IanHubert
patreon
Asset: Spray Paintin' Man
🕑 Added 2021-11-02 07:51:55 +0000 UTC
Video of him animated.
Just something to go along with the graffiti! A further experiment with the custom-rest-pose method, and my first to attempt anything besides idling; it's a spray painting guy with about 20 seconds of Rokoko suit mocap data.
There are definite benefits- the whole thing feels a lot more naturalistic than I'm used to with animated photoscans- but there's still a lot to improve. Hands are the next thing to tackle! This guy's hands are mostly blobs that work okay from a distance, but having actual animated fingers would add so much. Also any sort of physics sim would be great. I'm trying to figure out if there's an easier way of than doing that than a full-on cloth sim, because it'd be great to have them be a bit more lightweight.
My goal's to be able to easily make these guys and create reasonably seamless digital doubles that work well in wide shots (the stuff in Salad Mug tends to be decent at best and bizarrely uncanny at worst).
You can also see some artifacts from the photoscan app (one of the biggest reasons I still use Reality Capture, actually), where the auto-exposure would change the values so I'd get these bright faded areas on my butt and other shaded areas. It's a double bummer because not only does it look weird, but the lack of uniformity hinders attempts to properly fix it with Nathan's HDRI de-lighting technique. I wonder if systems could possibly use the exposure metadata to normalize the values for reconstruction? Anyways- it's a good argument right now for using methods that let you implement higher dynamic range source images, so you can keep the exposure consistent.
Also! I apologize that I haven't figure out how to cleanly export FBXs with animation data yet (you do use those, yeah??), but I'm sure there's a way to figure it out for the future.
Blend File:
Spray Painting Man (Blender 3.0)
Spray Painting Man (Blender 2.93)
EDIT: OKAY SO- I've been doing everything in blender 3.0 because it renders ludicrously fast with Cycles X and I can't give it up, but it totally slipped my mind that that's not a great way to distribute assets!
But! I was able to get a version to work in 2.93 after running into, like, 7 "argh what that makes no sense at all" type issues (like, the rig had full animation data, but wasn't moving??)- but the 2.93 version should work alright now! :D
Comments
For future reference, “no thanks” is all it takes to politely respond to a million-dollar offer from a fan and patron of your work. :)
Sérgio Merêces
Thank you
You're very welcome. Glad to help a little. I sent a directing job offer to you via Patreon private message last week. Did the message reach you?
Ian Hubert
The Rokoko addon just has a "CURRENT/POSE" toggle!?!? That's great! Thanks for the heads up!! I think I've even watched this video before but I was trying to get everything to work in T-pose land, so I didn't even notice. Thanks again! :D
Oh, and I works and looks amazing as always. Nice !
Hey ! No, I'M sorry I made you work on that. I meant that for the community, really, but, hey, thanks a bunch !
Lonnon Foster
Huberfish text on the jacket and beanie really sell this one in the world context you're building. Looks great!
I just stumbled on the following tutorial from Rokoko, which explains changing the rest-pose of an animation skeleton. I'm not sure if it's old news to you, since I'm not a CG artist. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od8Ecr70A4Q
Clyde Duensing III
Hey Ian, I haven't used Alembic that much, mainly for exporting cloth and fluid sims, but even though the texture doesn't come through, as far as I know the UV maps do, so the maps could be included with the package and reapplied by the user. Not a perfect solution, but maybe workable enough to consider?
Zeke Faust
Never heard it used for volumetrics, interesting! I mostly use alembics for mesh data, and yes I think you're always going to get those mesh frames with deforming geo sadly. Shoulda thought of that before suggesting, sorry! You could always try collada for a smaller file solution! I don't think it packs in the textures either, those would have to be included as a separate file As far as FBX: yeah, autodesk changes the format every year to make it harder for other software to support, according to Ton at least. Pretty lame
Ian Hubert
Ahahaha thanks- the original scan cut off the feet at the ankles for some reason, so they were scanned separate :P.
Ian Hubert
Alembic looks rad! I've mostly seen it used for smoke sims and volumes and stuff, yeah?? In this case, it exported what looks like a series of "mesh replacement" frames, which is cool, but was also SUPER huge (like, 1,500mb instead of 12mb) and doesn't look like it supported texture, so it may not be great for animated folks- unless you know something I don't?? But also wait seriously, is that why the FBX format seems to change so much? Figuring out these mocap workflows has been the hardest thing I've ever tried to do in CG, and I feel like I have to re-figure it out every few months when someone changes something :P
Samuel Cooper
i like the groovy shoes
Ian Hubert
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1plYXXkD0RSjbeBXGgWEX3qIYAfgFkjrS/view?usp=sharing There's a version for Blender 2.93! The animation is like 95% the same- I ran into like 7 really weird difficulties and had to tweak some stuff, but it should work alright! Sorry again for the problems!
Ian Hubert
OHP! no- that's my bad. I just got carried away and made the file in blender 3.0 and assumed it'd be more reverse-compatible. Just a sec.
Blender 2,93 says "file format not supported". Am I doing something wrong ?
Legendary!
Ian Hubert
Ahaha, I thought it'd be fun to set it up with a dynamic paint solution so it appears where he sprays, either revealing a finished painting already hiding underneath, or... just seeing what insane pattern he's actually painting :P
Ian Hubert
Yes! That's exactly what we're doing! :D We've done a few hand scans and Nathan gave them some great topology, but then we dove into the crazy color workflow stuff and got distracted! But yeah effectively just a rig with hands on it, then you can boolean off the blob hands of the scan, and hopefully it'll all just work really well! With any luck having hands on the rig'll make it even easier to line up with the photoscan...
Amazing as always Ian! What's the next level? Syncing up the the painter with the artwork? 😉
Zeke Faust
I do this with ears as well as hands haha. Modelling ears is such a pain I just made one ear with good topology that I fit onto the face and reshape as needed.
Jan van den Hemel
How about removing the scanned blobby hands, and replace them with some hands that you've carefully 3D scanned separately at some point? Doesn't matter if those are the real hands of that person, who knows - just get some male and female hands, and copy/paste them when needed. Just an idea! These are starting to look better and better, especially with the delighting method and custom rest pose.
Ian Hubert
Ah thanks Zeke! I'll look into that right now!
Zeke Faust
I'd recommend alembic for exporting animations, it's an open format unlike fbx which is locked down and messed with by autodesk on a regular basis to keep it incompatible. I use alembic all the time to get my 3D scenes into comp! Supports everything, deforming rigs, animated particle meshes etc
