Linking Characters to Objects

Category: iClone_Hints & Tips_Motion

Version: iClone 2.0

Date: 2007.06.27

Q: Is it possible to link a character to an object/prop, such as a moving bike?

Great question. Yes it is possible to do this...
Linking objects to characters can be done with Accessories, but if you have a Prop you want to link to a character, then you need to go to the AVATAR - (TAB) CHARACTER (TAB) then ACCESSORIES (TAB). Now go to the MODIFY (TAB) and scroll down until you see 'IMPORT ACCESSORY'... Click the folder by this button and then browse UP a folder in the directory and find the PROP folder. You can then find the PROP you want to attach to the CHARACTER. Select the prop.

The PROP is now an ACCESSORY and can be bound to any bone of the CHARACTER. Scroll up in the ACCESSORY - MODIFY tab and locate the dropdown menu to select the bone to attach the ACCESSORY to. Now use the ADJUST SETTINGS numberical spinners to adjust the position of the ACCESSORY to properly corresponds to the CHARACTER.

Once properly positioned, 'ADD' it to the CUSTOM ACCESSORY library by selecting ADD from the bottom of the MODIFY panel screen. Now anywhere your character moves or goes, the new ACCESSORY will now follow. If you want your character to now move the prop, but just sit still and ride in it, like a vehicle you can select to use just a simple static pose.

Using 3dXchange as a tool you can also import the prop from your props folder and re-insert/export it from 3dXchange into your accessories folder somewhat better placed using the dummy as a guide to location of the new accessory/prop. It isn't 100% for attachment positioning, but it does give you a good reference to begin at when you re-open the item inside iClone using your directions below.

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Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
http://forum.reallusion.com

Number of Frames to Use per Motion

Category: iClone_Hints & Tips_Motion

Version: iClone 2.0

Date: 2007.04.29

Q: Does anyone know if you can control speaking in a timeline? Is it in another timeline? What am I doing wrong?

I think rule of thumb goes into distance covered by frames per second by desired limb speed.  Is this after render? And did you create the motion yourself? And what distance covered does the body make. The only time I ever saw an instance like this was when I imported some movements external to iClone content. A shame because I would love to use these movements but for their weirdly super fast speed. Do you have sample footage?

I imported the custom movements from Motion Editor and wanted somebody walking past using the template in iClone.

I guess I will just have to slow the movements down in Motion editor to match it?

Forgive my further questioning but I would like to understand.
Have you changed the motion speed in iClone to better suit normality from

A) A walk animation you edited but got from the iClone library of standard motions.

B) Is it just a case of the speed setting having been changed before your motion was imported into iClone???

I’m curious. I wondered if you had created your own walk for a second. Thats impressive.

Not created my own walk - Only had I-Clone about a week - not attempting anything that complex - YET!

Basically used the iClone Template of somebody walking across the screen for character one - and Character 2 was sat behind watching them go past and waving at them. Pretty basic I know but I am still trying to see how things interact.

So I had the head turn and the wave - but obviously, Character 2 is going through these motions faster than character one walks across the screen. I have set character X position based on the direction of Character 2's head. I think I should have done this the other way?

Driving me nuts now! Hid the sitting character to try to get the walk right - I have her popping up all over the screen.

How can you correct a mistake in the timeline? I have entered a start and end position using around 300 frames to walk across the screen - Start: x=-200, y=0, z =-100; End: x=200, y=0, z=-100; Direction 90. Am I simplifying this too much? Because at frame 220 (ish) she suddenly pops back up in the middle and walks off again - and the movement is still pretty jerky, but If I extend the number of frames, she just pops up all over the place!

Please explain if I have misunderstood this completely!

Do you have even a small footage we could see.
Or the file in question we could download and take a look at???

If the character keeps jumping back to the start position and walking off again that's because the motions come with a limited number of frames. If you highlight the motion in the right pane in motion editor it will tell you how many frames are in that motion?

If there are only 120 frames and your scene is 600 frames then it will jump back 4 or 5 times. The motion need to be extended in the motion editor and the problem with that is if you stretch it then the motion will be slower. The way to do it is to stitch the same motion together (copy/paste) to fill the number of frames you require. Not all motions are looping, if they were it would be easy and some are stupidly short. For instance the walk then run motion only has a few frames of run and it is not easy to extend it.

Having said that you do have to be careful that you stitch them together at the appropriate place where they are more or less in the same position or you can get a peculiar sliding effect.

Right- I have stopped the walker popping up by ticking something in the motion editor where I joined the walking motions together. It Was something about a Pivot. An explanation would be greatly appreciated - as it has solved part of the problem, but I don't know why!

I still have fairly jerky movements though. How can I upload the file for you to look at?

The jerky movements are (in my experience)either a lot of props, accessories, particle effects that slow down the animation in iClone to as little as 2fps. When the scene is rendered to avi then it is OK. Try doing that.

The other reason could be you have too many programs open at the same time and memory has not flushed. I have had iClone, CrazyTalk, Premiere, and Photoshop all open at the same time. Even closing all but iClone down did not solve the problem. I had to close the computer down and restart. This cleared the memory and cured the problem. My guess it's one of the two above

HANGING OUT AT:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RubbishMan1940
AND www.rubbishman1940.com WITH MAINLY iCLONE STUFF

It was the reset pivot. When ticked, the character went through the walking motion on the spot rather than walking across the screen as part of the motion - so I am guessing the conflict was between the position change within the motion editor and the position change which I had entered in the animation settings.

As for the jerky motion, I don't have any props in place yet - just the two characters. I made it better than it was, by dragging it to 600 frames and re-editing the walk using the reset pivot as mentioned above. I am still not happy with it yet though. I moved the timeline over to a frame count rather than a second count, and it seems to be skipping 20 - 23 at a time rather than counting up individually - Is this normal? I guess that, if on average, animations are 24 fps then this is normal?

Armstrong - I'll try converting it to AVI and if that doesn't solve the problem, I will upload it to Iclonetutorials.com - Either way I'll let you know.

Bran8464 - Glad I could be of some help - albeit by complete accident!

PS - Have to apologize for the god-awful typing in my last message - It was about 2:30 am in UK when I sent it! I-Clone does not help my insomnia!!!

UK i can't seem to find the link anymore but it was discussed and identified at www.coolclones.com but i seem to remember a rule of thumb for the normal walk cycle

NORMAL walk: 60 frames per cycle
and the distance traveled is 2x points

so for a 120 frame walking animation, the figure would end up at position -240

Hi - exporting as AVI does indeed stop the jerkiness!

Thanks for all your advice in this matter. That is one small scene completed, so no doubt I will be backing soon bugging you all with my next lot of problems!

Thanks again!

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Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
http://forum.reallusion.com

Edit Motion in 3D Scene

Category: iClone_Hints & Tips_Motion

Version: iClone 2.0

Date: 2007.5.3

Q: Please help me ... I have looked everywhere for my answer ... I'm sure it is here I just can't find it. I have a character in a 3d scene that I want to walk to a table, stop then turn and walk away. I have figured out how to edit the motions in Motion Editor to get the desired effect, but how do I line my character up with the table in the 3d scene? I tried making an image for the rotoscope but that is 2d and it doesn't help my plight. I am sure this is something simple that I am missing but please somebody give me a nudge in the right direction. I see such fabulous work on all the forums with such detail to movement, especially you Armstrong, I would love to be able to achieve even 25% of the ability I see.

The easier workaround is to study dance movements and extract the 180 degree turn from one of them, edit the copy/paste joints to obtain an upright position and tie this as a central edit into two walk motions. Each opposes each other.

I'll see what I can find. It's a necessity here too though I am just currently working on external panning shots for intros and etc but the one you speak of is very important especially if the character is speaking. Tied in well it looks beautiful.

I'm just going through the proc myself. It may be, of course, that the facility to reverse motions such as the walk are a current impossibility.

But this is a valuable element.
Walk up to > Speak > Walk away from.

The 'walk to' is dead easy, simply cut the walk path duration in the editor to match the depth of the a2b distance.  I’ve got the other part, rolling off on one foot to the other to prepare for the second step into the walk away stretch, char. back now to the table. Now I'm on the walk away continuation and this is weird unless the solution is staring me hidden right in the face.

Picking up objects. Reallusion says it can’t be done in the strict sense of the term. But I've managed it with precision alignment on exactly what your talking about. It again takes polishing in the cutting room.

PICKING THINGS UP WORKAROUND.
Alignment precision. Make the character walk to the table and at the point they stop and reach... YOU align your object on the table with THEM not the other way around.
Cut action at the moment they approach the object then replace the OBJECT with an identical ACCESSORY in their hand BUT before cleaning out the PROP version on the 2nd take make absolutely sure they both sit in the same space; align the PROP exactly to the x,y,z, nth of a pixel with the accessory in their hand. On the next take you remove the Object and the accessory replaces it giving a simple illusion of "pick up". Put down is thereafter obviously Easy.

If I remember rightly someone did do a walk tutorial I read some weeks back turning the walk motion. It wasn't very convincing but with a little polish it would suffice. If I find it I'll post the URL.
Good food for thought though. Sure beats a rubrics cube in a blackout.

Armstrong! That is absolutely brilliant!! I would have never thought of duplicating the object to be picked up. Your walk sequence is quite amazing .. Very realistic! I saw a tutorial that Pauly did where he filmed himself doing movements then loading into motion editor ?using the video to match up the poses with rotoscope? Perhaps you have seen it. Looks like it makes short work of complicated movement.

I contact Pauly frequently. Yes, he does some impressive work. He's a modeler also I understand. Sorry, I forgot to put in a link for the motion file. I'll dig it out now.

Despite being in the process of putting up tutes with the motion editor I find particular irritancy when it comes to switching the characters "weight" shall we make reference, from foot to foot. Hence the turn, while the feet know what to do, the legs seem to argue.  (I can hear people on a Friday night out agreeing with that one. )

Anyway..... Here’s the file. Its new ground to me too you know.

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Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
http://forum.reallusion.com

Slight Adjustment after Coverting BVH

Category: iClone_Hints & Tips_Motion

Version: iClone 1.52

Date: 2007.05.18

Q: My question is simple, yet I can't find the answer anywhere. I'm praying that one of the local experts can help. Here goes-- My situation is that after I convert the .bvh into iClone, I have a lot of dead time at the beginning of the file. The major motion does not start for at least 400-500 frames. How do I "delete" or "eliminate" the dead frames at the beginning of the animation motion??

I want to be able to take away the 400 frames of still motion and then have my motion start right at "Frame #1". I have been all through the motion Editor and it's Timeline, but can't seem to find a "simple"(or what you think should be) way to "Delete" frames!!!

When you have your animation on the character, launch your motion editor. Once this shows up move to where you want to cut out. The tools just above the time have a slice tool. Click on it and you will see some of the animation line goes white and some red. Delete the part you don't want.

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Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
http://forum.reallusion.com

Simple Trick to Complete a Motion Clip

Category: iClone_Hints & Tips_Motion

Version: iClone 1.52

Date: 2007.6.18

Q: I am trying to use the motion editor to create a 'standing to sitting on the floor' motion. Starting is easy enough; I move a little along the timeline, insert current (standing) pose and edit it to be part of the way along the whole motion. What I then want to do is copy the edited pose, move further along the timeline and inserts it for further editing (repeat the procedure until complete).

The intuitive way to do it is to right_click-copy the altered pose and right_click-paste it further along, but I can't do that. If I try 'Insert current pose' it keeps putting the original standing pose in. I know that the program will interpolate quite complex motions, but I'm playing with animation and want to do most of the work myself, just using the program for 'tweezing' small motions. I think I can do it by creating a lot of separate poses and then calling them up, but I feel I must be missing a simpler way.

You can use Copy and Paste to achieve what you require. It does work as you would expect. Don't use Insert Current Pose, use Paste instead. Select the pose you want on the timeline, Right Click and choose Copy. Move further along the timeline, select the position you want, Right Click and choose Paste.

You will be prompted to give the pose/motion a new name and it will then be placed in the new position ready for editing again.

______________________________________________________

Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
http://forum.reallusion.com