Animation apps

[cassius]

When making a 3rd person game using game packs as assets it soon becomes obvious that the provided anims are restricted and put a limit on what can be done.

So I need an easy to use animation app.

I have only Blender at the moment. Can anyone reccomend such an app?.Thanks.

[Roland]

I use DAZ3D Advanced + their Game Development Kit.(GDK) + Animate2. With that I can

 

Use DAZ3D and Poser models.

Create low poly versions of them using Decimator in the GDK

Create textures and normal maps for the low poly versions

Export to FBX (including animation)

Use both DAZ3D animations and imported BVH animations

Edit the animations.

 

Not the cheapest way to do it but it works and is fairly easy to do for a non-artist.

[Richard Simpson]

I find animation in blender to be quite easy. If the skeleton is already set up when you import it, It would be easy to edit the animations. I could make a video tutorial on basic animation with bones in blender if you like. I may not be able to get this done until tomorrow though.

[Josh]

Has anyone used this? It makes big promises. Does it work well?:

http://www.mixamo.com/

[Roland]

Has anyone used this? It makes big promises. Does it work well?:

http://www.mixamo.com/

I have. I works very good, but what I don't like is the naming of the bones.

The don't follow the standard that used by BVH, which makes it a bit tedious

to adapt for using BVH files. But if you go through renaming the bones it does the work.

And if you pay the fee's for for Mixamoo's animations it works just like charm. Very nice.

 

This girl is a model from Evolver, animated in Mixamoo and exported to fbx.

http://vimeo.com/16127403

[Rick]

Wow, that's sweet!

[tournamentdan]

Has anyone used this? It makes big promises. Does it work well?:

http://www.mixamo.com/

I seen it before and looks nice but the animations are kind of expensive.

[wailingmonkey]

I seen it before and looks nice but the animations are kind of expensive.

 

not trying to pick a fight with you, tournamentdan (I think you've got some

idea how much effort/energy/experience goes into making 'good' art)

but those animations seem to be about $25 or less. If you built your pipeline around

their naming conventions/rig you'd save a huge amount compared to paying an animator.

 

It just baffles me how there's this perception that art should somehow be less costly

than other things that take an equal amount of skill, knowledge/experience, and time

to create.

 

I'm currently going to Animation Mentor and I can tell you for a FACT that a reasonably

polished run cycle will take waay more than 1 hour's work to make look decent...

(gets off soapbox)

[cassius]

Thanks for replies. A tut on Blender would be very usefull.

[Josh]

Has anyone created and animated a character from scratch with Mixamo?

[Roland]

Has anyone created and animated a character from scratch with Mixamo?

You can either create your own character or upload you own FBX (I uploaded my own in the example as that girl was from Evolver).

The model does not need to be rigged. This is made after upload. Then you add animations and export to one of several format ( I used FBX)

[tournamentdan]

not trying to pick a fight with you, tournamentdan (I think you've got some

idea how much effort/energy/experience goes into making 'good' art)

but those animations seem to be about $25 or less. If you built your pipeline around

their naming conventions/rig you'd save a huge amount compared to paying an animator.

 

It just baffles me how there's this perception that art should somehow be less costly

than other things that take an equal amount of skill, knowledge/experience, and time

to create.

 

I'm currently going to Animation Mentor and I can tell you for a FACT that a reasonably

polished run cycle will take waay more than 1 hour's work to make look decent...

(gets off soapbox)

Absolutely animating and anything else that has to do with the creation of games takes time and effort. Of course time equals money. I just feel that $25 for a 2 second animation is a bit much especially if everybody and their mother can have the same animation.

 

I just went back to their site and noticed two prices. One for non subscribers and one cheaper if you subscribe. The cheaper price is a lot better but I kind of do not like the subscribe part.

 

Again I am totaly on board for anybody making money for what they do.

 

I just recently bought some mo-cap software for face and body and will probably offer a service some point in the future with no subscription and very affordable.

[Marleys Ghost]

It just baffles me how there's this perception that art should somehow be less costly

than other things that take an equal amount of skill, knowledge/experience, and time

to create.

 

 

 

If it was easy ... then I guess this thread would never have come about.

 

Places like Maxamo you are paying for the convenience of not having to do the work yourself so for sure you will end up paying more for off the shelf (so to speak) animations. (this is not directed at wailing just picking up on his point). Of course everything off the shelf means everyone else can have it to. And, to be blunt, this is about finding a quick fix, AAA quality characters and animation for no effort and little cost. Asking about animation packages is fine, but will the time be spent learning how to use it? if yes and a cheap option is required try Fragmotion for rigging and importing animation files, look up Carnegie Mellon Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database, for 2000+ free mocaps .. of course you will need to rig your characters to thier rig .. use BVhacker to edit the anims (or fragmotion) ... you'll still need of course character meshes ... hours of time .. possibly weeks just to get the basics right .. practice ... more practice ...

 

Maxamo's looking good now aint it lol

[Dozz]

it is possible to animate a decent run cycle in less than waay more than an hours time, depending on talent and experience. an animator (probably) wouldn't use the off the shelf clips, but the prices seem very reasonable. good luck with animation mentor btw

[Dozz]

in reply to the easy to use animation app - softimage is intuitive, there is a mod tool available.

[paramecij]

...

Maxamo's looking good now aint it lol

 

Not really, a 300$/month subscription where you collect credits so you can buy with discounts.. with the pro plan you get 12 animations/month.. if you're in a hurry you just have to buy any additional ones at the regular price?

[Dozz]

so 25$ per animation = good price. Marleys Ghost is absolutely correct. if you created a 2 second clip of say someone doing a backflip to sell in the upcoming store, you would be asking what price?

[tournamentdan]

so 25$ per animation = good price. Marleys Ghost is absolutely correct. if you created a 2 second clip of say someone doing a back flip to sell in the upcoming store, you would be asking what price?

 

In the future I plan to sell characters fully rigged(face also) with some basic animation(walking, running, smile,anger ect..) for less than their pro character which is $39. Custom characters will be more, and I would think five dollars or less for a 2 second back flip clip would be fine. I think a lot more people would buy things like these if you made them a little more affordable. Which would give you more profit.

[tournamentdan]

Thanks for replies. A tut on Blender would be very usefull.

 

I am still looking in to this rig add on for blender. A new version just came out and I really do not know about the previous versions but this rig does not work with bones so I do not think any mo- cap files will work with it. It is a cage that deforms the mesh. It will skin and rig a character very quickly. It also will give you a ik,fk,hinge and stretch rig. You would have to animate your self and export but looks promising.

 

[Dozz]

good luck. i'm not saying your not an animator, not knowing your background or skills, but it is a difficult skill to master technically & you either have artistic ability or you dont. walk and run cycles are easy technically, but dont assume it is easy to introduce personality and style to that cycle or any animation. if you produced a backflip animation for 5$ that i would be happy to use, i'd tip my hat to you (then probably eat it) then suggest you send your cv to an animation studio.

[tournamentdan]

good luck. i'm not saying your not an animator, not knowing your background or skills, but it is a difficult skill to master technically & you either have artistic ability or you dont. walk and run cycles are easy technically, but dont assume it is easy to introduce personality and style to that cycle or any animation. if you produced a backflip animation for 5$ that i would be happy to use, i'd tip my hat to you (then probably eat it) then suggest you send your cv to an animation studio.

 

All of Mixamo animations are done with motion capture technology, which is what I will be doing also. You are absolutely right animating by hand is very hard and time consuming. But you can stream line things and use what tools there are so you can sell things at a cheaper price.

[knocks]

When I was studying animation our first project was to animate a simple sphere, goal was to give it weight and personality, and we kept coming back to this project over the 2 years. Hardest tasks we were given.

[Josh]

I don't know about their business plan. I can't even figure out how much anything would cost.

[tournamentdan]

I don't know about their business plan. I can't even figure out how much anything would cost.

It is kind of confusing. I have been checking it out. To get the discount price you need to subscribe. If you pay 89.97 for three months you get one month free. You also get four credits to buy clips with. You can not pay for the custom characters with credits. Each clip will cost anywhere from one to four credits depending on complexity. After you use those credits you can then buy clips at the discounted price. It does not give the exact credit price for clips but I can only guess it would cost four credits for the $25 clips.

 

$39 for a pro character

$89 for one to four clips and a opportunity to buy other clips at the discounted price.

 

So if you use four credits for one clip and then buy three more at say five bucks a piece. It will cost $143.00 per character. Yes you have to buy the same clip multiple times for different characters. They have excellent tools that I would love to play around with. To me it just sounds a bit much.

 

If everyone is fine with these prices I may have to rethink what I might charge.