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Rigged Human Model

=rk=

=rk=

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Earlier I posted a request for mocap animated figures. I have acquired the ability to record and compile motion animations and am now in need of a suitable model to which to apply them. The model needs to conform to the requirements of the simulator. Lacking a suitable response I will probably develop that capacity by the extension of time since I last posted in this sub forum. If you can already do it and want to make some decent cash, PM me.
 
Really? Now this interesting.

Have you looked into 'makehuman'?

Or just go on turbosquid and buy a cheap model to test it on.
 
The simulator has provision for a specific number of "bones," that is somewhat fewer than the industry standard. I have already mapped, or translated, my own recorded motions to a Makehuman model. I forget the exact number we are allowed but it works out to a standard articulated biped would have enough bones left over for one thumb with one joint and one finger with one joint on each hand. Not so great to model hand signals. Now you could do things like fuse the neck to the spine to get an extra bone, or lock the heels, etc., but it becomes, like everything MSFS related, a bit of digital origami and not your average Freelancer level cup of tea.

The party I am working with has gone to great lengths to acquire a suitable model and it remains to be seen, literally, if I can clean up our rudimentary animations. At this point it is mostly just a matter of getting time in front of the camera, but if you have a ready solution, we might be into it.
 
Actually I was hoping to glean whatever tidbits I could learn from you Rick.

The only example I can think of in FSX are the ORBX animated 'people flow' ambient objects. They do keep them pretty simple, in terms of their range of motions, but they look good enough in the sim.
 
Man, I don't even know what a bone would do if it wasn't connected to something; go fetch, I suppose. The relevant number is 22, when dealing with walking, waving or flashing the longhorn:

female-cheerleaders-of-the-texas-longhorns-stand-on-the-shoulders-of-picture-id1690048


As per:
  • There is a limit of 128 bones per model, and a limit of 22 connected bones. Any one vertex of a model can be influenced by a maximum of four bones. Models will fail if they exceed these limits.
Click to expand...
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526974.aspx

I have not explored the situation, but we did talk to ORBX and they weren't able to help. I am suspecting the Object Flow models are skinned mesh, which is the direction I thought we were going. To me, mesh human models look "noodly," like Gumby, the shoulders and hips get thin at full extension like the mesh has to stretch and constrict the body to make the extension. Anyway, we had another artist do the models as I am not so good with anatomy and he made us a 22 bone model. Now I could simply key frame animate this model, I suppose, but I have this slick Kinect 3-d camera and as I wrote above, I've already matched my recorded motions to a Makehuman model.

Paul mentioned the default avatar; yes I have explored it. The goal is a payware addon, which kind of relegates the avatar to development work only, I am pretty sure we should use unique models, but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the default avatar donning a Avis uniform and portioning out rental cars, which is approximately similar to the end goal of this project. I do not believe the bone structure is preserved upon compilation and there is no way to reverse engineer the default avatar back to it's .bip or .bvh origins. Closest I can come is Collada and while the motion editing software will import .dae, I've resolved to work as closely from .max to .mdl as possible for simplicity.
 
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Hmmm, you raise an interesting point, Rick. It could be that they just didn't use bone structures, but rather just split up the body parts and animated them. FSX/P3D was probably never intended to handle anything this involved.


I am still pretty ignorant in these matters, but I kinda thought that my process would involve building as much as I can in 'Makehuman' and then using this importer tool to transfer it into Blender (in MHX2 format), where I can then what I need to do with it. This is the module in blender that I found and installed:

https://thomasmakehuman.wordpress.com/mhx2-documentation/

Now I've not played much with it yet so I am really talking out my backside here. I have this program called iPi Mocap Studio. Haven't purchased it or done anything with yet, but I have it installed as a free demo for evaluation, and I see that it lets you export your animated scene to Blender or to 3ds Max Biped Rig.

BTW Rick, I didn't go to Texas.

1dcd85d9c753cb39686d14a0d318a6a0.jpg
 
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Makehuman has fantastic fidelity, including facial expressions and it is able to incorporate custom content like clothing and hair, but the bones appear to be uneditable. The program that I sucessfully animated my Makehuman model in was ipi Studio, but since it was overly complex, I did not try to compile to .mdl.
 
Rick see if you can export it to Blender. Then from Blender you can add your animation tags and export that as a MDL.
 
Well my Makehuman beauty was lost when W10 deleted my program files. Luckily my dedicated flight sim apps and simulators were already in their own folders due to Windows quirkiness about the program files folder. The W10 update most definitely put that quirkiness to shame, it deleted over 150 gb of well functioning software. Granted part of that was the previous install that worked fine before the W10 update corrupted it. All my 3d apps were installed to program files, which W10 first moved to windows.old, then purged 48 hours later. Who do you call to scream bloody murder, Bill Gates?
Anyway Makehuman stuff is useless in the simulator because of the hard limit of 22 connected bones. That isn't even enough bones for a pair of "normal" human hands. Go ahead, count it. 11 each gives 1 joint per finger, fingers can wiggle, the thumb actually gets to bend, in case you want to make a hitchhiking model. Don't forget the knee bone connected to the leg bone, leg bone connected to the thigh bone, all the way up through the skull. So as beautiful as she was, she was high maintenance, taking up disk space and not doing anything constructive. It's better I made room for a model more to my tastes and liking. One that wears my animations proudly. This type of model is known to be a bit of a challenge, a bit old fashioned and not quite as complex as the more contemporary models. One that frequents the same programs I frequent and works well in the formats I'm comfortable with is ideal.
 
Well, be sure to let us know if you find a workable mechanism. I'd like to try it as well.
 
Ripcord said:
Well, be sure to let us know if you find a workable mechanism. I'd like to try it as well.
Click to expand...

I found an open source FBX exporter for Kinect 2 video:
http://marcojrfurtado.github.io/KinectAnimationStudio/index.html

The thing is amazing, actually. No back ground, no adjustment or tuning whatsoever, just a "record," "stop record" and "save file to" function. Yet as soon as a human figure enters the camera field - it ignores dogs unlike ipi Recorder - the animation skeleton pops into the view window. I just found it today and thus far I have sucessfully imported what appears to be my walk into Autodesk Motionbuilder.

Here is a resource for free .bvh viewers and tools:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/bvh/
 
So what format were you using to import to Autodesk -- wondering if it would work also in blender.
 
FBX seems to be the common recorded motion raw format. The thing is that ipi Studio really spoils you. I am sure I have enough software components to start compiling animations, but I don't need to start, I need to complete inadequate animations. I'm already missing that smoothing function ipi has, I've experienced it removing jitters from my Makehuman animation. So I've decided to pay for the package, just to knock this thing out.
Of course you can't buy the software, they want to get to know you like a crack dealer. I wish I could lead the lifestyle that it was just one of those expenses that keeps the lights on.
 
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