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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Inspired by another topic here I thought I'd try exporting a crowd from 3DS Max and it ain't working well.
The first (most likely biggest) problem is that bringing them into XChange the people are all standing at various angles, as if the pivot point is incorrect. I assume this is something to do with the FBX settings (because you sure don't want to have to adjust the pivot of each and every person in your crowd in XChange) but I can't figure out where this would be.
Secondly, the animation is very weird -- I choose "Perform" and then the animation and the characters just kind of rock back and forth on that weird pivot point. The animation is this way in XChange so I'm guessing that somehow I'm not exporting it correct (again, perhaps the export settings). Anyone have a clue as to what steps exactly I have to do to make this all work?
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Ah, nevermind -- answered my own question with a bit more interweb searching.
Apparently in order for this to work you need to bake the animation inside of Max by first selecting all the crowd figures and then using the Maxscript command pop.bakeselpeople() (you can issue this inside of a listener without writing a whole script). Then exporting works fine.
It sure makes a TON of figures, though -- I'm not so sure this really saves memory if you are using the high resolution textures (low resolution, yes, but they don't look very good up close).
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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For crowds in iclones the regular mesh kinds they need to be props and clones of each other so they share the same resources so like 1 crowd of 5 or something and copy it 20 times.
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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unless it's been improved in max 2016, it really doesn't go far.
very limited options.
i have groups of 140 or so and can have 4-5 dupes in a scene np
on a outdated machine with low ram and cheap vid card
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By animagic - 9 Years Ago
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Kelleytoons (1/19/2016)
Ah, nevermind -- answered my own question with a bit more interweb searching.
Apparently in order for this to work you need to bake the animation inside of Max by first selecting all the crowd figures and then using the Maxscript command pop.bakeselpeople() (you can issue this inside of a listener without writing a whole script). Then exporting works fine.
It sure makes a TON of figures, though -- I'm not so sure this really saves memory if you are using the high resolution textures (low resolution, yes, but they don't look very good up close).
Warlord gave small crowds in various configurations away as a Xmas freebie (created in 3DS Max), and they are quite nice. It had me interested, but it's only available in the more expensive 3D packages (3DS Max, full Maya, and Cinema 4D Studio). It would be great if it could work in Maya LT. I can see particles being useful in some cases, but I would like to have more control. For example, I need a crowd that is perusing the wares in a market.
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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I'm using Max 2015 and the crowd stuff is pretty limited -- you can't, for example, have folks running away from things (like if a monster was attacking) as the best you can do is have folks jog (most folks don't jog away from monsters :>). And getting people not to use cell phones is a PITA (which then means, of course, that you need to PUT the cell phones in, as otherwise they just have their hands up to their heads).
It's pretty good for backgrounds as long as they are FAR in the background -- otherwise it just doesn't blend well with iClone's own characters and the actions are, as I said, simplistic and repetitive. But at least it's something, and fast to generate and fun to play around with.
We still need crowd particles in iClone, particularly if we could then assign different animations to selected figures. And, yes, this could be done in third party stuff like AE or other compositing software, but anytime you leave the iClone environment you get into other issues like camera movement (because we can't export cameras from iClone you'd have to track the scene in AE, which is another PITA).
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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Probably for close up I would decimate a CC character down. I farted with this awhile back but they decimate very easily. Of course you then would need to rerig but i am assuming most animations could still work. I can get a cc character down below 5k polygons for the body and I would remove the inner mouth and then decimate the clothes down. Of course this takes time LOL. However still we would need particles. The idea being you can mix them up a bit. A true crowd well my idea .. which probably is more like a stampede can really only be done the particle way, but I would then like a set of low poly mesh people for wandering around.
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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this vid always cracked me up
miarmy
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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rofl yeah I want to have some large people herds like that maybe larger :)
I dont know how useful that is but i enjoy silly things like that LOL
I want my people to do this (very pie in the sky but this is what is inside my head when I think of crowds lol)
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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only 5 made it through...
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Hmmm, okay you Maya folks (I'm a Max guy who has never even tried it): can you not export, via FBX, the miarmy stuff? Or is it a true particle system with no way to bring into iClone?
If the latter you could always composite but, again, we lose the power of being able to use cameras and scenery precisely inside of iClone (so then requiring yet more software passes and a much longer pipeline). But I do love the face that Miarmy is free (even if Maya is not :<(
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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i use 3ds max.
i doubt they can be ported over.
if you can bake the geometry/animations
it would overwhelm 3dxchange.
the logical solution is, like with max
to bring your iclone scene into maya.
i have a pretty easy workflow for that
which can somewhat replicate the cameras as well.
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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There is a 3dsmax plugin for this miarmy but I think its costs money. They all work almost the same you can make them "solid" and export them but then you dont get the same benefits as if they were still using the particle system to duplicate them.
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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as far as i know it isn't ported to max yet.
http://basefount.proboards.com/thread/286/miarmy-3dsmax-2014-2015
i posted this in another thread:
trapcode particular with a few iclone render can do wonders
with a little thinking ahead.
camera link to comp allows you to use element 3d as a source as well
for full 360 camrea moves.
although not many can do that yet:D
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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i saw a notice for some plugin or other on a board somewhere, but i didnt read it so i might be wrong lol however that software and the entire "problem" have sparked me to mess around with this issue see what I can do that wont kill an iclone system just for fun and curiousity, but it wont be usable for closeup.. it would be mobs from far off and "old fashioned" but I bet I could come up with something that looks convincing.. (from a distance)
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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this is a 80 frame png export from iclone 200x180
used as a sprite emitter in particular. detail remains pretty good.
here is the the one i did the other day in that other thread
just 1 alien running, again 200x180 png from iclone
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Right, but since you used Particular I assume you mean you were in AE.
You can do all SORTS of things in AE, but none of them will be able to use a camera from iClone, or even any of the other props easily (you could track an iClone scene but that's a real PITA I would much rather not bother with). What we need is the same functionality inside of iClone so we could see how the people line up with everything (and adjust the camera, lighting and other props and animation as necessary).
I do think it's rather interesting there isn't any mass people generator in iClone -- iClone is certainly all about human animation, and this would seem like a natural extension.
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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i agree it would be nice.
"tracking in ae is pita?"
not since cs5
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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Kelleytoons (1/19/2016)[hr
I do think it's rather interesting there isn't any mass people generator in iClone -- iClone is certainly all about human animation, and this would seem like a natural extension.
yes this seems very iclone like and almost obvious so .. lets hope one day :)
I am not looking for solutions outside of iclone because i know what they are the whole point of this exercise was to do it inside iclone. I think in this case most of us know that the solution for the moment would be to use an external solution. The entire discussion occured as a result of an iclone user trying to generate crowds and although he did use some compositing he also used 1.2gig of characters to create the initial crowds which is not very ideal lol.
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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budbundy (1/19/2016)
i agree it would be nice.
"tracking in ae is pita?"
not since cs5
Oh I promise you tracking in ANY version of AE is a PITA -- unless it meets very specific criteria (none of which ever happens to be in my own work). If you doubt this I'll be glad to show you some examples.
Oh you can get a very nice track if you are willing to follow some rules I don't want to follow (and I even have the full version of Mocha Pro for that kind of tracking) but 9 times out of 10 it's limited to a very rigid set of circumstances. If your footage meets those -- fine. But those aren't the kinds of things I'm interested in doing.
If iClone could export the camera for AE we'd be in fairly good shape -- it wouldn't be ideal but it would be adequate. But we really need the solution inside of iClone, for a whole variety of reasons.
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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I actually think a "crowd generator" type deal is on their radar when I reread the physx stuff and particle stuff
Due to the incorporation of the new NVIDIA PhysX system in iClone 6 and our upcoming plans for 3D particle effects, we will no longer support the traditional bullet physics engine.
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Yeah, it sounds like it... but how long ago was that? At least a year, right?
Perhaps next year we'll see something.
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By animagic - 9 Years Ago
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Crowds in iClone have been a longtime feature request.
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By urbanlamb - 9 Years Ago
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yeah I think the mountain of work is you know large and that they are setting themselves up to do it, but all the other stuff has to be done too. That comment about physx and bullet stuff and 3d particles yeah its a year old, but I would think that its something they are keeping on the work pile and now seeing this comment again I think its slowly working its way to the top LOL.
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By Cricky - 9 Years Ago
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Have any of you tried using iClone to create crowds instead of importing them?
Using Particles as Crowd generations. Similar to using Billboards; mobile in the scene also if the particle is attached to a dummy mover.
https://youtu.be/RbVnJs0l_6k
There is no audio... so Crank up the Volume!!!
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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This would be pretty useful IF billboards retained their functionality they had in previous versions (as I understand it). Since they don't cast shadows it will be a REAL PITA to try and get them looking right in almost any scene other than a very superficial (or far away) one.
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By Skuzzlebutt - 9 Years Ago
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@cricky nice one! forgot about this, did some ghosts rising with it
awhile back.
as far as shadows, bake them in to the asset
@kelleytoons billboard don't cast shadows, but planes do,
use with look-at and you have a working billboard again
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By Kelleytoons - 9 Years Ago
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Hmmm, thought I tried planes and decided they weren't working as well. Thanks, I'll go back and have a look at them.
Still doesn't address the camera movements, though (since the characters, even with "look at" are not going to change perspective) but it will suffice for far away shots.
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