Using BVH files in Blender

For anyone interested I’ve started publishing a series of short(ish) tutorials on sourcing, importing and retargeting BVH files in Blender. I am needing quite a few characters to populate a scene I am working on and using BVH files seemed like an obvious strategy to pursue. The process turned out to be less than straight forward and every time I came back to animate the next character I felt like I had to relearn the whole process. On the basis that the best way to learn is to teach I put these tutorials together to assist my own memory and hopefully help others wanting to do the same thing. They are probably pitched at intermediate to advanced users. I don’t dwell on basic procedures and assume you have a level of expertise commensurate with wanting to use BVH files in the first place.

User preferences, preparation of bvh, import into Blender.

Editing f-curves and baking action to armature.

Part3 Review of process

Combining two actions in the NLA editor.

Final animation tweaks.

Jacket animation with cloth sim (a)

cool! thanks

Cloth sim (b) and corrections

Final tweaks, ExportMDD and Use in Mesh Cache Modifier

Final Wrap.

Thank you,

I had a quick overview of your videos.
I grasped very usefuls tips.
I’ll take a closer look as soon as possible.

Blender_Us

Hey man, I’ve been following your tutorials, and when I rig the model, I get unusual twists… I tried using the ‘fix twists’ button… but it doesn’t work

Thank you. Will watch to learn.

Thanks for the series, many usefull tips in there.

I am going to look this over. If it deasl with the blender sponsored google summer of code bvh import plugin that was introduced a few years ago it will be a short read. I fought with that plugn fo six months and could NEVER get it to work correctly. I now use the makewalk plugin from Thomas Larrssen. That JUST WORKS.It has successfully re-targeted EVERY .bvh file that I have thrown at it without one error. And I have tried it with some .bvh files from some strange sources!!! The animations that it makes are not perfect, but that is because I just use the simplest “one click and go” button in the plugin and do not use it`s more advanced feature that would let me tweak the animation to get them perfect.

Yeah, I found very quickly that makewalk is the answer to BVH. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately Makewalk only works with mhx2 or mhx rigs. :frowning: