Can Mocap date be assigned to lightwave?

#1

Hi,
I have found a studio that will do some mocap for my animation. They sent me an email but i could not understand what it meant.

“We have not tried applying mocap data in Lightwave. But many animators have tried, but our priority animation software is Maya. So in this case we might not be able to give you a 100% solution for rigging the mocap data with your 3D model.”

Can you guys give me some explanation? I’m quite clueless.

Thanks :slight_smile:

#2

That means they only have experience using their mocap data with Maya and not other softwares, so they are not sure if the data they captured can be used with lightwave.

LW can definitely use mocap data. I have used .bvh mocap files with lightwave some time ago, though I might not be the best person to tell you how to use it.

#3

Generally, fbx should work just fine when transfering stuff to/from LW/Maya. The trick is to rig and weight your character in LW, then save it out as an FBX and load it into Maya. You then have to do some preparations in Maya so that the rig will operate with common sense (for Maya users not experienced with LW).

For example, a character transfered from LW to Maya via FBX is going to have the bones (or joints) parented to the mesh, which is a huge f*ck up in Maya. So you have to do some regrouping in Maya to make it failsafe (not alot of work).

Once you’ve cleaned that up, send it to the guys and ask them if what you sent them can be used by them to apply Mocap. If they say “Yes”… ask them to apply a sample mocap data on it and send it back to you as .ma AND .fbx to establish wether or not the pipe will work for you. You may want to have the .ma just in case you have to re-export to an older (or newer) version of the fbx format.

#4

Hmm…i see. But their website has Lightwave logo on it…that’s why i thought they could make it.

http://www.motioncapturestudios.com/index.htm

Thanks for the advice guys. I’ll try cageman advice.

#5

Check this out. Poser to Lightwave Kit. Seems kind of strange but they have some nice tools to get MOCAP data easily into lightwave. You might contact them.

http://www.kurvstudios.com/software/

Also look at this link http://spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23777

#6

Getting a version of Poser - 5, 6 or 7 - might be the best best and then using the new PLK lightwave plugin (mentioned above at Kurv) to get the BVH motion into LW. If you have any questions about Poser and/or which version would work best for you, check out www.renderosity.com and go to the Poser forum. That’s probably the best place to ask any Poser questions.

To recap…

  1. Get BVH data from your mocap provider.
  2. Add BVH to character in Poser.
  3. Using PLK plugin, import BVH motion from Poser into Lightwave
  4. Add IKBoost to model so you can modify the mocap if required.

It’s either that or buy MotionBuilder7.5 for about $3500USD to get mocap into LW. :slight_smile:

#7

You must check this thread out:

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87439&highlight=turbosquid+siggraph+fbx

For the latest developments in mocap - LW with new joints.

I had a mocap dummy up and running with mocap data in about 15 mins. No weights and it was pretty decent.

#8

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