Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

FPSC Classic Product Chat / Using custom mocap in FPS Creator

Author
Message
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 13th May 2012 11:41
Hi,

I'm a new FPS Creator user and I have a few questions regarding the use of custom mocap data in FPS Creator. First, a little background information about who we are and where we're coming from:

Little Green Dog is basically myself and my wife Alisa, two working artists in Los Angeles. Last year we created an animated short film based on my webcomic Brudders, and we 'shot' the film entirely in our living room using two Kinect sensors. The film was called 'Happy Box' and you can see it here: Brudders in 'Happy Box'

The Kinect based mocap system worked out quite well and after we finished our homebrewed short we became intrigued with the idea of using this system to create a 'Brudders' shooter game. We decided to use FPS Creator because it seems like a great way to test our ideas in a relatively short time.

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody here has brought mocap data into FPS Creator and if they wouldn't mind sharing some tips and tricks on how to do it. For 'Happy Box' we mainly used FBX to transfer data between animation packages, and we were wondering what tools were available for converting FBX or Collada to DirectX? I understand Polytrans does this but I was hoping to find a less costly solution.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice. If our questions sound naive, it's totally because we are. We're really looking forward to using FPS Creator for the 'Brudders' shooter--we've been watching the tutorial videos this evening and it looks like a lot of fun.

Greenlaw

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Pirate Myke
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 31st May 2010
Location: El Dorado, Ca
Posted: 13th May 2012 16:46
Hello,

Mocap is possible to use for animation into the FPSC engine.

I use 3d max and export using pandasoft direct x exporter.

The only thing you would have to do after you get the mocap info on your character is make sure that all animation is in place.

The insert point of the character in the game engine is also the colision center. Sometimes they use a stage for motion capture and the talent is not starting from center or is walking across the stage or something not centered. This makes the character appear to be flat if turning or you wont be able to shoot it, because its center might be away from the character.

What is the main animation program that you are using?
I have done this a bunch of times and have made it work in the game engine.

Let me know and I should be able to point you in the right direction.

I have also posted a bunch of 3d max how to's at this thread.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=186489&b=24

NIlooc223
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Aug 2010
Location: Heaven
Posted: 13th May 2012 19:50
You can use blender...

Your signature has been erased by a mod - no affiliate links thanks
007
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Aug 2011
Location:
Posted: 13th May 2012 21:01
Yes friend, you can do it on FPS Creator, you can use motion capture the same way you use in any other engine.

The thing you must understand is about the animation system on FPSC.

You can even have custom animations for FPS Creator, however, is better, less problem, if you follow the same FPSC animation template (run, walk, shoot, reload, and such).

If you want to have new animations, you must specify them through scripting. It`s a good idea you study the official community guide to FPSC, to have a geral understanding on FPI Scripting.

I have done this, using MOCAP (those packages that you purchase over the internet), to create "flinch" (impact) animations for my characters.

You can even use mocap for death animations, however, now FPSC supports ragdoll animation, so there is no need to have custom death animations.

You can even use MOCAP for walking, running, and such. However, the problem is that you must create a "walkcycle", where the last frame of the animation is exactly equal the first frame, to avoid having "flickering" on the movement.

For this, the best workflow you can use is to do the MOCAP with Kinect Sensors, then import the data to Motion Builder, in motion builder you edit the character animation, create the walkcycle, in example, then you import the fbx file (model and animation) in 3dsmax, then export to DirectX Format using the Pandasoft X File exporter.

Its not hard, however, you need to do a lot of work and you need to create those movement cycles (running cycle, walking cycle, and such) to ensure that you will have a smooth movement for your FPSC characters.

Cheers,

007.

Goldenye 007 N64
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 13th May 2012 23:02
Wow, thanks for all this info guys! I'm going to think over these posts tonight.

As mentioned above we have an efficient mocap workflow in place for short film production, so we're actually okay on that side of things. For software, we use iPi DMC with dual Kinects, Motion Builder for retargeting and editing, and Lightwave for final output. We also use Maya for specific rigging tasks.

Creating a game using the characters and assets from our short film projects is admittedly an afterthought, but after playing around with FPS Creator and recognizing its potential, we are becoming very excited about the possibilities.

Anyway, thanks again for the help and advice. I hope it won't be long before we can return the favors by sharing our own knowledge and experience.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 13th May 2012 23:20
Thanks for the software suggestions!

I don't have Max at home but we do use it at work occasionally (mostly for file conversion.) Unfortunately, I don't know very much about Max but I can ask some of the guys there about it.

We recently started using Blender at work for generating FX elements, so I'm a little more familiar with this program. Because our budget on this project is low, adding Blender to our home studio is more likely and any further info for using it to convert for FPS Creator is greatly appreciated.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
kingofmk98
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jul 2011
Location: Everywhere
Posted: 14th May 2012 00:10
I have been wondering this too, thanks for answers

http://technowarfareproductions.webs.com/
Get My FPSC Media at http://fpscfree.webs.com/
[email protected]
seppgirty
FPSC Developer
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Jul 2009
Location: pittsburgh, pa.
Posted: 14th May 2012 02:16
you can also edit mocap files in bvh hacker. a free program.

gamer, lover, filmmaker
raymondlee306
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Oct 2009
Location: Ohio
Posted: 14th May 2012 04:39
I like the video. What software did you use to capture the video. I have the kinects I'm just not sure where to start with that?
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 14th May 2012 12:59
Hi raymondlee306,

The motion data for 'Happy Box' was captured using two synchronized Kinect sensors and it was shot in our living room. We did 17 shots for 3 characters in about an hour. The entire production took me and Alisa about a month of evenings to complete. (Our projects are worked on only in the evenings because child and work consume our daytime hours.)

The Software we used was iPi Desktop Motion Capture, which works great with six PS3 Eye cameras or two Kinect sensors. We're using MotionBuilder to retarget and edit the animation, but iPi DMC does have built-in retargeting. It exports .bvh, .dae, or .fbx., but no .x though.

Here's an abbreviated peek into the process:

[href= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLWygMW12HI&feature=plcp]iPi DMC Dual Kinect Sensor Test for 'Happy Box'[/href]

Here's a fun test we did with my five year old daughter:

Mocap Test with Small Child (1 meter tall)

Feel free to ask questions about our workflow. I'm hoping to learn more about getting adapting our workflow for FPS Creator content.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 14th May 2012 13:33
Okay, so my understanding is that FPS Creator requires .x files, and that custom animation may require scripting skills.

Scripting is not a problem for Alisa--she does a lot of MEL and Python scripting for work, so I'm sure she'll figure what's needed here. Lucky because I'm just okay at it and very rusty compared to her.

But our main animation program is Lightwave 11, which can export .fbx and .dae but doesn't natively export .x. Here are a few alternative solutions I'm aware of so far:

- Max with PandaSoftX. (Not going to happen for us due to budget limitations.)

- Blender. (Looking into this now.)

- Milkshape. (I don't know anything about this program but it sounds like it can import .lws and export .x. Need to test to be sure.)

- Polytrans. (Within our budget so it's a possibility. Naturally, we're checking out free and near free solutions first.)

- NuclearGlory's Lightwave-2-DX plug-in. (Sounds ideal but it's longer available or supported.)

- DStorm's DirectX plug-in for Lightwave. (Process is a bit convoluted as it requires installation of a very old version of Lightwave (8.5). It's a possibility, but I prefer a cleaner solution though.)

Anything else?

Thanks again for everybody's advice.

In case anybody else looking for this info, I'll post details of my progress here. The posts may come slowly though considering my work schedule.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 14th May 2012 13:39
Pirate Myke, thanks for the link! Even though we're not using Max, the info posted there is clearly relevant to our situation.

Reading and taking notes now.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Pirate Myke
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 31st May 2010
Location: El Dorado, Ca
Posted: 14th May 2012 15:02
You guys are welcome.
Maya does not have a decent x exporter for animation. so they suggest that you out put the file to Ultimate Unwrap 3d then to a different program with a good x file exporter.

Ultimate Unwrap 3d outputs to a lot of different programs and seems to keep the animation intact.

I get stuff from Maya and get it into Max this way with the animation intact and the weighting of the skinned character proper.

I find the the FBX export has a lot of issues sometimes. It works ok for some models but not for others.

007
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Aug 2011
Location:
Posted: 14th May 2012 17:26
Friend,

As you use lightwave and you need an exporter to FPSC, try Fragmotion, i think is better and more robust than Milkshape. Althought i also use milkshape for another tasks, one of them is bending an animation sequence, also i use mikshape for reverse animation frames, whenever i need (because is far easier and faster to inverse animation and bend animation frames than in 3dsmax).

But indeed, when you are working in games design, you need to have a lot of tools at your disposal, and use each one whenever you need.

Each user may like one or another software, however, when you get used to a lot of softwares, you will find on each one something that it can give to you better than another, thus, you will have a lot of options at your desk.

I also purchased IPI Desktop MOCAP, however, i only use the software to capture the mocap data (with 1 kinect sensor) and then all the edit i do on Motion Builder, then i go to 3dsmax.

But i also use Milkshape for some tasks, fragmotion, and so on...

Cheers,

007.

Goldenye 007 N64
Flatlander
FPSC Tool Maker
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Jan 2007
Location: The Flatlands
Posted: 14th May 2012 18:04
I love the videos (I won't say anything about the one in the first post because it would be a spoiler :LOL: ). I'm not an animator but a computer programmer. But, I'm thrilled at seeing a serious animator interested in FPSC.

"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code . . . reminds me….. if I had one more brain cell, I could have a synapse! woo hoo, Sparky!

~I'm the Terry of the Flatlands.
flaming chainsaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Jan 2011
Location: NARNIA, BRB GOING TO A LAND OF ADVENTURE
Posted: 14th May 2012 18:19
Greenlaw, after whatching your short film and seeing how you made them, im interested in making my own motion captures to make first person weapon animations for FPSC X9 weapons, i have a budget of $0 and i have the student verion of AutoDesk MotionBuilder to import the animations into, but im wondering if you know of any free motion capturing softwares, ive been searching for hours, last night and today, i cant really find anything, do you know of any?

computer specs: ASUS,Win7 x64, AMD Phenom II X6 1035T Processor, ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, 2600 Mhz, 6 Cores, 6 Logical Processors, 8 Gig RAM, 1 Terabyte Memory, I am a happy child
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 15th May 2012 00:28
@Flatlander, thanks for the nice comments! In return, I have to say that most of my work is done by standing on the shoulders of programming giants. I'm humbled by people who can code well.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 15th May 2012 00:36
@flaming chainsaw,

You might take a look at Brekel Kinect, which is an open source mocap system that uses a single Kinect for input. Some users have been using it to create data for MotionBuilder.

Brekel Kinect

I'm sorry I don't have any experience with Brekel Kinect to say exactly how you can use it but I know it's free. Do a search for Brekel Kinect and it may turn up an active user forum.

Hope that helps.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 15th May 2012 00:41
@User,

Thanks for the info on Fragmotion and Milkshape. These tools sound most promising for what we're planning to do, and the price is certainly right!

I'll check them out tonight.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 15th May 2012 01:22
@flaming chainsaw,

I noticed that there is a forum at that link--definitely ask questions there. Let me know how it goes.

BTW, if you're interested in iPi DMC, I know iPi Soft offers a student discount. I'm not sure how much but it may be worth asking about.

Good luck!

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
raymondlee306
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Oct 2009
Location: Ohio
Posted: 15th May 2012 04:38
@Greenlaw, if you have a quick .bip or mocap file (a walk cycle or calibration) I can try a few things to see if I can help get the anims into fpsc using a stock character. I should have a few days left on my student max.
flaming chainsaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Jan 2011
Location: NARNIA, BRB GOING TO A LAND OF ADVENTURE
Posted: 15th May 2012 13:20
i dont own a kinect, ive been searching like crazy for something, i checked out the iPi thing and i dont have the money for that either and i downloaded the link you posted and it doesnt work cause i have a win7 64bit, it only works on 32bit i found some motion tracking stuff but i found it cost money, money is my problem ughh

computer specs: ASUS,Win7 x64, AMD Phenom II X6 1035T Processor, ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, 2600 Mhz, 6 Cores, 6 Logical Processors, 8 Gig RAM, 1 Terabyte Memory, I am a happy child
Ross tra damus
3D Media Maker
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Jun 2006
Location: Looking to Escape London
Posted: 15th May 2012 13:52 Edited at: 15th May 2012 13:55
Greenlaw

I did a quick '.fbx' Export,Import with a animated model I have in Milkshape.
I exported my model (bones,animation)with the model 'un-grouped' to .fbx and then imported it.The model did 'not' contain all of its parts when imported.
So
I exported my model (bones,animation)with the model 'grouped' this time to .fbx and then imported it.The model imported OK with everything intact 'except' that the animation frames had changed from '40' to '61' for some reason.

I have never used the '.fbx' format before but from my test I would assume that if you were to use Milkshape you will have to import the models pre-grouped and UV mapped and then have to rig and animate the model again in Milkshape.

Hope this helps

Note- I know that 'Ultimate Unwrap3D Pro' can import,export .fbx format.

EDIT - Maybe using '.obj' format for transfering the models would be a good way to turn to?
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 16th May 2012 00:51
Thank you for taking the time for this. The information is definitely helpful and I really appreciate it.

Just to be clear, importing objects to FPSC was just part of the question, and it's mainly how to get the character to come in with our mocap animation applied that we're wondering about.

Thanks to everybody here, we now have several options to try. I'll be sure write when we start testing (probably this weekend.)

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 16th May 2012 10:28
I put in a couple of hours with Fragmotion and Milkshape tonight, mostly looking at the character and environment assets that came with FPS Creator. Pretty neat stuff! Reverse engineering the character animation data and seeing how it relates to the scripts is very interesting.

So far Fragmotion looks the most promising for our needs but I see where Milkshape can be handy too. When making our short film projects we primarily use FBX to exchange character animation between Motion Builder, Maya and Lightwave, so hopefully that will work for us in getting this data into Fragmotion.

Here's our expected workflow:

1. Model and rig character in Lightwave and/or Maya, export .fbx.
2. Capture motion with iPi Desktop Motion Capture, export .bvh.
3. Import character .fbx and motion .bvh to Motion Builder. Retarget and edit data.
4. Edit continuous animation sequence for character using Motion Builder's Story Window, and export timeline to .fbx.
4. Import .fbx to Fragmotion. Do final prep as needed and export suitable data for FPSC.
5. Import final result as a character Entity in FPSC.

I'll let everybody know how this goes.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog | www.littlegreendog.com
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios | www.rhythm.com
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 16th May 2012 10:55
@Ross tra damus, sorry I somehow misread your post about Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro also supporting the FBX format. I'll try that one too then.

Thanks for the tip!

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | [url=www.littlegreendog.com]Little Green Dog[/url]
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios
JD2
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Feb 2010
Location:
Posted: 21st May 2012 19:53
Quote: "4. Import .fbx to Fragmotion. Do final prep as needed and export suitable data for FPSC."

If you have already have and know how to use Maya, you don't need any other software to convert your models. Load your finished FBX's back into Maya, and use http://www.markusbergqvist.se/XExporter/XExporter.v1.3.zip to export to .X. It was made for the Irrlicht engine, but it should work for FPSC as well.
Greenlaw
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Feb 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posted: 25th May 2012 03:12
Thanks for the tip!

I'm primarily a Lightwave user both at home and at work but Alisa is the Maya artist in the family so I'll forward the info to her and ask her to test it when we're ready.

G.

Greenlaw
Artist-Partner | Little Green Dog
Senior Digital Artist | Rhythm & Hues Studios

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2026-07-03 21:29:14
Your offset time is: 2026-07-03 21:29:14