CAT Capture Animation and MOCAP
polycounter lvl 13
Hey all,
Looking at the CAT tools with regards to replacing biped as the main rig for general characters for a project and it all seems very appealing but does not come as advertised. I've read about the problems people are having with the CAT toolset but I thought I'd ask you all what your experiences are with them?
Ideally I want to be able to integrate mocap with the CAT rigs so the workflow at the moment is something like this;
Vicon blade - motionbuilder - max
My current workflow obtains a BIP or BVH from motionbuilder which is then loaded into BIPED which works for the most part but there are discrepancies such as arms will spasm at random points and the motion does not wholly follow what was captured. I check this by loading in the FBX captured from vicon and for example, a character bends over to pick something up and the BIPED loaded with BIP/BVH does not bend as far as the FBX. Not the worst thing in the world as you can add adjustment layers to sort but I'm curious as to if others experience this on a regular basis or if I'm missing something. The arm spasms also do not occur with the original FBX which I have thought will be something to do with proportions and the FK/IK but regardless of tweaking the proportions of BIPED it does not sort.
My real issue with the CAT toolset comes when trying to load in BVH info, it will create a new character seemingly made from CAT boxes and will not transfer the motion across. Seemingly the capture animation process does not work full stop which surprises me greatly and makes me think I'm missing something. I have read some posts from last year/year before regarding similar issues but hoping someones found an answer by now? I have tried capturing animation from a basic walk cycle on a BIPED but the same error is spewed forth,
I have tried using combos of Base Human and Bip01 but neither work and upon searching it seems you should steer clear of Bip01 from CAT no matter what which again baffles me as to why it's in there?
I should mention currently it's MB and MAX 2012 I'm using, so does anyone know if 2013 sorts this mess out?
Cheers for the time and hopefully this helps others too.
Looking at the CAT tools with regards to replacing biped as the main rig for general characters for a project and it all seems very appealing but does not come as advertised. I've read about the problems people are having with the CAT toolset but I thought I'd ask you all what your experiences are with them?
Ideally I want to be able to integrate mocap with the CAT rigs so the workflow at the moment is something like this;
Vicon blade - motionbuilder - max
My current workflow obtains a BIP or BVH from motionbuilder which is then loaded into BIPED which works for the most part but there are discrepancies such as arms will spasm at random points and the motion does not wholly follow what was captured. I check this by loading in the FBX captured from vicon and for example, a character bends over to pick something up and the BIPED loaded with BIP/BVH does not bend as far as the FBX. Not the worst thing in the world as you can add adjustment layers to sort but I'm curious as to if others experience this on a regular basis or if I'm missing something. The arm spasms also do not occur with the original FBX which I have thought will be something to do with proportions and the FK/IK but regardless of tweaking the proportions of BIPED it does not sort.
My real issue with the CAT toolset comes when trying to load in BVH info, it will create a new character seemingly made from CAT boxes and will not transfer the motion across. Seemingly the capture animation process does not work full stop which surprises me greatly and makes me think I'm missing something. I have read some posts from last year/year before regarding similar issues but hoping someones found an answer by now? I have tried capturing animation from a basic walk cycle on a BIPED but the same error is spewed forth,
I have tried using combos of Base Human and Bip01 but neither work and upon searching it seems you should steer clear of Bip01 from CAT no matter what which again baffles me as to why it's in there?
I should mention currently it's MB and MAX 2012 I'm using, so does anyone know if 2013 sorts this mess out?
Cheers for the time and hopefully this helps others too.
Replies
also max 2013 introduced cat interoperability with HumanIK which works better with motion builders humanik solver
I'm hoping something can be sorted for 2011/12 users, for an update on the issue over at Area forums,
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/3ds-max-cat/cat-capture-animation/page-last/
EDIT:
The capture animation feature seems to be fully up and running in 2013. I've captured from the raw FBX obtained from blade which is handy. The mapping seems to have off rotations but you can manually adjust the CAT bones to sort this and it will sort for the whole animation. Very handy indeed! I'd be curious to know if anyone has managed to get the process working in 2012/12? At the moment it means I have to go begging to get 2013 which is a pain considering it's just for the CAT update really.
2012 SP2 seems to sort the issue there, still no resolution for 2011 as yet, still no reply in the area forums.