ARENA and Poser

bsteagal
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 5:00 am
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by bsteagal »

Hi Tim:

There are a few things to do before you select the bvh export utility. Let's say you have a character with animation already on it... First in the Character Settings tab... click "plot character" select plot to skeleton

In your scene navigator, expand scene.. expand BVH:reference (your character) select hip, right click, select "select branches" This will highlight all the nodes..

then you can go and select "file" "export" click down on "save as type" select Biovision..

save and bring in to Poser...

Now, do you already have a character "characterized" in MB? (I apoligize if you already know how to do this... grin)

Bryan
Bryan Steagall
Owner
Kidz Korner Studio
OptiTrack Distributor
Mexico, Central and South America
505-615-2410
bryan@kkstudio.us
www.kkstudio.us
tvining
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:24 am

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by tvining »

No apolgies--I can't make even get started! As I understand it, I would need to import a bvh file exported from Poser to be characterized, but MB says the files "Can't be read". Do you have to format them somehow? The Arena files import with no problems.

Also, I have the demo version of MB, so I guess I can't export. (just found that out) :'(

Right now, tho, I'd be happy just to import the Poser file and play with it--I can't shell out $4k on a program that may or may not work for me!

--Tim
tvining
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:24 am

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by tvining »

Thanks, Rock, but I just found out the PLE version doesn't export. I can't get it to import a Poser bvh, either! Arena is going to have a Daz Studio plugin in September--I'd like to see them come out out with a Poser one as well--there are a zillion Poser users out there--far more than Daz Studio.
tvining
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:24 am

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by tvining »

Actually, it occurred to me that theoretically one could use this coming Arena/Daz Studio plugin to get the motion into Daz Studio, then export that motion as a BVH file to Poser. I just tried importing a bvh I exported from Arena into DS, and then exported that to Poser and it seems to work, tho it doesn't really look any cleaner than when I just import an Arena bvh directly into Poser. Hopefully this plugin will address the issue I'm having with the exported/imported bvh not looking as clean as the capture looks in the Arena editor. I guess this may depend on how the Arena data gets into DS.
Pulaski
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:39 pm
Location: US

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by Pulaski »

For my application I need the BVH file to be 60,000 Bytes or less and be 30 seconds in length. I can hand create in poser BVH files that are 30fps and 30 seconds long thus 900 frames and less than 60KB(barely). I use an exported BVH file from OptiTrack and it�s too big.

BVH from OptiTrack:
Record at: 100 fps 30seconds for 3000frames
Export to BVH: 30fps at 30%
Its size: 658KB that�s 10x the size I can use.

I was told to record at 100fps then export into bvh at 30fps. Can I record at a lower frame rate? Is there some way else to reduce the size of the bvh? I am blindly guessing but it seems the bvh at 30fps file has all the data and thus the size of the same bvh at 100fps
bsteagal
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 5:00 am
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by bsteagal »

Tim:

What version of Poser are you using? 7? There's a script from e-frontier that will correct some of those problems, it has to do with how it formats the bvh, it adds some extra lines in there that make it impossible to import into MB. You could also use Poser 5 or 6, which don't have that issue.

There is also a script from Philc that seems to work well with correcting issues with files imported into Poser, can't remember off the top of my head what it is called though...

Pulaski:

what application are you bringing it into that has those requirements? Just curious...

Thanks!
Bryan Steagall
Owner
Kidz Korner Studio
OptiTrack Distributor
Mexico, Central and South America
505-615-2410
bryan@kkstudio.us
www.kkstudio.us
yoshi
Posts: 174
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:00 am
Location: silicon valley

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by yoshi »

Hi Pulaski,
When FPS is set to 30 in export BVH dialog, the BVH file size does get reduced to 30% of original. BVH file is a text file so you can reduce the file size by manually removing the white spaces and reducing decimals, but I don't think you can reduce it to 60k. Can you send us your 60k BVH file you created from poser? When I tested it, exporting BVH file from Poser increased the file size since it added data for fingers and eyes.
tvining
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:24 am

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by tvining »

Hey Bryan,

I'm using Poser Pro. e-frontier isn't around, so I guess I'll look at Smith Micro for it. I'll try 6.

Thanks!--Tim
Pulaski
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:39 pm
Location: US

Re: ARENA and Poser

Post by Pulaski »

My issues were MY Issues :). I was wrong about the BVH sizes. Sorry for the confusion and thank you for the level of support I got.
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