even more inspired second time around.
Key for me would be to have the timeframe in seconds…24/25 plus the ability to export the model at each frame…
Again…
this is wonderful…keep posting developments.
peter
this is impressive work, might be in an early state but has loads of potential and seems to do the job it’s supposed to do already. <img src=“http://www.zbrushcentral.com/upload/atn.gif”><img src=“http://www.zbrushcentral.com/upload/atn.gif”><img src=“http://www.zbrushcentral.com/upload/atn.gif”>
Amazing!
Does this work in OSX? I have rigged full res’d geometry should be interesting to see how it handles it. Thank you very much. Awesome Work.
@ nicholasmarks:
thanks for your reply!
I’ve been developing this for less than 1 month so far so it has minimal core functionality, but I’m waiting for Z3.5, GoZ and ZSphere bug fixes before developing this properly. Currently in Zbrush 3.1 the bugs make it impossible to have a usable version of ZAnimator.
So it’s too early to tell when I might release this plugin, because don’t forget that this is a huge complex application like plugin and not a simple operation / task plugin which can be made in a few days. I’ll keep you updated though!
thanks once again man really appreciate your interest. No worries about the exporting every frame feature, that can be done easily from now even. I’ll make the other fixes soon also.
Thanks Namek and SquidWatch! =)
Thanks to you also! I’m developing this in Windows so i dont know about Mac, but Zscripts should work in both regardless I think, so it shouldn’t be a problem. This entire plugin is simply a 30kb Zscript text file so far believe it or not. As for rigging, you should use low-res geometry to be rigged, but I still have a feature in mind to transfer this to high res of same geometry when rendering or exporting only, but for the morph animation it’s no problem. Also with decimation master thsi can be used quite well.
I’m open once again for ideas, brainstorming and suggestion, keeping in mind the framework of Zbrush and it’s limitations. While this plugin may have much potentioal, there are still also its limitations and issues here and there to tackle.
Maybe you must put a curve editor. Becouse your plugin (as every 3d animaion soft), interpolates in a linear and constant way, anthat’s boring. We need to be able to accelerate and decelerate, you know. and animating in a real 3d space should be great.
Really excellent work on the plug-in! I wish it much success…as a plug-in.
I sincerely hope they never have animation features as a standard part of ZBrush. All that will do is increase cost, clutter, and learning curve.
The more time goes by, the more I appreciate niche applications like Silo and Topogun. They’re one trick ponies, but they do that trick REALLY well, and the UI and hot keys are set up for making that trick as easy as possible. I’ve been using Max since v2 and I’ve never liked how cluttered the interface is. As a modeler, I don’t even use most of that stuff.
Thanks impertinent and dustinbrown!
Man you got me brainstorming now impertinent! Of course a curves feature is neccessary for a complete animation package, and luckily, a curves feature exists in Zbrush! It can be mapped mathematically to the timeline and ZSpheres maybe. Also, with masking features I can maybe isolate indiviual ZSpheres and apply certain features only to the masked ones! Thing is there are a lot of ideas and by posting this thread I’ve been reinvigorated to work on this again.
And I agree with you somewhat DustinBrown, I love Silo for that reason, perfecting what it’s special for and not trying everything else all in one, so that it does what it does really well, and easy to learn and clean interface that way.
Awesome stuff Darukin!! I haven’t been around ZBC for some time because I’ve actually been working on my animation skills.
I’ve been checking out all of the new and exciting stuff for ZB 3.5/4 and stumbled onto your thread and man, oh man! I’ve had fantasies about the future of animation and exists in a realm where Stop-motion, 2D drawn animation, and 3D animation all meet up and have beautiful babies.
The stuff that’s great about 2D animation is there are no restrictions. You can exaggerate a character, create “smear frames” for neat effects or stylized movement and really put a personalized touch on an animation. It’s not as easy to stay “on model” with 2D drawn animation as it is with 3D or stop-motion, but there are certainly benefits!
With 3D, staying “on model” is easy since you have a digital puppet that doesn’t really change much beyond the limits of the model and the rig. It’s also much easier to do interesting camera angles and moves since the characters exist in 3D and you don’t have to hand draw every frame.
Blah blah blah… On to my point!
ZBrush has the amazing ability to take an “on model” 3D puppet and give you a lot of the power you would have if you were doing drawn animation or sculpting puppets for stop-motion. But with that comes all of the benefits of 3D!
In a dream world, an animator could put together a CG animation shot as they do now, but when they go into their polishing passes they could sculpt the animation to really push exaggeration, cheating a shot to the camera, doing smear frames, etc, etc. I know the Blender team was working on a similar ideas as well (Anisculpt?), but nothing is as intuitive for sculpting as ZBrush.
Truly great work and thanks for pushing this idea! Looking forward to further developments and the day I can create sculpted 3D/2D/stop-mo animations!! :lol:
- Jason
concept
ditto what others have said and jfitt
Sense most have mentioned 3d and clay just a reminder for 2d - transparent background and save as psd.
thanks jfitt and Spaceman for the encouragement
I guess with this kind of response, I have to get to work on this little toy, I was just reading some of the 3d maths that I need to proceed lol, just want to resolve IK constraints for now and then look into weighting which is important and curves etc. It’s a lot of work but it’s possible with magic of maths. It’s application in Zbrush is really unique but super super fast in execution for some reason.
Darukin,
On the “rig” part of the model…the skeleton. Is there a way of fixing the length of the “bones” so that the outer model doesnt distort when manipulating and animating?.
if u mean what I think u mean, u basically must unbind the rig from the model, and then play around with the rig , then rebind, but I’m not sure what u mean otherwise. The same ZSphere Rig and animation can also be exported and binded to other models also. I haven’t coded that yet but it’s possible.
UPDATE: Resolved Bone Length Constraint. Really happy Because This Was A Tough One For Me!
Going Onto Weighting and Curves For ZSpheres. Following That I’m Thinking About Masking Features For ZSpheres To Help User Manipulate Animation Properties For Different ZSpheres.
Mind You When This Gets far, I’ll Need Some Beta Testers, but Not Yet Either Way, Let’s Wait For Z 3.5 heh.
“as I’m not great at programming or at 3d-maths.” Well you look pretty bloody good to me thats fantastic work. oh a step closer to only havng to use one programe for the whole animation type thing what a dream it would be.
Wow very cool! I can’t wait to play with this!
Thanks monstermaker and bogeywash, much appreciated!
Cool man! Keep going. You gotta make it easier than autodesk of course. Go for it
this Plugin is very cool, but i was wondering. the animations you make with it, do they import into other packages? for example i use Vue for most of my Scene rendering for the great environmental effects… IS it possible to add these animations to objects for use in it?
Im new to all of this, so pardon my ignorance. :o
Thanks CherubRock and Gridlost!
This plugin is still in development stage so I can;t tell yet how far I will take it.
I’m still at the point of resolving constraints and smoothing etc to make this a viable animation plugin so far (I’ve just resolved bone-length constraint and few other things so far), so I can’t tell as of yet.
For something like stop-motion animation, I will have plugin to export model at every individual frame. Maybe can use this in conjunction with GoZ, I’ll see bout that too, but mainly as for exporting this as some form of animation format, not sure yet will be tricky though but I will see!