Blender shape keys in iClone?

Blender shape keys in iClone?

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https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic310739.aspx

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By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Q1: is it possible to use these in 6.5? How exactly?
Q2: if no to Q1, will it be possible in 7?

By vidi - 8 Years Ago

Blender shape keys is another words for morphs.

maybe your write for what you want using it.

At the time you can use it in CC for making sliders or 3dxchange use it for the facial expression pannel

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

The 2nd iC7 progress video is slated to show the upcoming timeline morph system. You cannot currently use morphs (blendshapes) on the timeline, unless you set them up as "facial" morphs) in 3DX.

You can create blendshapes from the CC base that can be converted to CC morphs. You need to bring in each one individually though, like as an OBJ.

EDIT
I cross-posted with you Vidi. :)

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yeah, I understand what Blender's shape keys are :) just not how to implement them in CC and iClone. I tried in 3dXchange and as long as I use ASCII 6.1 converter out of Blender and scale to 100, it works, so that's cool. I think I understand how people make wave planes now, I'll be trying that ASAP.

In CC, I'm still not seeing how to import shape keys directly, I know how to create and import individual morphs, but if I have a character with a few shape keys, it would be nice to just import the FBX with multiple morphs included and have them appear in CC as sliders. Vidi, you seem to indicate that's possible, if that's correct, and if so, can you explain how? Thanks!

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Alrighty then, for anyone wondering how to make a detailed ocean in Blender for iClone, here's my steps:

1. In Blender, create an ocean with animation using the ocean modifier. Here's a tutorial.

2. Export the sequence as an .mdd file. Good explanation is here.

3. Once Blender is set up with the new mdd file, create a base shape key on frame one.

4. Create a morph shape key, set the animation to frame 250 (or whatever your end is).

5. In the Mesh Cache modifier, click 'apply as shape key.

Note: create as many shape keys as you want to represent different wave patterns.

Anyhow, this had me scratching my head for a while, and it is really good to finally figure it out. It really opens up a lot of possibilities. Thanks guys for your help.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Oh, sorry, I should add that after getting your ocean ready, while in Blender, import the base fbx and attach the ocean to the armature as an object. Then export the whooshing as fbx 6.1 ascii so 3dxchange can see the morphs, and then map the morphs like any other face expression. Then in iclone you hide the base fbx textures. I still need to fiddling scaling, but the hard part is figured out now ☺ I can't wait to see how well the manual morph keying will be. Anyhow, this is one of the things I always want, like a second or so shot of men at the bow of a ship as they head off on an odyssey. Just doesn't give the oomph when the water is all flat ☺

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

Thanks for sharing that!

I've had some luck doing waves using the displacement channel with a video in it. There is a trick to setting it up, as it won't let you adjust the tessalation settings on video. But if set your tessalation settings with a JPG first, then you can load a video in the channel and it retains the settings.

Steps:
add tessalation plain
double-click displacement channel and add a picture
set tessalation settings to 10, with base all the way left, and multpilier at 50%
double-click displacement channel and add a video
reduce strength of displacement using the strength slider.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yeah, I bet a combination of tessalation and a morph object would get the best of both techniques, and since it isn't a water plane, you can just use a video file straight away, which is what I'm doing. Right now the tricky bit is actually manually animating without mouse smoothing apparently, so it is hard to get the right feeling, a graph editor sure would be sweet for setting this all up. I can't wait 😀

Actually, just checked, I should say displacement, not tessalation, but I am also experimenting with still maps using tessalation with a normal map video in the bump channel. Anyhow, I am seeing different things give different effects, so there is a lot of artistic flexibility I think.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

The trick there is to put an RL skeleton in your ocean so it can be a non-standard character. You don't need any rigging. Ii's just there so you can set it up as an avatar to use the expression editor. Then you can set your different ocean morphs to muscle morphs that can be keyed using the face key in the iClone timeline.

Warlord did a werewolf transition for a Dazzie by putting the morph as jaw opening.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yeah, that's what I meant when referring to the base fbx, and hiding it. Anyhow, it is all fine tuning now, I might release a freebie of this soon.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Ah, I'll have to look into the face keying thing when I get home, that will definitely help.

By mark - 8 Years Ago

Well, after all this super wonderous info... you know what this wingnutt is lookin' for...a detailed video tutorial!!!!!:P:P:P

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yeah, I'm not really up for doing tutorials, Rampa is GREAT at them though, and IMO it would be good for everyone if he did it vs me, I have a faulty CPU. I'm not trying to pressure anyone, but still :) Anyhow, the key bit is understanding this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30310/how-to-apply-the-ocean-modifier-to-get-an-animated-object and then setting a morph as a shape key. The whole thing is ridiculously easy, once you understand the .mdd bit. I had tried with an .mdd file numerous times before, but never made the connection to the need for a skape key to animate. Duh! But I was under the impression there was some issue with using Blender shape keys in iClone, but as long as you use the older FBX output option, then it is really cool. I'm giddy, somebody pinch me. Real time, decent water effects are now in my toolkit, I'm just so damned pleased.

By animagic - 8 Years Ago

mark (1/9/2017)

Well, after all this super wonderous info... you know what this wingnutt is lookin' for...a detailed video tutorial!!!!!:P:P:P

I'm not too proud to admit I need one too...:unsure:

Anyway, thanks, eternityblue, for the research!

By urbanlamb - 8 Years Ago

eternityblue (1/9/2017)

I used the 7.4 fbx in blender with all a bunch of shape keys i got a pop up telling me i needed fbx whatever it was in the exchange, but the morphs imported anyhow lol so i think it converts it down or something or maybe I was just lucky. I did a pile like 3 weeks ago so not sure if something has changed but i didnt need to dig up the 6.1 exporter it seemed to work.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Well, I literally have brain damage and so it is hard for me to string together long, coherent anything, but once my first screen test finishes rendering, I am going to make a detailed recipe that should be easy to follow, I need to do it before I forget, I'm very much like Dory, I have to write it down or I literally can just forget big chunks it. Maybe once someone more qualified has time and gets it, a real tutorial can be made. To me this is hugely useful. I really want water in my world and water is dynamic, and anyhow, like I said, this is a super easy project for even Blender novices, and you can obviously do more than water, I bet you could get bubbling lava kind of effects with the right settings from Blender. Anyone can easily make endless custom water morphs, and this is just going to get better when we get access to the graph editor. I'm doing a happy dance, iclone is growing up. I can't wait to see what the new animation upgrades will be, beyond getting the editor in 7.1. I even found out you can get hair ala carte with points, so I used the few from stuff I'm trading to resolve my frustration attempting to make hair in Blender. I'm running out of things to complain about! Oh happy days. Still waiting on that render, then I'll work on that coherent, detailed recipe.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Urban lamb, that's interesting, I'll have to try that. I just moved on to the other exporter, which works, but I wonder if there is any benefit one way or the other, and maybe with something I'm totally unaware of.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

You can skip the blendshapes and just export an OBJ at regular intervals along the timeline. The default is to apply the modifier on export, so it's easy. Then Load each obj as a facial morph.

You still need the first one as the FBX with a 15 bone skeleton. Any skeleton you can characterize will work.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

I kinda like to have it all wrapped in an FBX, anyhow, comes down to preference there I suppose :) It is definitely good to know it isn't dependent on FBX though, since Blender sometimes can have issues there. This was my first test, finally finished rendering and the render has artifacts, I am guessing specular something or other.

Yeah, the cameraman should be fired too.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

That has a lot promise! :)
I think it will take quite a few different morphs to make it really flow.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yeah, and I wasn't terribly picky with any of it, I spent no extra time nice'ing it up and the fact is I would have been happy with this result if it was the best I could get, which it isn't. This is just the beginning if the road :) this was one of my bucket list items, and I am so happy. I have all kinds of ideas for water in my scenes and I was just feeling stifled. It has been kinda years trying to do this in Poser, then Blender, then iClone and now finally I feel like I can get the essentially of water easily. I am dying to try this in PBR GI. I also want to see what is possible using substance painter making water textures.

By urbanlamb - 8 Years Ago

eternityblue (1/10/2017)

i have the most recent version of blender whatever number it is now and the fbx that comes with it out of the box works for everything I didnt need to use any 6.1. There is a pop up it says something about using fbx 2013 or whatever year it was but the info still all imported intact all the morphs work like they should so you should not need to add any other fbx versions floating around.

By pr2013 - 8 Years Ago

animagic (1/10/2017)

mark (1/9/2017)

Well, after all this super wonderous info... you know what this wingnutt is lookin' for...a detailed video tutorial!!!!!:P:P:P

I'm not too proud to admit I need one too...:unsure:

Maybe someone will take pity on us Job!:P:P:P

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Sorry sw0000p, but Blender does water very well, my example shouldn't reflect poorly on Blender. Now, is it easy or possible to get the best Blender-sourced animations into a prop in iClone? Probably not. But Blender does water just fine. Please post your water tests in whatever app you are so proud to have paid for, with expensive training that puffs up the old ego, and then we'll talk.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Let's see your demo reel then. We are working with iclone, so show me how you get your effects into iclone. I'll wait. Unless you just came here to disparage Blender.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

So, you have nothing, like always.

By animagic - 8 Years Ago

So here is someone who shares how to do a nice Ocean Effect in Blender on YouTube:

eternityblue, please continue to share your findings and experiences as they ARE relevant to us iClone users.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

That video actually is what I was looking at trying next, making a wake in an ocean plane. My poor brain isn't up for it today, maybe tomorrow. Today I can barely even type.

By animagic - 8 Years Ago

BTW, for this it would be great to have Alembic export from Blender and import into iClone.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Yep, NOTHING. Guess what, Blender is the same, drop in a plane, add a modifier, poof, instant ocean. You don't know what you are talking about.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

I really wish I could just block certain users for good. Talk about feature requests.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Again, please post your work, or go away.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

Blender ocean sim is actually the same code that Houdini uses. It was released long ago and picked up by Blender programmers.

It's the transferring of the resultant animation into iClone that we are seeking a solution to. ;)

Blender has Alembic export now. Hopefully iClone will get Alembic import soon.

By urbanlamb - 8 Years Ago

eternityblue (1/10/2017)

Again, please post your work, or go away.

LOL I feel like bad luck actually not posting much anymore I seem to be a bit of an ego magnet doesn't matter where I post it happens so I am starting to get paranoid so I blame the fact I posted in this thread. Its a problem with this forum I am afraid and I dont think its gonna go away. If its not one guy its another one and personally it gets tiresome but you got your information its actually pretty easy to do either make or get a skeleton and shove it in the middle of your morphs and export the whole mess and then attach them to the expression keys that are assigned to the mouse inside 3dexchange.

Make sure the skeleton is associated with your mesh before export. This was possible in iclone 5 so should be lots of tutorials around. There is also a dummy skeleton available in our assets (or there used to be but for myself I just make one inside blender (you dont need any face bones really just a head and neck its a very basic skeleton you just need the body bones really its not like your really using it i dont even know if that much is needed i never tried since i just slap the thing together lol)

I think this dummy is still around and works. in looking at that tutorial quicky yeah you need a full body skeleton. (so arms legs and the main headbone etc I think there is even one of those around on the marketplace it should import into blender as well)

By planetstardragon - 8 Years Ago

It's not you Urbanlamb, you've been an awesome member and a pleasure to talk to since day 1! it won't stop unfortunately. it's why i've stopped posting as well, although admittedly i do miss the nice people here. The game works like this, swoop or someone from his circle makes a harassing post whenever someone talks about advanced asset development, he gets away Scott free, but if you take the bait, and defend yourself, you get in trouble. It's unacceptable behavior from all sides, including the veteran forum members that turn a blind eye to it. I have come to view the forum is very unsafe as a result, especially now that hackers frequent the forums bombing it with spam, in my experience, that's a bad omen. it's a shame but not the first time i've seen a great forum go down because of things like this.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Sorry guys, it is just frustrating to see anything Blender related get pissed on by someone that frankly hasn't demonstrated proficiency in anything beyond buying software. I get very tired of the BOLD crap, the condescending nonsensical blather, it is just too much. I'm taking a break from this place, I know I'm part of the problem, but at least I'm trying to find solutions, not just brag about how iClone users could NOT understand blah blah blah. I hope Reallusion sees what a detriment this guy is to these forums. I'm done. sw0000p, please don't ever answer my posts, I understand I can't stop you, but you can stop yourself.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

May have figured out the basics of a skeletal solution. I discovered you can essentially shrinwrap bones to meshes.

https://www.blender.org/manual/rigging/constraints/relationship/shrinkwrap.html
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?281752-Animated-ocean-for-export

I'll be trying this out.

By Rampa - 8 Years Ago

Thanks for being helpful with the case at hand sw00000p . :) It is far more appreciated than many of your "boastful" posts!

I do try and encourage you to stick to your lighter side (may the Force be with you! Or whatever :P).

But yeah. I'm figuring out which buttons to push. Almost there. The bones move with waves quite nicely.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

Ok, so I uploaded a project with an ocean prop, it isn't perfect and if anyone really wants to do much with this, I am thinking learning to make it yourself will give the best results. And the textures suck, so swap them out.

http://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JIC17f5099385794ffc6&g=

By animagic - 8 Years Ago

planetstardragon (1/10/2017)

It's actually been quite nice and productive most of the time if you know what/who to ignore. Much better then when iClone 6 came out.

By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago

For anyone working on the ocean mesh, I had success getting more complex wave sequences by limiting the frames I animated in Blender to 10, setting the time at frame 10 to 10, and then creating a shape key at each frame. Then I assigned these to viseme keys in 3DX and in the timeline, just created an audio clip long enough for my cycle, deleted all the keys, and inserted my visemes in sequence. I created a rolling wave pattern, but it could have been done with any wave cycle. Here's my screen test:

And I uploaded a freebie project with the prop.

By urbanlamb - 8 Years Ago

animagic (1/11/2017)

planetstardragon (1/10/2017)

It's actually been quite nice and productive most of the time if you know what/who to ignore. Much better then when iClone 6 came out.

It has improved somewhat, but I think the point is you shouldn't have to ignore such things LOL. It simply should not be happening.
Its like people come by to take pot shots at others they like swing by for reasons which always puzzle me.

By RobertoColombo - 8 Years Ago

Hi,

maybe it is a bit basic, but my friend "Ragamuffa" did this tutorial some time ago

Cheers

Roberto