able to help in something like this if i show images or not or even if i attach some bvh files. (NOTE : the bvh animation is clearly in T pose, maybe this is why only the arms are affected, since the legs and head are okay? If this is the case what can be done about this?)

3. Is it normal that i can't use the controllers anymore after importing the mocap ? It's almost like none of them move or rotate the mesh anymore and simply do nothing, maybe it's to prevent to mess up the imported mocap animation?

That's all and thank you so much for such a tuturial i was looking forward to something like this for a long time!

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Ok, i have a few questions about this...

 

1. Can you say which mocap motion files you used in the demo video and where to get them? I ask this because i noticed you were able to import motions with finger animations, i presume you didn't use BVH since from what i tried, they aren't supported in BVH files, this is why it's important to know which motion files you used on the demo video and which file formats.

 

2. In case of mocaps with nonstandard bones names/hierarchy (i even tried second life's free mocap files) what can we do about this, the only way is to manually edit in the ascii file? I tried to do that with one like that, and unfortunately even tough the edited BVH file opened and played the animation correctly in Blender and Bvhacker, even after i put the same bone names that it's used in 3dsmax, unfortunately the arms seem to be all twisted and somehow the angle of the animation (in the arms only, the head and legs are correct) is wrong (not even the post-adjustments you talked on the thread helped anything), not sure if you are able to help in something like this if i show images or not or even if i attach some bvh files. (NOTE : the bvh animation is clearly in T pose, maybe this is why only the arms are affected, since the legs and head are okay? If this is the case what can be done about this?)

 

3. Is it normal that i can't use the controllers anymore after importing the mocap ? It's almost like none of them move or rotate the mesh anymore and simply do nothing, maybe it's to prevent to mess up the imported mocap animation?

 

That's all and thank you so much for such a tuturial i was looking forward to something like this for a long time!

1. I made the mocap files myself. The rig doesn't support finger motions, I do finger animation by hand with the attribute holder and presets. Works pretty well, if you create a bunch of preset poses for the fingers.

 

2. The rig uses biped for the mocap files, so you need .bvh files that are compatible with biped (and preferably the same biped setup too, ideally 4 spine parts)

About arms being wrong, sounds like you skipped the part where you have to tick the angle boxes when importing

"3. During importing, check angle for knee/elbow."

 

3. Did you use the scene specifically for import? All controllers should still be functional after importing.

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Ok, i have a few questions about this...

 

1. Can you say which mocap motion files you used in the demo video and where to get them? I ask this because i noticed you were able to import motions with finger animations, i presume you didn't use BVH since from what i tried, they aren't supported in BVH files, this is why it's important to know which motion files you used on the demo video and which file formats.

 

2. In case of mocaps with nonstandard bones names/hierarchy (i even tried second life's free mocap files) what can we do about this, the only way is to manually edit in the ascii file? I tried to do that with one like that, and unfortunately even tough the edited BVH file opened and played the animation correctly in Blender and Bvhacker, even after i put the same bone names that it's used in 3dsmax, unfortunately the arms seem to be all twisted and somehow the angle of the animation (in the arms only, the head and legs are correct) is wrong (not even the post-adjustments you talked on the thread helped anything), not sure if you are able to help in something like this if i show images or not or even if i attach some bvh files. (NOTE : the bvh animation is clearly in T pose, maybe this is why only the arms are affected, since the legs and head are okay? If this is the case what can be done about this?)

 

3. Is it normal that i can't use the controllers anymore after importing the mocap ? It's almost like none of them move or rotate the mesh anymore and simply do nothing, maybe it's to prevent to mess up the imported mocap animation?

 

That's all and thank you so much for such a tuturial i was looking forward to something like this for a long time!

1. I made the mocap files myself. The rig doesn't support finger motions, I do finger animation by hand with the attribute holder and presets. Works pretty well, if you create a bunch of preset poses for the fingers.

 

2. The rig uses biped for the mocap files, so you need .bvh files that are compatible with biped (and preferably the same biped setup too, ideally 4 spine parts)

About arms being wrong, sounds like you skipped the part where you have to tick the angle boxes when importing

"3. During importing, check angle for knee/elbow."

 

3. Did you use the scene specifically for import? All controllers should still be functional after importing.

 

 

What?? The rig does NOT support finger motions? I didn't knew that... thanks for warning.

 

Regarding with question 2's reply, nope, i actually tried all the options there, even "point" and "auto", unfortunately it didn't made any difference at all... (note that it can't be the problem because ONLY the arms and hands joints are affected, i think). Here, i send you in attachment inside a rar, 2 bvh animations, both having 2 versions :

 

avatar_salute.bvh (original unedited version)

avatar_salute_bipnames.bvh (version edited by me with Biped joint names using manual retargeting in a text editor)

 

avatar_no_head.bvh (original unedited version)

avatar_no_head_bipnames.bvh (version edited by me with Biped joint names using manual retargeting in a text editor)

 

(note : i hope it's okay to send this in attachment, not sure about the exact rules about uploading files since i rarely post here, if it's not okay tell me if i can send small video files or screenshots)

If you open both versions of each animation in Bvhacker you will see they play correctly EVEN the version i replaced with names accepted in 3dsmax, there was only a few specific joints that i had to ignore (figurehair and neckdummy) which i presume they aren't the cause of the problem since the edited version still plays perfectly in Bvhacker and even Blender but not in 3dsmax. NOTE that i also tried to load the animations in a brand new Biped figure created in 3dsmax without using your Rig, and there's STILL exactly the same problem, so maybe it's some pose incompatibity since the arms positions aren't the same? If that's the case the only solution i have is perhaps rotating the arms joints in Bvhacker...

 

About your reply to question 3, well, okay later i will try that and in case i still have problems i tell you.

 

One more thing... is it possible for you to create a rig for paired rigged characters like there is in Pornphile's rigs ? (either male and male or male and female). I mean, being able to import a mocap in one figure and another one on the other figure, is this possible?

 

bvh files.rar

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