ZBrushCentral

ZAnimator, The Zbrush Animation Plugin: Video Demos (Update, Added a Test Doodle)

[ZAnimator_Logo.jpg]

UPDATE: Resolved Bone Length Constraint. Going Onto Weighting and Curves.

Hello to all once again! It's been some months since I had scripted this primitive camera, animator and interactive-timeline plugin as a Zscript, but I had never got the chance to continue working on it and refine it since. The ZAnimator plugin is still in a primitive stage and with a messy interface, but with the imminent release of Zbrush 3.5 which includes ZSpheres 2, and with the upcoming release of Zbrush 4, I wish to demonstrate what my plugin is capable of so far. This is the first time in which I release these video demonstrations, I was holding it back till I refined but I thought now would be a reasonable time to release these. Mind you, this version of ZAnimator for ZSphere animations is primitive as I programmed no constraints (such as bone-length) or smoothing operations on the animations as I'm not great at programming or at 3d-maths. My aim with these videos is mostly to show the potential that Zbrush has in the field of animation, and that it is possible to have an interactive timeline and ZSphere animations, even Morph-target animation, as I had scripted all of these here and that was within the boundaries of ZScripting alone. It's just food for thought I guess. The original thread with all the details in writing is here: [http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=61937](http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=61937) P.S. I know that the rig I used for this video as well as the animation itself is rubbish but this video is for technical demonstration purposes only. Update: Uploaded second video in which I demonstrate Morph target animation as opposed to ZSphere animation with this plugin. The plugin is still incomplete and not fully usable but here is the demo. Please watch these in big size, and Enjoy!<object width="640" height="498"> </object><object width="425" height="344">

<embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/V1H2WSD_zpY&hl=en&fs=1” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></object>
<object width=“640” height=“498”> <object width=“425” height=“344”>

&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bmj2lWUXj-M&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;/object&gt; &lt;object width="425" height="344"&gt; &lt;object width="425" height="344"&gt; &lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tv9hzQ1agIU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"&gt;&lt;/object&gt; &lt;/object&gt;&lt;/object&gt;

That’s bloomin’ amazing! A seriously groundbreaking feature. Well done!

Rory

Stay tuned for the upcoming video!

awesome …

I can see your script and zbrush spawning an entirely new style of animation. Something more akin to what went on with stop motion and 8 millimeter cameras back in the day. Would be a welcome antidote to the supper slick ‘transformers’ type work the dominates the Hollywood scene.

Can’t wait to for your script to be stable enough that i can turn some of my animation students loose on it.

:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

This is awesome! I have hoped for something like this for a long time! :slight_smile:

Nice demonstration, I hope to see more :+1:

well done, and very interesting …

Great Plugin. You did an awesome work here, and with the Zsheres bugs being fixed in the next release of zbrush I think this has a great potential of being one of the best Zplugins. Keep up the good work.

Just amazing, I hope that Pixologic pays you for this and ships it in with Zbrush 4.

Thank you all for the nice and encouraging replies!

Unfortunately, as it is, ZSpheres are extremely buggy in Zbrush 3, and as Fatmiri said, with ZSphere bugs being fixed in the next release, this has great potential. I am eagerly awaiting thenext Zbrush for this reason also.

With the release of 3.5, I will try as fast as possible to apply ZAnimator to Zbrush 3.5, and hopefull with the introduction of ZSpheres 2, there will be many more exciting things to play around with when it comes to animation.

@maxinkuk : lol, if they payed for this, it would be a different story, i might just work full time on it lol, because as I said I have left this for a long time and have only developed the core minimum. No constraints or anything else programmed even, and minimal 3d maths so far also heh.

Thanks again,
and Stay Tuned!

P.S. the video went down, I’m doing my best to reupload it asap

Darukin,

I for one am sooo very grateful you posted this. I cant wait to see what you come up with in 3.5 as this level of animation package is truelly inspired.

Your newest biggest fan.

Peter Minister

Great stuff darukin!
With goz and such this could have great potential bound into
the software for additional stop motion animations that could be tricky
otherwise.
Keep up the great work.
To me programming is magic :smiley:

Stu…The potential for this plug in is incredible!!!Imagine something as complex as replacement stop motion animation…the features of a face could be rigged…posed…pushed into expressions…then each frame/model decimated…and exported for 3D printing…

Absolute genius…

Some weighting issues but damn, I’m impressed… not that I’m into animating myself, but it will sure be interesting to see what some people come up with in the future.

Now that’s really cool! I dunno much about coding but I do have a bit of experience with 3d animation. Rather familar with softimage and blender’s animation tools. Interface will be key though (no pun intended), the current timeline is rather confusing and tiny. Also I’d use frames as opposed to milliseconds for keying, its easier to understand. I can come up with ideas when your ready for user friendliness when your ready for it.

Update:

Just fixing upload issues with the video, will be back up in high quality as soon as possible.

Update:

Uploaded the second video. Please Watch in big-screen and High Quality:

<object width=“425” height=“344”>

<embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/Tv9hzQ1agIU&hl=en&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></object>

Thanks to all of you again for your encouraging replies!

ministerart and disco stu, thanks for bringing that up, never really thought about stop-animation potential for this plugin. If anything, this is still fledgling and there is so much potential for it grow especially with Z 3.5 ZSpheres 2 and GoZ, but on my own will take a lot of time.

In fact I can easily script this so that every frame the model is exported, and if I can integrate it with GoZ that would be amazing, you know going back and forth, posing keyframes and exporting the frames for as animation for rendering.

I’ll be coming back here and asking for suggestions and brainstorming, so please guys, I’m open to help and suggestions!

@ Womball, thanks for reply man, like i said the interface is messy, and with Zscript limitations, there’s no way to make the timeline any nicer looking, you wouldn’t believe all the workarounds I did in Zscripting lol. As far as miliseconds, yea that’s a bit amateurish of me it’s meant to be frames lol. I’m open to all your suggestions from now though Womball.

@Intervain, thanks for your comment magdalena, your art here is inspiring. As far as some weighting issues, lol not just some, it’s a huge issue right now.

Thanks once again to you all!
Cheers!

Well I can honestly say i have been waiting for something like that in zbrush for years. I had my fingers crossed it was going to be in 3.5 secretly. I think every z brush artist wants to be able to breath life into their creations. Until now we have been FORCED to use max and maya.

Great work! I could see with some tweaking…results could be good.

So when are you going to release this plugin?