BVH Motion Capture I/O Update 04/06/08

Michaelv · Post by **Michaelv** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 9:12 am

Nicely written script, easy to read and well commented. Works nice to.

Michael Velikanje

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 11:02 pm

Hi With the Importer and exporter writtin these scripts do everything I need.
But there are some cool projects that could use my BVH Import/Export plugins.

Anybody interested in hooking this up to make humen?
This would provide the basis for very cool humen animation system.

Some way of joining BVH animations together, so users can grab a whole lot of motions and sequence them- would make blender attractive to people who want to do humen animation but are not interested in fiddeling around, with animating everuy joint.

- Cam

scourage · Post by **scourage** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:26 am

Me and some other guys are working on extending the python api so that you can build armatures using python. It should be done soon.

Cheers,

bob

ilac · Post by **ilac** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:38 pm

ideasman wrote:Some way of joining BVH animations together, so users can grab a whole lot of motions and sequence them

Probably should be done by importing the BVH data as actions, then you can use the NLA to sequence and mix.

I think we need to set a bone-naming standard though or we are going to start having compatibility issues because of different naming conventions. Has anything been done in this regard?

SirDude · Post by **SirDude** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:36 pm

ideasman could you create a single web page for
this script, something like: http://members.iinet.net.au/~cpbarton/bvh.html

That has links to the download as well as maybe some
instructions on how to use it and anything else.

Then I'll add it to the python scripts pages.

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Python_Scripts.3.0.html

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:28 am

ilac wrote:
ideasman wrote:Some way of joining BVH animations together, so users can grab a whole lot of motions and sequence them
Probably should be done by importing the BVH data as actions, then you can use the NLA to sequence and mix.

I think we need to set a bone-naming standard though or we are going to start having compatibility issues because of different naming conventions. Has anything been done in this regard?

Im not sure that using NLA would be that usefull bacause motions would need to be seamless- There needs to be some IPO interpolation code to make crossing of different motions smooth and seemless, I could go on and on about all the different ways a humen animation sequencer system could work but I dont know enough about this area of blender.

About the naming, here are a list of names, both colums mean the same thing. I find the names on the LHS are more common in BVH's I have looked at, though using a shorter is preferable bacause sometimes the prefix+jointName is longer then the maximum length of an object name.
There are many more names people use so I think it would be best if a standard was decieded (for blender at least) and the joints are renamed apon creation. that way any sripts that deals with the joint motion will know the exact name of a joint.

*Character Studio 2.0 BVH File Format Specification*
Hips
LeftHip lfemur
LeftKnee ltibia
LeftAnkle lfoot
RightHip rfemur
RightKnee rtibia
RightAnkle rfoot
Chest upperback
chest2 thorax
LeftCollar lshoulderjoint
LeftShoulder lhumerus
LeftElbow lradius
LeftWrist lwrist
RightCollar rshoulderjoint
RightShoulder rhumerus
RightElbow rradius
RightWrist rwrist
head head
neck neck

Al-Capone · Post by **Al-Capone** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 6:15 am

Import/export for 3d studio and pov ?

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 5:29 pm

Al-Capone wrote:Import/export for 3d studio and pov ?

PovAnim has been around for many years. Did you try to look around if such an export exists before asking?

Martin

SirDude · Post by **SirDude** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 5:34 pm

You can find import/exporters here:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Python_Scripts.3.0.html

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:40 pm

BVH only descraibes motion, Im not sure how povanim works but I think your best option is to import the BVH- Make it control a mesh/bones using constraints.
And then use one of the standard exporters.

BTW, I have been using the BVH importer and exporter sucessfully for a commercial project, there are a few things Id like to add, but they work well enough.

Al-Capone · Post by **Al-Capone** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 3:35 am

I look all over for such a script or program before, but the only ones I come accross are programs that can open pov or export them, there is nothing out there that would allow anyone to import pov into Blender as well as a way to open them and save/export them to a format that 3D application can understand them.

Al-Capone · Post by **Al-Capone** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 4:42 am

Is this the script that can import pov format ???

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 5:44 am

If your talking about POV importer then that IS off topic-
Start a new thread-

BTW, emailed Manual of MakeHumen, he's working on making bones follow empties with constraints, makehumen/bvh will be good-
- Cam

scourage · Post by **scourage** » Sun May 30, 2004 4:30 am

Ideasman,

Great work on your script. I used it as a base for my own BVH import which builds a blender armature and bones from the BVH file, but no animation yet. Maybe you could use that and import the animation to the armature? It's on my site, if you want to use it, please feel free. I'd love to see this make it into makehuman.

Cheers,

Bob

Clicky here

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Sun May 30, 2004 5:13 am

Nice, just had a look at the screenshot

, very cool. I had a go at doing this but had problems because you cant make a root bone with b:python.

I have updated the scripts for 2.33 on my PC, should probably update the links sometime soon.

- Cam