Convert Art Assets to use a Uniform Bone Structure and Animations

[Clackdor]

So, this has been a really interesting challenge for me, so I'm going to pose it to the community.

 

How might one convert art assets from different artists and utilize the meshes, poses, and animations across all of your assets? Consider that many artists use their own bone hierarchy.

 

My own goal.

 

1. Apply Zaphos skeleton animations to a free villager from Dexsoft.
   
   • Utilize only Blender and UU3D
     
   • Link to Zaphos work on the Asset Store: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/files/file/290-skeleton/
     
   • Link to Dexsoft free villager: http://www.dexsoft-games.com/models/medieval_free.html
     

[*]Apply the Sit Idle Animation that comes in the Dexsoft pack to the skeleton model.

 

I work on this as the mood strikes me. I just get to thinking how awesome it would be to make this work, to have those kind of interchangeable art assets available. Too often I read that this is impossible. It's not impossible, because at the most difficult, I can re-rig a mesh with any skeleton I want (after learning how to do that, of course).

 

Any insights the community has, I would appreciate posted here.

[macklebee]

you might check with zaphos if taking his animations and applying them to other models is kosher... i havent bought the skeleton so i do not know if he has placed any usage limitations on his product.

 

and it can be done but not easily... using something like fragmotion or the like, you can put multiple separate animations together... but it still requires basically the same number of bones, the same names for the bones, and roughly the same relative rotations/positions of the bones to its parent/child bones between the animations... or else you will probably end up with a twisted or stretched character. this is not a limitation of LE but rather just how key-framed animations work in general.

 

your best bet is to find all the possible animations you would want by searching for free bvh's or buying from places that provide a multitude of mocaps, then just rig what you need... or just ask (or pay) one of the creators (like zaphos) to provide whatever animations you need...

[wailingmonkey]

Also consider it's not just bone hierarchy...how the model was envelope-weighted/skinned per vertex will have

a bearing on how each model deforms when animated. Differences in mesh topology and just general silhouette/scale

can have great affect, unless you can figure out a way to create a 'cage' that is universal to all of your assets as well

as a universal bone hierarchy scheme that serves as an intermediary.

 

So yeah, not really a trivial task, and that's why even the big boy DCC products don't do it all that well (3dsMax, Maya, Softimage

...although Softimage has some advanced tools in there that can do pretty well like GATOR/MOTOR). You might have a look into

MotionBuilder as well, since it's pretty industry-standard in dealing with mocap (or already animated bone hierarchies).

[tournamentdan]

Yes as they have said this really is not going to work. Think as if the bone rigs are different formats. Like FBX,3ds,obj,x. Each artist may name each bone differently or have a different amount of bones all together. They only way that you could get a animation to work on all models is if you use one bone rig for all. Maybe you could talk to Zaphos and he could sell you just the bone rig. Then of coarse you would have to weight paint the other models with Zaphos's bone rig. I do not know what modeling program Zaphos uses. But if I were him I would use the human bone rig from blender. That way everyone could just erase the bones from the other models and use the blender rig. It is pretty easy. ALTHOUGH most likely the artist that made the other models do not allow you to alter their product. That way you have buy their animations.

[Clackdor]

FYI, Dexsoft, does allow modification of assets as long as they are not redistributed.

 

Question:

Once I buy a model from DEXSOFT-GAMES, may I change it for my use?

Answer:

Yes, you can, as long as the modified asset is used within the scope of the license agreement. The only exception here is that simply because you've purchased the model and changed it around (by applying textures, adding details to it, etc.), this does not grant you the right to re-distribute and sell that model as your own. You may use the purchased model as a template for your own, new model. For example: You want to include an character in a video game that you are developing. You may purchase that character and build your own versions using the purchased as a template.

 

I'm pretty much assuming that most purchased art will have the same the same sort of allowances. I will probably pursue this off and on throughout the next several months. I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'm just too stubborn to not work this out for myself. FWIW, I was able to stick the "sit_idle" animation on another model after altering the bone hierarchy in Blender. Unfortunately, she was all bent out of shape when she should have been sitting. Need to play with some other settings.

[Josh]

Check this out:

http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2094

 

[Rick]

Has anyone tried the program in Josh's link above and gotten good results? That product seems interesting. I'll give the demo a try but just curious if anyone has first hand experience with it.

[tournamentdan]

Check this out:

http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2094

 

 

 

I thought we allready had a long conversation about that company.

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/3302-animation-apps/page__view__findpost__p__30338

 

Besides, you are going to run into the same problem and only be able to use their high priced animations. If you are looking for an easy way to rig a character Blender has a rig allready made. All you have to do is scale your model to the same size as the rig and click a button to weight the bones. You most likey will have to touch up around the crouch,hips and armpits.In all around 20 minutes. There are thousands of free .bvh clips out there.

[knocks]

Check this out:

http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2094

 

 

I believe this is a Josh product.

[Josh]

Yep, I wrote it.

[macklebee]

any future plans for character shop? any plans to create a more generic character editor built into LE3 to allow people to rig a character or add a new animation to some random character? just curious since you have already added a model editor that allows them to change materials/textures... and have talked about inserting the next 3dws into LE...

 

and what about the animations that come with character shop... i remember there being some limitations on usage... can you create a character then use those animations and then sell it here in the asset store?

[Pixel Perfect]

I have Character Shop and have used it on a few other models including a dexsoft model but found I was unable to rig the model well enough just using Character Shop and had to bring in Fragmotion to finish the job. Also, there are no facilities for scaling the models to fit the skeleton within Character Shop so it's a little tedious. The animations provided are very nice (all FPS based and missing a few crucial ones like lying and firing) but the skeleton provided is very weird and non standard making it hard to use in other animation packages if you want to extend the animation set yourself. All in all an interesting package with a good set of FPS animations but not very flexible or adaptable. The only usage limitation as far as I am aware is the restriction on not using the provided RANGER model in a commercial game, you are free to use the skeleton and animations.

 

Pic of skeleton provided applied to a dexsoft model (not as visually displayed in CS):

 

 

I shared a similar vision to Clackdor many years ago and for all the reasons stated previously in this thread pretty much gave up on it as being simply 'just not feasible'. You really can waste ridiculous amounts of time pursuing this lost endeavour! Better to find a good provider of character models with a standard skeleton and have them develop the animations you need.

[Clackdor]

Even if I fail, I will not have considered it a waste of time. I have already learned a great deal about rigging, animations, and 3D characters in general. Also, have been able to explore some of the features of Blender and UU3D, I might not normally have been into. That will definitely come in handy, I think.

[Eagle]

Josh you made this? Sweet I'm buying it then!

 

Always~

Vickie

[Matthew Nicholls]

@clackdor I will be releasing bvh and UU3D files of my Zap01 rig so you can rig your other characters if you like. If the skeleton is left in its t-pose and you move the character to fit this and rig it you can then use any animation created with Zap01 animations. Can't work on this right now as I have family commitments, but next week I'll be back to animating and modeling so let me know if you need any animations.

[Clackdor]

Thanks zaphos.

[Pixel Perfect]

Josh you made this? Sweet I'm buying it then!

 

Always~

Vickie

I didn't realise you were making First Person Shooters Vickie !

[tournamentdan]

Ahh, sorry Josh. I thought I recognized that pic from Mixamo.

[Eagle]

Josh how do you adjust the bones so they fit your model? I can't find any controls for that. <help!>

This will be a great tool once I learn to adjust it a little

 

Always

Vickie

[Josh]

You adjust your model to fit the bones. I admit the program is limited.

 

Why don't people use that Mixamo thing? I looked at their site but couldn't make sense of their business model.

[Eagle]

You really can't move the joints? That means it will only fit one model

Fix it so you can move the joints Josh, this is a cool tool! It would make animating a breeze and people could make all kinds of animation sets we could put in the store!

 

Always~

Vickie

[Pixel Perfect]

Maybe I'm showing my ignorance here but given it's a pre-animated skeleton won't moving the joints result in the animation no longer working properly? You could scale the whole skeleton I think and get away with it but not move individual joints without having to redo the animation, but then you might as well just scale the model to fit as Josh suggested (given the limitation that the ratio of the models dimensions pretty much need to mirror the skeletons).

 

There is no problem moving bones / joints if all you are doing is rigging and subsequently animating it afterwards, but that's not the case here!

[Eagle]

The company Mixamo that Josh mentioned does just that and you can set your weights too, after that you apply the animation you want and it works. Josh could make this program work the same way creating a whole market for animators to produce animation sets we could sell in the store. Josh is smart, he could do it, I know he could.

 

Always~

Vickie

[Pixel Perfect]

Yeah, Mixamo is pretty smart technology but I'm not sure that it allows you to move the joints in relation to the overall skeleton, rather just set some reference points for their software to do a best fit of one of their stock skeletons. It is really clever stuff though and yes I'm sure Josh could do it too if he put his mind to it, but I suspect he's a little busy right now with some other projects

 

Not sure how Mixamo would cope with a three legged Garthanox from the planet Fling with its two tails and six arms though

[macklebee]

Not sure how Mixamo would cope with a three legged Garthanox from the planet Fling with its two tails and six arms though

 

as far as i know, they can only do bipedal characters at the moment...