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BVH support

Discussion in 'Wish List' started by zumwalt, Jul 6, 2008.

  1. zumwalt

    zumwalt

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    Kind of says it all.
    I have been working on getting animation sets for my characters and all sets are BVH format (over 2000 to date), I want to just place them in a folder and add them to an animation collection then call them by name when I need them.
     
  2. AaronC

    AaronC

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    This would increase productivity incredibly, and provide the final catalyst for buying a NaturalPoint mocap system. it might even mean that we could stream mocap data directly into a unity scene.

    yeah well maybe, might take some plugin type stuff for that...

    Incidently Ive found that with fbx this approach only works if you bind the additional animations to some kind of mesh(I just use a cube) -it doesnt need weighting or anything, but needs some kind of mesh link to work.

    AC
     
  3. zumwalt

    zumwalt

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    The way Unity reads animation sets, what you are doing with the cube would work I would imagine since it is at least allowing the animation to be loaded. My only issue is the fact I am over 2k animation sets. Total pain.
     
  4. AaronC

    AaronC

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    I guess the only current options are shelling out big bucks to the poor starving souls at autodesk, or buying the DAZ studio fbx converter(License unresearched, ppc only, untested plugin), then doing the whole thing manually. It would be good if there was a batch convereter to do this. Its probably possible to write a mel script to do it, but like photoshop, I cant figure out how to load an array of files and save to and array.(ie batch convert)

    Please keep us posted if you work out a pipeline? Even a painstaking one- theres a void here for an app designer who wants to make some money and help us get bvh's into unity quickly

    AC
     
  5. Charles Hinshaw

    Charles Hinshaw

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  6. AaronC

    AaronC

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    Id pay someone to create a bvh to fbx converter that works with cheetah if anyone wants to pm me with their estimate. Its the fbx side of it that looks hardest. Martin At Cheetah3d said something about "it was difficult to access the fcurves" But I think he was referring to the way cheetah is built, rather than the fbx sdk

    AaronC
     
  7. yellowlabrador

    yellowlabrador

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    Cinema 4D can open bvh. I saved it as fbx and opened in cheetah, not a cheetah expert so I am trying to render the animation but it still rendering. guess the fbx anim. file was big. also the rendering window is just black, not sure if its doing it right or me not doing things right.

    Ray

    Edit: Duh, I just hit play button and the bones played.

    attaching the file, not sure if it the conversion you wanted, but I am wanting to get some bvh file from truebones but wanted to make sure I can used it too
     

    Attached Files:

  8. AaronC

    AaronC

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    I'll attatch a truebones anim thats gone via maya into cheetah.

    Its a swf so open it with safari or firefox if you are having difficulty

    AC

    Edit: removed misleading video. Mr Bones Mocap works fine so long as you dont use Maya. Maya is very budget when it comes to handling mocap, Blender is superior.
     
  9. yellowlabrador

    yellowlabrador

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    not sure what I'm seeing here, but are you talking about when the anim does the kicking, seems like it gets tangled or something.

    How does the anim I uploaded does it have the same prob as you are having?

    How did you get maya to read bvh file?

    thanks,
    Ray
     
  10. bigkahuna

    bigkahuna

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    Can't guarantee it'll work with Cheetah, but you're aware that Blender will import .BVH and export .FBX, right? You might have to rig a model and apply the .BVH in Blender before exporting, but I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.
     
  11. AaronC

    AaronC

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    Ray - See attatched file, its from highend3d.com:
    http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/utility_external/misc/BVH-Import-1840.html

    also
    http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/plugins/utility_external/import/3895.html
    yours works fine, you can also see that animation in one of my test scenes from the start of last year, hideously unweighted, lol:1.6.2 webby
    http://gallipoli.1millionbottlesofbeer.com/UserUploads/AnimationTest2.zip


    Big K that seems to be working much better-thanks for the push Id tried this awhile back with no luck..However it seems to be limited to a 250 frame animation?

    Woot Blender!Sorry bout the Hijack Zumwalt, native bvh support would also rock..

    AC
     

    Attached Files:

  12. bigkahuna

    bigkahuna

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    AFAIK it shouldn't be limited. 250 frames is the default setting for Blender, try setting the animation length to a higher number before importing your BVH.
     
  13. Agent-X

    Agent-X

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    Jul 10, 2011
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    I too am trying to use motion capture bvh files to import into Maya, but some of them are not playing correctly, like they play all twisted and tangled up, like different rotation order some crap. How should I go about resolving this issue? or what alternatives can I do so I can get the motion capture into maya and play correctly? Please help. Thanks.
     
  14. Agent-X

    Agent-X

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    I figured it out guys. Basically Maya dont like bvh files. This is what you need to do fellas. Take that damn bvh file into Motion Builder and save it out as fbx. Maya loves fbx format. Then the animations will come in clean.