koobas.hobune.stream
Using Eyes, JAPAN mocap data with Mecanim?
I'm new to Mecanim, and to working with motion capture data, but have enjoyed the process so far, and have some guys walking around and everything.
It seems like there's a potential treasure trove of free motion capture data from Eyes, JAPAN available for download from http://www.thetrailerspark.com/downloads. The data is available is several formats. I tried downloading it all in FBX, but the rigs seemed pretty screwy, and I couldn't get anything resembling a real animation to play.
Then I tried downloading in BVH format, importing to Blender, and re-exporting as FBX, with much better luck for some of the animations. The rigs still seem a little messed up, and some animations just refuse to work.
Question #1: Has anyone worked successfully with this mocap dataset? Any hints?
Question #2: Are there any tricks I might be missing for massaging incorrect hierarchy or other rigging problems, within Unity's Create From Model -> Configure interface?
Question #3: Any tips on why choosing "Copy From Another Avatar," for two animations that seem to use the same rig, would fail so badly? I recognize at this point, we might just be talking about messy data that's beyond hope.
Thanks for the help; this seems like it could be a great resource, with lots of fun animations, and it would be cool to get it to work.
I wrote up a blog post a few months ago detailing my first experiences of working with (free) mocap data in mecanim, and it seems to mirror your experiences somewhat: https://alastaira.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/using-free-mocap-data-for-game-character-animation-in-unity/
My conclusion is, essentially, you get what you pay for. If you're starting with free mocap data, expect to have to clean it up a lot - DaveDub's BV Hacker is a good tool for doing some common cleanups, and if you're doing the BVH -> FBX conversion via Blender, you can also cleanup the data there. But some of the source data I found (particularly the Carnegie Mellon stuff, but also some of the Japanese mocap data) was so poor it would have been quicker to create the animation myself.
That, in essence, is why companies like Mixamo exist - for people that would rather pay a premium for someone else to create clean mocapped animations rather than do it themselves :)
Awesome, thank you. I actually did run across this blog post before posting here. I was hoping there might be a couple more shortcuts.
It sounds like you've really dug in, though, so I'll try giving more of the tools you recommend a try and see what I get.
Completely understood about the you-get-what-you-pay-for thing. $$anonymous$$ocap is a brave new world for me, and my needs aren't too extreme (I hope), so I'm happy to keep tinkering for now.
Thanks for the blog post and the answer.
