Animanium-m-m-m

[Blur1]

I read that they were showing a new version at Siggraph, but have not found any comments from people that were there.

[Gwot]

Difficult? It's probably the easiest character animation tool you'll ever use. The only difficult thing about it was that joint pinning isn't as solid as it is in motion builder. So you'll often find yourself laying down more keyframes than you might like compared to other software. But the fact that keyframes are 'pose-based' and apply to the whole character evens this out a bit in my opinion, making keyframe editing much easier. Combine that with a wonderful ghosting system and you'll find that animanium is very fluid and easy to use. It does a very good job at smoothly blending FK and IK animation into one thing since its all pose based. As soon as they fix the pinning aspects so that it's behaviour is more predictable when used it will be great.

Some of the things that turned me off were:

1. Price. Far too expensive for what it offers. Compare it to other stand alone animation packages like messiah or motion builder and you really can't justify the cost. I think this software would sell much better if they brought it down closer to the hobbyist range. This is because it doesn't offer as much as the competition in terms of professional features. Motion Builder offers a wealth of extra tools like constraints, pose libraries, animation layers, NLA, etc. Animanium has none of this. You can't even edit curves in it. Though to be honest I don't miss them for the reasons I mentioned above. I loved animating with the ghosting.

2. Deformation, or lack thereof. You can't check on your character deformation while animating. For game work this is a huge turn off. You have to send the animation back to your host app and dump it to the original skeleton. This also means no facial animation. You probably could setup facial bones and animate them in Animanium but you wouldn't WANT to.

3. Setup. While it's great to actually be animating action in Animanium, setting up a character to work in animanium requires jumping through some hoops. It's easy once you get there, but this area definitely needs improvement.

If they fixed or added all of the things I just mentioned, then the existing price would definitely be worth paying, and I would buy it.

[imosan]

Hello steveblake,
I'm using Animanium everyday.:)

Read my comments here.
http://www.geocities.jp/imosanium/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm

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Hirotaka Imagawa

[Gwot]

LOL! Imosan, this new version looks great! And the documentation you posted looks like several improvements have been made! I'm going to try it out right now.

By the way, do you know of any other forums where Animanium users gather to discuss the program? I find this one to be disappointing at best.

Best,

James Edwards

[imosan]

Hello Gwot,

The forum is here.
I don't know any other forums about Animanium. So silent...

Animators are still few in 3D industry?
or they might be so busy to learn the other huge apps?
or price tag is so absurd ?

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I use Animanium for any porpose. Idea sketch, making video conte, and of couse making actions for any productions. and for just playing with.:-) So, I think the price/365 is not so ridiculous. Anyway, please tell your requests and opinion more to me or sales people in US or JP.
--

or the work with Animanium is difficult to explain by words. So they may be silent.
Don't be disapointed.

I hope you like 1.Z or 1.A

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imosan

[SheepFactory]

Yes the price tag is absurd indeed. i dont know why anyone in their right mind would pick up animanium when much more capable packages are less than half the price of animanium.

[jipe]

I tried the Animanium demo when it was released and found it to be promising, but like what has already been said, the snap/pinning would slip and that defeated the whole purpose of the program. I downloaded the new demo from imosan's website and installed it, but when I try to run it I get a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error ("Assertion failed!"). I'm running WinXP Pro SP2 and am current with all required updates - any ideas?

[imosan]

Hello jipe,

Please send me snapshots or error messages and retry to download and install.

Is there any people who found this kind of trouble?

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imosan

[Gwot]

Works fine for me so far. The snapping definitely feels more solid. Though I've noticed it still likes to travel occasionally. I can't seem to adjust the drag for any noticeable results yet. Moving and rotating joints still feels rather sluggish. The grid does't show up for me at all. But that is about the only graphical glitch I could see.

I would really like to see an animation layering system added to this software. I've come to depend on this type of motion editing and blending in my other programs. It really should be a standard among all animation programs, just like it is for 2d programs. I've got lots more suggestions but I've already submitted them to Sega previously. =]

[imosan]

Hello Gwot,

Could you tell me some more details about "layering" by describing actual method on apps you are mainly using? You may not want to have them just only for merging("Load branch") or blending.

#blending is one of our issus for next next version.

And your feel is right. The drag of new version is sluggish little bit because the calculations are increased for rigid snap.
By the way, What's your CPU? It works comfortably on my PenM1.5 note.
#Of course it depends the number of bones and I'm using lock templates always for fingers or other not frequently used.

And did you try shortcut "q"(or "w")? It sticks a bone to its previous( or next) pose manually.

P.S.
I've just upload 3 plugins to that URL. These are all free now.

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imosan

[jipe]

I have tried re-downloading, uninstalling, and reinstalling. Here is the first error that occurs when I try to launch the new demo:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~jlevass/error1.jpg

And then when I click Ignore in that box, this new error pops up:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~jlevass/error2.jpg

Any ideas?

[Gwot]

Hi imosan,

Animation Layering works pretty much the same as layers in a 2d program like Photoshop. It's literally a separate layer that goes over top of the first, where you can set new keyframes and then define how those new keys will affect the layer beneath them. It's a great way to quickly edit motions or create new ones in a non-destructive way (the base layer with the initial keyframes is never altered).

I do a lot of game animation so depending on the needs of the project you often have to maintain specific gaits for walk cycles, running, idles etc. You need to keep some aspects of them the same for smoother transitions in the game. With layers I can create a simple walk cycle, and then if I need other motions such as turning left while walking, looking around, shooting a gun, etc, I just layer a few new keys over top of the original walk and I have a new animation based on that walk. The keys that get placed in the new layer get blended with the keys below for the entire animation.

A simple example on that would be if you take the walk cycle again, you can turn it into a crouched walk cycle simply by creating a new layer, and keyframing the first frame to be a crouch pose. That will blend with all the keys underneath so that playback reveals a person crouching while moving forward. From there you can make a few more adjustments to get a very natural looking movement.

One of the biggest uses for layers I've found in Motion Builder is for motion capture as well. It's very easy to tweak motion capture as animation using layers.

I think something like this would be perfect for animanium because you don't need a bunch of extra windows or tools clogging up the display and interface. In motion builder its just a simple little dropdown menu for creating and accessing layers. That system is very primitive though, as it doesn't offer any other features such as the ability to toggle animation layers on and off, change blending parameters or differentiate keys in one layer from another layer on the timeline (some form of color coding or ghosting) or anything else you could think of that would make layers more useful.

I am running on a p4 3 GHz with 2gigs of ram. For me it just seems that dragging the joints or rotating them is not a fast as other programs, which feels at odds with the program because it runs very smooth otherwise. I was wondering if this was by design. It really is a good system, and I enjoy using it for the same reasons you mentioned. It allows you to focus entirely on animating. I just find myself missing some of the things I would use in my other programs that seem to be more like animation standards in 3d.

Thanks for the plugins! I will try to experiment with the LW versions.

[imosan]

Thank you for the jpegs, jipe,

The error seems about OS language.
What's your OS language?

#It's not Japanese I know...

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imosan

[jipe]

My OS language is English.. would that affect the program? I would think that Gwot is using English as well. Hm..

[imosan]

Hello jipe,

Please try to replace this .exe with one on your C:drive.
http://homepage.mac.com/imosan/sega_animanium/products/saDEMO1416E.zip

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imosan

[StephanD]

Hey this is a very cool software,probably the easiest I tried so far,I may get my boss to buy it,gotta try it out a bit more first,I didn't know there's a demo.


Just a question I can't seem to find an answer to;

-Does the mesh have to be triangulated beforehand or you can import/export quad output out of animanium?

[imosan]

Hello Gwot,

Thank you so much for your details!
Please go back to your work after read this:-)

You are using layers to make variations and smoothing. And I can realize that walk or run expressions are restricted by how game program controls animations. And of course, you may have to create hundreds of variations of them. When you are in such the hard works I believe that Motion Builder is the best application especially for that needs captured motion. I'm wondering that you have to use some captured motions for human characters and also have to make by hand for not human characters. So, the workflow might be complecated and not creative yet.

I found that there is two big problems in such this CG work for my long time experience.
One is training cost and another one is creativity.
It is not so dificullt to figure out the workflow because it is half-solved by the application itsself.
But the acting cannot be matured by the applications.
Many people still thinks that CG animation is depended on progress of application. It is silly idea. But it's not completely wrong.

By the way, Animanium will have the function what layer can solve in its original way with this new engine.
Wondering if you can drag any bone in (Oper-Range->motion)+(Oper-Taget->parts)+(Oper-Option->gradually)+(engin on), variety of action can be made easily.
# I think that some tricks and other apps like Motion Builder are still necesary for game industry although above function will be impremented to Animanium.

Why don't you try to make all the motions by hand? It is impossible for huge productions?
I may be the first one who got rid of most of not creative things in animating.
Animanium brings me many ideas what was not realistic in the past.
Am I only one? No.
This animation is created by 19-21 years old students who are learning CG.
http://www.geocities.jp/imosanium/sa_shoubi_02.htm
#sorry for Japanese only...
I've never seen the motions students can create.
Animanium seems to be in new paradigm of 3D or out of 3D industry.
But the paradigm may be reasonable for many people who is not in our industry.

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imosan

[mmhnemo]

Hi Imosan,

thanks for the updated file.
I had the same errors when checking the demo and will try tonight if this fixes things.
When Animanium was first released i contacted your sales person and stated several things i thought needed fixing.
Technical aspects aside - today i humbly suggest again that you lower your prices considerably to get some people to pick up the software and actually work with it.
With bigger userbase you will get more feedback and will be able to cater to more of our needs.
This would finally produce more animations created with animanium and thus getting more attention of even more people who would try out and maybe purchase your software.

Currently Animanium is the topmost expensive animation-only software there is and in fact - as a newcomer and mostly unpopular - it should cost considerably less than established competitors -> thats not the $1000 range and maybe not even the $500 range.

Please dont see my post as unfounded rant - it's marketing.

You made a big step appearing here and getting in contact with potential customers - keep it up (more tutorials etc.) :thumbsup:

[Gwot]

Hey that's good to hear imosan. =]
As for motion capture... we've hardly used any so far. Most of my work is typically keyframed animation. We've only recently been looking into the use of Mocap as another option to have on tight deadlines, especially for some cinematics. I don't mind working with it myself, but for most tasks, I'd just rather animate things by hand. That is why I was attracted to animanium in the first place. Motion Builder is a great keyframing tool as well as a motion capture editor. I've even rigged non-human characters in it and animated them. You can do such things, but admittedly those are not its strong points. But it has so many other features that make animation really fun, easy and fast.

I think though, after having used several other programs for animation in the past, it needs some work in a few areas. I definitely feel that the main selling point of animanium is and should be ease of use. However, that should not come at the expense of other basic features. This is where a lot of professional animators seem to be turning away from animanium. They like how easy it is to use, but once they get into it they find themselves missing some of the tools that they've been using in their other programs. And then can no longer justify the cost.

I think that in order for animanium to reach a wider audience it will require some additional features. Animation layers is a good start. There's definitely more it could use. Some different constraints for working with props would be nice for instance. These don't need to be exported back to the host program typically for my work so they could live only in animanium. But they definitely come in handy when the character has to interact with scene elements or equipment, etc. Animating stuff like that by hand just isn't necessary.

One thing that makes motion builder very easy to use over other programs, including animanium, is the floor constraint system it has. You can position your character however you like without having to worry about sending them through the floor in your scene because the feet do not pass that point. It makes posing very fast and easy when ground plane accuracy is required. With it's pinning system you get very solid looking animations wherever a character interacts with the ground.

Now other programs don't necessarily offer such a tool right out of the box like Motion Builder, but they do have a constraint system in place that would enable you to create a ground constraint if you want or other type of collision detection/influence. This type of constraint would work really well in animanium. Especially since there's no way to maintain feet postions between keys in animanium. You have to go in and key frame all the inbetweens by hand to avoid having the feet slip or penetrate the ground. Motion Builder doesn't need this, so you can get great pose to pose animation that looks much better with less work. It's great for doing quick first passes, and requires less work overall to fine tune.

I have more but this post is getting long-winded. =]

Cheers,

James

[jipe]

imosan,

I replaced the old .exe with the new .exe, and now I am only getting the second error:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~jlevass/error2.jpg

I suppose that's progress then, right? :)

Thanks for your continued help with this; I'm eager to see how the new version of Animanium works out..

[imosan]

Sorry jipe,

Another problem remains in other .dlls.
We already found that this problem occurs when Animanium is going to turn language to Japanese inside of program.

Please wait few more days. I'll upload it.
#or I will upload new demo has some new features.:)

if you have some staffs can change your XP to Japanese try it. It will works correctly.
I think Gwot's XP has some other language sets including Japanese.

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imosan

[imosan]

Hey this is a very cool software,probably the easiest I tried so far,I may get my boss to buy it,gotta try it out a bit more first,I didn't know there's a demo.


Just a question I can't seem to find an answer to;

-Does the mesh have to be triangulated beforehand or you can import/export quad output out of animanium?It's no wonder you did'nt know that demo because it's unofficial and that URL is my personal one.:)
No objects need to be trianglated by your hands. Each plugin exports entities at just before rendering. They are already divided into triangles in apps.

I believe you will get many new idea you've never had before.
Enjoy animating with Animanium!

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imosan

[imosan]

Hi,

I agree with you Gwot. Keyframing is so faster rather than capturing with painstaking editing.
Above all, Keyframing is acceptable as human's job.:-)

As you mentioned, Animanium should have some constraint features.
I'm always thinking about imprementation of them. It is easy to add them as common way like partial IK. But it is obvious that operation will be complecated wastefully and may need some set-up processes because common basic feature = partial IK + constraints.
And it will need curve editor soon or later. This may be biggest problem for apps designed simple.

By the way, What do you think about the necessity of curve editor for animating?
Recently, I'm thinking that there is nothing for it but to imprement it especially for camera motion...
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imosan

[Gwot]

Hi imosan,

Yes, curve editing would be required eventually I think as well. I find I really don't need it when I use the ghosting features with characters though. In fact I don't really use curves much when animating characters in motion builder either, as it has the same pose-based keyframing feature as animanium. When you can control an entire pose with just one key to manage, getting your motions right is much easier. As long as you have some form of reference for your arcs and general motions (like with ghosting) it's not all that important to me overall.

One thing I've been wanting to see for years, and even begged to be implemented into Character Studio several years ago was the ability to edit motion curves in 3d right in the viewport. LW 8 actually has a limited implementation of this now. I'd sooner edit the curves as a 3d spline in space rather than on a 2d graph. That is far more intuitive and accurate than doing it in a separate graph window, where the keys and curves can often get confusing.

Constraints would definitely be welcome. I think most animators would rather have them in some capacity than not at all. I do a lot of time based constraints for things like dynamic parenting, position, rotation, pinning, direction, etc. I think if you keep this simple and interactive an animator won't be afraid of using it. XSI and Motion Builder both offer a good assortment of constraint types with easy to setup interfaces that allow you to enable and disable them over time. I think that because animanium is so hands on it would be good to implement a constraint system more as a visual tool/aid that can be applied to objects, geometry etc., perhaps as a special geometry or node type that can be right clicked to gain access to its properties, and keyframed as well.

I can see where you are coming from with wanting to keep it simple with animanium and I agree 100 % with you. Simplicity is what makes animanium so great and it would be a shame to ruin that. There is definitely a fine balance to keep between ease of use, functionality and versatility.

One thing I've been wondering about lately, seeing as how animanium can run multiple opengl windows at once... would it be possible to write a plugin of sorts that takes advantage of a separate open gl window that could be used for displaying deforming geometry? I would love to be able to import weighted, textured characters into animanium to check their deformation as I pose them. I really feel that this type of feedback is essential to good animation in 3d. This could also potentially open up animanium for use as a final animation/export solution for things like games. People could then write exporters that take a character directly from animanium to their engine instead of having to go back through the host application - which in my experience has typically been a clumsy pipeline to have to work with.

Sorry for the long posts. I get carried away too easily when I talk about this stuff. =]

By the way I just wanted to say thanks, imosan for taking the time to post here. I really appreciate being able to connect directly with developers and share ideas, or give feedback. It means a lot more to me as an end user than to have to go through some automated suggestion box system

[Sil3]

Hi imosan,

One thing I've been wanting to see for years, and even begged to be implemented into Character Studio several years ago was the ability to edit motion curves in 3d right in the viewport. LW 8 actually has a limited implementation of this now. I'd sooner edit the curves as a 3d spline in space rather than on a 2d graph. That is far more intuitive and accurate than doing it in a separate graph window, where the keys and curves can often get confusing.


Something like this:

http://www.katoe.net/storage/ghostkeys.1.2.avi


:thumbsup:

[Gwot]

Yep, ghostkeys kicks butt. =]
Definitely on the right track with that one.

[jipe]

imosan,

I installed support for East Asian languages and am happy to report that Animanium now runs without errors. I am excited to explore this new version! Thanks for the support and for being so involved with us crazy people who have a strange fascination with your program.

[imosan]

Hello jipe,
And I'm so sorry for inconvenience.

I've updated the demo R1.4.17-ro. Uninstall old one and try this.

This version works only for English XP and some bugs have been fixed(including "eyerot" behaviour when engine is on) and you can find some new features.

http://www.geocities.jp/imosanium/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm

Thank you!

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imosan

[imosan]

Hi Gwot,
Sorry for the delay.

Your GLView idea is nice. Thanks!
And it will be better if it may also has the capacities of scripting or custom ActiveX because so many various purposes are there in 3D industry.

#But I suppose that "Fully scriptable" sounds "I don't care about your job". All is nothing.
#And it is so hard to ask game programmers to create some tools for animating work...

The legacy of 3D tools always ties down us to making products which consumer don't want to see and play with anymore but it's safe. And what you'll find out in your using new apps must give them more surprise and wonder. I think preservation might bring nothing in our industry.
If the most of 3D animators feel free to animate in new way, they can argue definitely new idea or requests to new apps.

I'm sorry for talking cheeky.:-)

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imosan

[EDDIEthePIRATE]

I went to the new demo page and noticed there was no XSI plug. Is this not supported?

And I agree that the price should be reduced. It is around 3 times what the competition charges and is more than most small outfits could afford. But I will check out the demo.:)

[markdc]

imosan,

I replaced the old .exe with the new .exe, and now I am only getting the second error:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~jlevass/error2.jpg

I suppose that's progress then, right? :)

Thanks for your continued help with this; I'm eager to see how the new version of Animanium works out..

It shouldn't be using a debug library. You can't redistribute those.

[imosan]

I went to the new demo page and noticed there was no XSI plug. Is this not supported?

And I agree that the price should be reduced. It is around 3 times what the competition charges and is more than most small outfits could afford. But I will check out the demo.:)
Hello EDDIEthePIRATE,

Of course we have one for XSI but some fatal bugs remains in it.
We are in a final testing for it. Please wait 1 or 2 weeks. Sorry for the delay.

About the price, we'll be able to distribute in a "reasonable" price for the next version "1.A" and "1.Z".

I'll upload new demo with some new features in next week.
Please keep checking this thread.

P.S.
I'd like to ask you all one question.
Is your personal or office PC always connected to internet? or disconnected because of some reasons?:defending from virus or saving traffic or other.


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imosan

[Gwot]

Always connected here.

[EDDIEthePIRATE]

I have 7 connected all the time but the render farm is not.:bounce:

I have to clean then out every two weeks. Those spybots just keep getting smarter.

[Awesome_Dave]

hello all, nice to see one of the makers of this great program visiting and chatting with us. I started playing with Animanium today (a slightly older version mind...) and loved the animation I managed to produce - walk cycle in a few minutes! mind blowing.

I've yet to try the new maya plugin and new demo that imosan posted up, but other than the price, my main gripe with Animanium is the creation of the skeleton in order to get flipping to work. Would it be possible to include a tool within the maya (or whichever program) plugin that could mirror the skeletons for a user? Apologies if this feature is already in the new demo:)

[EDDIEthePIRATE]

I was curiouse about that myself. It seem to be the only weak spot on this app. If there was an easy way to import the skeletons setup and get started quickly I think these guys would have a real winner.:thumbsup:

[imosan]

Hello Awesome_Dave, EDDIEthePIRATE,

I'm also in trouble when I make the bones mirrored to use flip function of Animanium.
And sorry that the functions of free Maya plugin(and for others) are the same as old one's.

I'm usually using 3dsmax for making bones. I'm wondering that Maya or XSI can make appropriate mirrored bone rather than using 3dsmax because 3dsmax(5,6) unfortunately changes its scale to -1.0 for mirroring. Therefore, I always have to use other custom plugins just only for mirroring...

My tips are:

- Make "straight pose" for initial bones.
means that any bone-chains to be mirroed should'nt be inclined about X-Y(Z) plane.
and making only geometries(type "G") inclined for initial pose because Animanium does'nt culculate and write any animation for "G"s.
- Don't forget "freeze" its scale if it is changed to -1.0 when mirroring.
- Add the dummy bones for props.
Flip function needs completely symmetrical bones. If the character grabs a gun or some props in right-hand and its bones existed next to hand's bone, you need the same structure of bones for left-hand. Of couse you don't need to add the gun or other geometries for it. Animanium ignores all geometry(type "G" bones) for flip function.
# I know this is not a smart way.
# We all need new sophisticated one for this purpose.
# But this depends on our business result...

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imosan

[imosan]

Hello all,
Thank you for your responses.

I've just updated the 1.Z DEMO(1.4.1.25 ro). Please try this.

http://www.animanium.jp/sa/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm

You can find some new functions and shortcuts.
And the defference between 1.A and 1.Z redefined.

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imosan

[EDDIEthePIRATE]

I will definately check it out. Please let me know when you hav a tenative release date or when you can discuss the new pricing. I want to buy this package as long as the new pricing fits within my company's budget.
:bounce:

[EDDIEthePIRATE]

I think you will have less problems with joints in packages other then Max. What I am curiouse about is how it works with XSI riggs. XSI has made a bunch of pre-fabricated skeletons with variouse controls for animation. And I know that they intend to continue doing this sort of thing in the future. They call it the "character develepment kit". You can add extra fingers and limbs etc.. But this automates one step of the process making it easier
( in theory ) to get animating quickly. It has occured to me that since this is controlled by some sort of script that it may be modified for exporting to you application. Just a thought any way.:)

[imosan]

Hi EDDIEthePIRATE,

You're right.
And using XSI, both rotation of bone and translation of its effector works simultaniously.
This is so useful.

By the way, I've just upload the plugin for XSI3.5(or later).
Please try this.

http://www.animanium.jp/sa/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm

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imosan

[imosan]

Hello all,

I'd like to ask another question.
How many average keyframes do you use in your ordinary actions?
I see you already use 8 keys for walking. How about other complex actions?

I usually make average 8 keys or more for one second in 24fps movies. Of course it depends on how complex the action is.

And I'd like to know your way for exporting interplated actions.
Specially for game production, it may be so important whether the game engine interplates them or export almost all frames as key.

My background is based on movie industry, so, I tend to make many keys in Animanium and just export them to 3dsmax or others because I merely (almost never) changes the motions by other tools.

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imosan

[bombay_potato]

I have been following animanium and this thread for a while now. Its good stuff.

games animation generally involves a lot of interpolation these days. Many games will run at full 60 fps (NTSC field). So keyframe animation will be created in maya for example at 60 fps and then exported/recompiled etc. to linear keys for game engines.

Depending on how the keyframes from maya are processed during export, more keys can mean more data, and make the files bigger, or everything gets the same linear -key every (n) frames treatment and then animation length is the major concern.

Accuracy can be a problem with the latter, idle and other subtle animations can require more sampling during export (to keep feet from sliding etc).

for practical reasons game animations are usually very short (many are fractions of a second). games require constant input as to what animation to play. animations need to be very snappy in order to keep up with the players intent and sense of control. Animations will need to be readable with just a few strong poses, not much room for subtle movement.

bb_potato

PS please keep updating animanium! making animation in animanium is easy and fun, the most important feature will be to make the necessary interaction between animanium and other packages as seamless and intuitive as possible.

[maelstrom]

i would also be interested in Animanium if the price was lower and it wasn't so tedious to get assets from other applications in.

[imosan]

Thanks bombay_potate,


Accuracy can be a problem with the latter, idle and other subtle animations can require more sampling during export (to keep feet from sliding etc).
Does this mean that simple limb IK calculation in game program may not be a usual way for making rigid foot steps?



for practical reasons game animations are usually very short (many are fractions of a second). games require constant input as to what animation to play. animations need to be very snappy in order to keep up with the players intent and sense of control. Animations will need to be readable with just a few strong poses, not much room for subtle movement.
It sounds unhappy for animators. but I believe there is some solutions for expressing characteristic actions by talking with programmers deeply:althouth I know this is so difficult.

Character actions must be a important factor for any games and C(G)PU will have more power as we can be free to animate any actions soon, I hope...

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imosan

[bombay_potato]

calculating IK on the fly can be done but it is cpu expensive. I know that while some engines/games support IK, many engines just process FK for speed and code simplicity/stability.

Also as for game animation process, animators that work on games need to consider the context of the animations they are making.

I know from experience that if I am working on a specific character animation its easy to loose perspective and try to make an animation that tries to do too much. animation for games has to fit together in complex ways. So alot of back and forth is necessary. This includes testing animation in game with controller, and talking with designer are programmers.

With so much tweaking involved to get game animation "just right" the pipeline and export process for packages has to be simple and quick.

bb_potato

[imosan]

Hello bb_potato,

Thank you for the details.

How about exploring a way for "direct exporting" from Animanium to game engine(or files)?
The .amm files in motion folder are all ascii format, so, you can change or extract any elements easily for quick viewing in game engine(or write .x files) by using some simple scripts like perl, awk, or making tiny standalones. I think this is not a silly idea...

By the way, I'm so interested your words, "Also as for game animation process, animators that work on games need to consider the context of the animations they are making. ".
I finally may be curious to make games but movies.:-)

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imosan

[bombay_potato]

Direct export is not silly, and having an ascii format for animanium is a very important feature.

I can imagine that in many cases animations will need to be altered in a larger package (tweak curves, or edit custom atributes etc) and for that communication between animanium and larger 3d package needs to be as effortless for artists as possible.

and yeah as for my comment about game animation and context.... sorry about that, I think that was half an idea, that happens to me sometimes. :}

From what I can remember, I meant to say:

You can have an animation that looks good in the animation package but does not work or look good in context of a game on a tv for example.

bb_potato

[imosan]

Hello bombay_potato,

By the way, Animanium's 'pose to pose' method is fit for your way?

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imosan

[bombay_potato]

Yes. pose to pose is my prefered process. So for me that is a big plus for animanium. For now I use scripts in maya to help with pose method, caching frequent poses, creating pose library etc.

In many cases the animation will be created with poses and then modified (movement tweaked/split into different files etc) as needs change before it will be "done".

As I have been experimenting with animanium, I have found that I really need more documentation. I contacted USA index about english docs for the maya plugin and they never responded.

your webpage has very useful info. I just need more animanium to maya specifics.

bb_potato

[imosan]

Hello bombay_potato,

Thanks for your reply.
I've just posted "MAYA_plugin.pdf" and you can find it on this URL.
http://www.animanium.jp/sa/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm
For more detail, Please refer to this English text.

It is easy for you to import and export your skeltons even the document is pretty long.
After installing the plugin, try to do as below.

1. Make one simple bone chain then Press "Add" button on "Utility Panel"(pdf 2.1)
2. And then, Press "Export Select" with selecting any bone(s) in the chain.
3. Define the name(for example, "tmp") on Desktop and press OK for making new project(.prj).

You can find the folder named "tmp.prj" on Desktop.
If you have already installed Animanium(demo), Animanium will be launched by just double-clicking the file named "tmp.ts" in tmp.prj.

And then, please make some poses in Animanium and overwrite the tmp.ts.
To read the the poses(motion),

4. Press "Read Motion" button in "Utility Panel"(pdf 2.1) with selecting any bone(s) in the chain.

You can choose the option for reading .ts "only keys" or "all frames" by pulldown menu next to "Read Motion" button. "Keys" is recommended for your tweaking or using other functions in Maya.

#By the way, Did you try "bufferd pose"?
#You can assign the pose(whole body) to 0-9 keys by Ctrl + 0-9 and retrieve by Alt + 0-9.

This is the routine of working with Animanium.
For actual work, you have to do some more things such below.

After 1. Press "Multi Edit"(the panel showed pdf 6-1) button in "Utility Panel"(pdf 2-1) to see and define the types for each bone.

Bone type can be choosen from "S"(Sphere), "R"(1 axis), "L"(Slide), "H"(Handle), "N"(non rotation), and "G"(just Geometry:this will have no motion data).
"F" is used only for the root of character chain. This means you cannot change the type of the root and use the type for the other bones.

And above, you have to make another bone chain whos geometries are segmented(devided into) in eath independent polygon parts because Animanium cannot display skined geometry.
It isn't wested effort for you to make poses in real time without slowdown by skinnig model.
This is the "set-up" in working with Animanium.

By the way, I'm happy to hear that you prefer "pose to pose" in animating.
In the past, Actually almost nobody had been accepted the way for animating when I introduced Animanium at SIGGRAPH2001. Four years passed, most animators in our industry think "pose to pose" is the right way for animating.
Although it still needs change before it will be done in other packages, "Thinking in pose to pose" is the most important for any character animation.
Currently, only few people are aware of this change, but it will be more common after four more years passed.

I think that just two or three poses define any actions especially in Animanium.
Everybody can believe that making a pose with Animanium is so easy. But more strength of Animanium is in making next or previous poses. After making an striking pose, you must want to see next(previous) pose immediately. And after you make the second pose, the character itsself tells us how it should be for the next or previous. We can be happy to be a slave of the character. I think this experience(interaction with characters) is totally new in animating with computer program(Of couse, I believe that Animanium is the first one).

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imosan

[imosan]

Hello everyone,

I've just posted new demo version of Animanium(R1.4.1.41-ro).

Now, this has "Clean-up" function for stabilizing snapped parts during in motion.
I think this would be nice for every animators.
And this new installer writes all documents into your disk.

http://www.animanium.jp/sa/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_top.htm

And discription of "Clean-up" is here.
http://www.animanium.jp/sa/E/sa1z_man/sa1z_man_contents.htm#cont4_7_2

Please try this.

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imosan@mac.com

[kpalazov]

Hello imosan, this feature is quite amazing. I'm cleaning up all my previous animations and not only has it been to my wonder how well it recognised the correct poses but also the accuracy with which it has worked. Congratulations on an orginial solution that does not sacrafice the simplicity of the program.
Accept now I find my self adding imperfection to increase the believability of the motion:)hehe

Something interesting I found is that "clean" can modify the orentation of a joint over a number of frames , based on the first. The clean process can then be discarded and the smooth spleen interpolation returned...:thumbsup:

I'm looking forward to see the updated version of the animanium website as I have many questions arrested in wait for its return.

Thankyou and welldone

KP

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