I am working on creating a system that automates the animation process, similiar to www.xtranormal.com , but with custom characters and actions created in Blender. I have built a simple rig and character, and animated some basic actions.
The actions are designed to be chained together to produce a talking character animation. I have several idle cycles and I am using the lip sync scriptcreated by Yousef Harfoush, which now incorporates automatic blinking.
The end result is an easily animated character for producing training videos.
If I am correct, what your doing has been done in games for a long time, however it could really help out newbies to the blender community and even intermediates for that matter.
Yes exactly, I am setting it up so that you can animate sequences, simply by using the NLA editor and nothing else. So I can teach people to animate simple scripts, without blender knowledge or animation experience. I do plan on sharing the rig and the library, the characters are going to be licensed property of the company I am working for, though I may make some characters just for sharing with the community if there is enough interest.
What do you guys think of the results of the test?
This is very cool development! I will follow this with interest and I really do hope that some tutorial (or even tutorial project) will came out of this.
Honest opinion:
This would be a good project if you wanted to develop training videos for kids. Adults training session do not rely on cartoons. Simple it does not feet the concentration and attention needed. Kids love those stuff. CG for training is good without a visual character, just animating what would you want to explain is enough. Watch some training videos on you tube, the voice and actions of the elements is all you need.
@wilmaciii: I am a noob too! As soon as you think you aren’t, that is when you truly become one. But yeah this concept could bring animation into reach for people who are still learning.
@ristelesekuloski: Thanks for watching. There will definitely be tuts, if only on how to use the results, as far as the making of…only if their is interest. But I will start saving more wip screenshots.
@ Animaticode: Thanks man, good to hear from you. Surprisingly, all the educators involved think the opposite. And I am remaking the characters to be more interesting/appealing to adults. I’ll keep this advice in mind, and try to adapt it for a mature audience as much as possible.
From what I understood, you are working on exactly what I’m looking for! This is a service provided by big companies like the iclone of reallusion, they offer characters with functions/actions/lip-sync/etc. that can be applied instantly. For a few hours I’ve been trying to find something like that available for Blender, but your post was the only thing that touched on this (except for vrsg which might have the solution for this, but I doubt they’ll give it out for free). It surprised me that there wasn’t more attention to given to this. Programs that provide these services can be bought for around $200, and for me it’s very well worth it saving thousands of hours of having to create standard characters and routine/regular functions. Even for an expert, experienced, and artistic animator it would be well worth it. So in my humble opinion, if Blender wants to remain a free helpful alternative they must do what you volunteered and proposed.
Great blessings of Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman!
always, bi - Simcha
