Animated People in Lightwave

[kopperdrake]

Hi guys. I've noticed a few people talking about animating people in their viz animations, and they mention Motion Builder being used in conjunction with 3d character models from a-xyz or lowpolygon3d.

My question is, what is the work pipeline for getting the animated characters into the LW scene?

Do you rig a 3D character up in LW with bones, then export that to Motion Designer, animate it in there and then save it all out as a LWscene to be reloaded into your LW viz animation scene?

Do you bring in any mocap data along the way or does MD have it all in? Do you have to be a whizz at rigging characters?

Just that I'd like to offer animated people (most of my stuff is currently still images), but I really don't like the flat people. I quite like the models from the 2 sites I mentioned above, would probably use the a-xyz models in the foreground as their detail and quality is better than lowpolygon3d's quality - but I like the variety of clothing of the latters :)

Thanks for any pointers :)

Dunk

[lunarcamel]

Using MotionBuilder with LW is a bit more of a pain compared to Maya or Max - but once you get the hang of it it's quite simple. :rolleyes:

Basically you rig your character in LW and export it in MB format (using the FBX plugin). Then you can add/edit mocap etc in MB - which is extremely cool - and after you have what you want - save it in MB and import it into LW via FBX.

Sounds like a lot of work but it's not - before you know it you'll have an army of people ready for Viz work.

Also - the people at Axyz are supposedly shipping fully rigged characters any day now. Might save some time - I dunno.

[kopperdrake]

Thanks for that :) I haven't rigged many characters in Lightwave so I guess there'll be a learning curve there! Are the a-xyz guys providing ready-rigged & animated Lightwave characters? That would be excellent! Speaking to the lowpolygon3d guys and they just suggest using the mocap files that you can download...but that means going into MotionBuilder anyway I guess (I tried getting the files into Lightwave but a combination of inexperience and no instructions meant I got nothing out of it :( ).

Thanks for that...I may have to look at getting MotionBuilder!

Cheers,

Dunk

[lunarcamel]

I believe they are providing fully rigged characters - but I think you would need to add your own mocap. Initially I was told they were releasing the rigged characters in FBX format - which is native to MB - but last I talked to them they said they were working on a Max release. Only time will tell I suppose.

You can download a 30 day fully functional demo of MB6 - it's a great tool.

[kopperdrake]

I guess fbx format would make sense as it's cross-platform :) Fingers crossed!!

Hmm...30 day demo...sounds like something to play with over Christmas ;)

Dunk