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democap:motiontransferautohuman

Start Page » DEMoCap: Drag[en]gine Motion Capture » High Level Motion Transfer: Auto Human

Motion Transfer Auto Human

Typical humanoid character motion capture. Automatically sets up chain of low level motion transfers matching the layout of VR devices present during configuration. This is the recommended motion transfer to use for creating a new character.

This motion transfer provides a set of global parameters used to set up the appropriate low level motion transfers. Optional parameters can be used to fine tune characters. If a character is troublesome this motion transfer can be decomposed into the low level motion transfers to apply heavy fine tuning.

Name

Name of motion transfer to identify it in the list. Name is not required to be unique.

Head

Head bone.

Chest

Chest bone. This should be the bone where the neck and shoulder bones are attached to.

Right Hand

Right hand bone. This is the bone moving the entire right hand.

Left Hand

Left hand bone. This is the bone moving the entire left hand.

Hip

Hip bone. This is the bone the spine and legs are attached to.

Right Foot

Right foot bone. This is the bone moving the entire foot. For beast type legs this is not the heel bone but the actual foot segment touching the ground.

Left Foot

Left foot bone. This is the bone moving the entire foot. For beast type legs this is not the heel bone but the actual foot segment touching the ground.

Move Base IK

Move to use from character animation file as base IK state.

Arm and leg motion capture is done using inverse kinematic motion transfer (IK for short). IK does not work well if limbs are fully stretched out. Characters are though calibrated in T-Pose which is all about limbs being stretched out. As a result IK tends to calculate strange results. Using a base IK move an initial state can be defined where the limbs are in half bend position close to natural pose. This ensures IK can calculate good results improving motion capture results.

The move is required to have one animation frame. Additional animation frames beyond the first one are ignored.

Move Crouch

Move to use from character animation file as crouch state.

This further refines the IK calculation for legs. Instead of using just the base IK move this move blends between legs in base IK pose and legs in fully crouched pose. This move can have as many frames as required. The altitude of the hip above the ground is used to blend between the first animation frame (0s) and the last animation frame (move play time).

Fine Tuning

Fine Tuning

This panel contains parameters to fine tune the generated low level motion transfers.

Neck Bend Shape

Defines the shape of the bending curve used for the neck. Value is in the range from 0 to 20. This value is only useful for long neck characters. Typical human actors have only one neck bone. In this case the bend shape has no effect.

A value of 10 bends all neck bones with equal weight.

Values towards 0 bend bones more the closer they are to the neck base. This makes long neck characters bend the neck base stronger. This causes the head and the virtual camera the actor sees to move strongly.

Values towards 20 bend bones more the closer they are to the head. This makes long neck characters bend the head end of the neck stronger. This causes the head and the virtual camera the actor sees to move gently.

A good default value is 13. Depending on the shape of the neck in calibration state smaller values are useful. Higher values are usually not useful.

Spine Bend Shape

Defines the shape of the bending curve used for the spine. Value is in the range from 0 to 20.

A value of 10 bends all spine bones with equal weight.

Values towards 0 bend bones more the closer they are to the hip. This makes characters bend the hip stronger keeping the spine more or less straight. This causes the character to have a stiff spine appearance.

Values towards 20 bend bones more the closer they are to the neck. This makes characters bend the chest area stronger. The displacement of the chest is used to calculate the bending. If the bend shape value is too high no valid bending might be found.

For human actors a good default value is 13. This bends slightly stronger the upper half of the spine.

Reach Scaling RA

Scales reach calculation for the right arm.

Automatic reach calculation uses the bone layout to calculate the arm reach of the character. This is used to scale the actor arm reach along each axis to about over and under stretching. Nevertheless this calculation can be slightly off depending on how the character is crafted. By manually shortening or enlarging the arm reach this can be compensated.

Arm reach is applied along X, Y and Z axis. A uniform reach would cause problems due to shoulder movement. The X axis reach is from the body center to the side. This reach is a direct product of the T-Pose while calibrating. The Y axis reach is found if the arms are lowered hanging by the side. The Z axis reach is found if the arms are pointing straight forward. The reach scaling is multiplied with each of these axes. Hence the reach scaling is (from left to right): to the side, downwards, forward.

The best way to adjust these values is to use the Tweaking Panel.

The reach scaling is typically in the range from 0.8 to 1.2 .

The X value scales arm stretched outwards. The Y value scales arm hanging down to the side of the body. The Z value scales arm held straight forward.

Reach Scaling RA Backwards

Scales reach calculation for the right arm in the opposite direction.

The X value scales arm held towards the other hand. The Y value scales arm held straight upwards. The Z value scales arm held backwards.

Reach Scaling LA

Scales reach calculation for the left arm.

Same as Reach Scaling RA but for the left arm.

Reach Scaling LA Backwards

Scales reach calculation for the left arm in the opposite direction.

Same as Reach Scaling RA Backwards but for the left arm.

Advanced

Advanced

This panel contains advanced parameters to modify generated low level motion transfers for special characters. In general you should not touch these values as it can easily break the motion capture if done wrong.

Scale Head Rotation

Defines the scaling to apply to head rotation. The X value defines the scaling for nicking the head. The Y value defines the scaling for turning the head. The Z value defines the scaling for tilting the head. The default values are 1 which applies the same head rotation to the character as performed by the actor. Values larger than 1 exaggerate head rotation. For example a value of 2 makes the character turn his head 2x further than the head rotation of the actor. This can be used for long neck or owl type characters to allow them to look backwards. Be careful when using values other than 1. Actors have to get used to the character looking direction moving twice as fast as their own head turns. For such characters it might be better to detach the camera from the character head if this is problematic for the actor to handle.

Scale Spine Bending

Defines the scaling to apply to the spine bending. The X value defines the scaling for bending forward and backwards. The Y value defines the scaling for twisting the chest. The Z value defines the scaling for bending left and right. It is recommended to use the same value for Y head rotation scaling and Y spine bending scaling. If the values differ twisting your chest while looking in the same direction causes the character neck to perform unexpected rotations. For such characters it might be better to detach the camera from the character head if this is problematic for the actor to handle.

Neck Bend Axis

Defines the axis used for neck bending. The Z axis points from the neck towards the head, typically straight up. The X axis points to the right side. The Y axis points backwards. Changing the orientation of the neck bend axis allows to change the direction in which the actor head movement is applied to the character neck. For such characters it might be better to detach the camera from the character head if this is problematic for the actor to handle.

Click on the label or the text widgets to activate coordinate system mode. A coordinate system gizmo is shown in the preview window at the origin of the character. Rotate the coordinate system until the Z axis (blue arrow) points along the bone chain. The X axis is the red arrow and the Y axis the green arrow.

Bend Axis affects only the bending of the bone chain. It does not affect the bending angle calculation. This allows to calculate the bending for one direction while applying it to a bone chain pointing into another direction.

Spine Bend Axis

Defines the axis used for spine bending. The Z axis points from the waist towards the neck, typically straight up. The X axis points to the right side. The Y axis points backwards. Changing the orientation of the spine bend axis allows to change the direction in which the actor spine movement is applied to the character spine. For such characters it might be better to detach the camera from the character head if this is problematic for the actor to handle.

Click on the label or the text widgets to activate coordinate system mode. A coordinate system gizmo is shown in the preview window at the origin of the character. Rotate the coordinate system until the Z axis (blue arrow) points along the bone chain. The X axis is the red arrow and the Y axis the green arrow.

Bend Axis affects only the bending of the bone chain. It does not affect the bending angle calculation. This allows to calculate the bending for one direction while applying it to a bone chain pointing into another direction.

Relocate Arms

If checked the actor hand and elbow trackers position is relocated relative to the chest. This has to be used for characters with horizontal bodies like dinosaurs where the chest area is located from the waist forward instead of upwards. Using spine bend axis can work in such situations but relocating is usually better and allows the camera to still be attached to the character head.

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democap/motiontransferautohuman.txt · Last modified: 2023/06/04 10:09 by dragonlord