3d Character animation workflow for 3rd person character

kuligs2

Hello, im fairly new here, i would like to know how you guys do it?
What i would like to know, is what kind of animations (minimum requirement) are needed for a simple, good looking, good feeling 3D character?

Standing idle
Walking/Running
-- Forward
-- Backward
Crouching idle
Crouching forward
Crouching backwards
Jumping
-- Jump start
-- Jump mid air
-- Jump land

I know its too advanced for me, but what im trying to achieve is something close to BOTW character animation.. well atleast understand how its done and maybe use simpler methods that would give similar experience.

I cant find a good, up to date, 3D character animation tutorial that would show the minimum animations.. Most of them use mixamo. I plan to animate character using blender - rigify. From testing, its doable. I just need to know what kinds of animations character needs, in order to hook them up and then blend between them.

Some tutorials have strafe animations, some have strafe diagonal. Not sure if those are needed??

Tomcat

kuligs2 What i would like to know, is what kind of animations (minimum requirement) are needed for a simple, good looking, good feeling 3D character?

It depends entirely on what your character has to do. Make a list of the actions you want him to be able to do.

Some tutorials have strafe animations, some have strafe diagonal. Not sure if those are needed??

Implement the main directions of movement and see if you need any additional ones (streifs).

is something close to BOTW character animation..

What is this beast?

Animations can be taken from here

Motion Capture
Bandai-Namco-Research-Motiondataset (serious license restrictions)
Universal Animation Library

For animations you can use Cascadeur, but there seem to be strong restrictions in the free version.

Useful links:

Tomcat

kuligs2 is something close to BOTW character animation..

What I saw was a very complicated animation job. It's better to start with something much simpler.

Also, i could not locate licence, without downloading files.. maybe they are in zips.

The only thing I can find about the license right now

(Disclaimer: I don't work for AutoDesk, nor am I affiliated with Carnegie-Mellon University. The BVH conversion release is provided as-is, without support or guarantees.)

There's nothing else in the archive.

From here it can be understood that it is not encumbered by a license:

Manifesto

Is this compatible with blender rigify rig?

I wonder, how to make it work with blender rigify rig?

I only used the MakeHuman rigs and didn't check the others.

Diffeomorphic (BVH and FBX Retargeter) is used to assign animations in Blender. It works with newer versions of Blender. Documentation.

Do you have any examples on the end product or maybe a tutorial on how to set it up?

Motion Matching Demo

xyz

kuligs2 Don't we have an ai tool for that? If not, just wait a couple of months and I'm sure one will pop up.

Gowydot

kuligs2

BOTW and most games use motion capture. You would be investing in a professional studio setup or DIY using kinect (not as good result) or just use maximo.

what kind of animations (minimum requirement)

If you're doing manual keyframe animation like me then start with key poses then add the inbetweens later.

cant find a good, up to date, 3D character animation

There is not much to update the character animation because it's all the same principle, 2d or 3d. You could check out how Disney did their animation in the 60s and it would be as good as motion capture. Most tutorials are just the software tools update (eg. Blender).

Most of the time is just trials and errors. I've been using Godot and Blender for years and still make stupid mistakes like this.

Beware though you would be spending a lot of time on animation if you have many characters. I've rebuilt, redid textures/rig/animations my player character so many times that I am now on the 7th version of him. Hopefully I get used to the workflow and apply to my enemies quicker.

kuligs2

Tomcat What is this beast?

Tomcat Motion Capture

Is this compatible with blender rigify rig? Also, i could not locate licence, without downloading files.. maybe they are in zips.

Tomcat Universal Animation Library

Interesting. I wonder, how to make it work with blender rigify rig?

Tomcat Motion Matching for Godot 4.4

Interesting. Do you have any examples on the end product or maybe a tutorial on how to set it up? Fast search didnt find nothing useful, the repo only has one demo gif.. I wonder if i need (and i thing i do) multiple animation sets or something to blend between them or something..

This actually is what i want, just need more info on how it works and what are limitations. Thanks

kuligs2

Tomcat

Tomcat Motion Matching Demo

Unfortunately it does not work.. didnt work with 4.4 and cant open/fix dependencies in 4.3 stable..

Not sure...

Tomcat

kuligs2 Unfortunately it does not work.. didnt work with 4.4 and cant open/fix dependencies in 4.3 stable..

It runs, but it's weird… it doesn't work every time.

kuligs2

Tomcat Cant launch, crashes and then 800+ errors

kuligs2

kuligs2 Ok had to relaunch multiple times, and it worked... for some reason..

Hmm.. yeah its wierd..

Tomcat

kuligs2 Ok had to relaunch multiple times, and it worked... for some reason..

Hmm.. yeah its wierd..

Well, I've restarted a few times now, too. I didn't notice any problems before, though. Maybe the sun's activity… I don't know.

Tomcat

It's very strange

Tomcat

xyz Don't we have an ai tool for that?

Of course there is! It's an extension of Motion Matching for Godot 4.4 that uses AI in its work. 🤖

kuligs2

xyz There are AI tools you can make characters with from image, but the free stuff aint that juicy - lack of textures..

On 4070s takes 30s to generate mesh. https://github.com/VAST-AI-Research/TripoSG

Animation is years away, so is texturing on single GPU at home.. on 20k GPU its fast tho.. But aint nobody unless elon gon buy that kind of GPU for shits.

And again that was not my question. My question is godot related to animation tree and that setup.. I dont think AI can help setting that up.

kuligs2

Gowydot BOTW and most games use motion capture. You would be investing in a professional studio setup or DIY using kinect (not as good result)

https://freemocap.org/ but yeah you need to invest thousands of dollhairs to get room big enough to jump up around and stuff and not disturb neighbors and stuff

Gowydot If you're doing manual keyframe animation like me then start with key poses then add the inbetweens later.

that wasnt my question. My question was what type of animations do i need to set up animation tree for basic, good looking, character animation in godot.. like walking -> running -> left walking right walking .. etc.. I get overwhelmed thinking what i dont know, and thus i dont know where to start thus procrastinating..

Gowydot There is not much to update the character animation because it's all the same principle, 2d or 3d. You could check out how Disney did their animation in the 60s and it would be as good as motion capture. Most tutorials are just the software tools update (eg. Blender).

Again, the question was meant for godot animation blend trees etc etc..

Gowydot Most of the time is just trials and errors. I've been using Godot and Blender for years and still make stupid mistakes like this.

atleast your char has underwear or so called "battle armor", mines are still naked 😃

Gowydot Beware though you would be spending a lot of time on animation if you have many characters. I've rebuilt, redid textures/rig/animations my player character so many times that I am now on the 7th version of him. Hopefully I get used to the workflow and apply to my enemies quicker.

This i would like people to share, on how to not do things so that you dont spend times reworking things over and over again. Maybe make a post on what you did and found better way to do it? 😃

My idea was to use one rig, same animation sets, you can then extend and export animations, then make multiple models and reparent to the same rig and make do like that..

I need to go through this garbage myself first inorder to reuse ready made assets in order to understand how it works.. im in no hurry as this is just a hobby.. 🙂

Gowydot

kuligs2

https://freemocap.org/

Pretty cool 👍️

atleast your char has underwear

Not at the moment, I'm redoing the rig again lol

make a post on what you did and found better way to do it

Yea I'm modelling my first enemy trooper so after that I will post the workflow in my game-development thread.

xyz

kuligs2 I dont think AI can help setting that up

Maybe you just don't know how to prompt it properly.

kuligs2

xyz i dont, and i dont want to waste time. If it cant understand what i want with the first prompt then its of no use and just waste of time..

Anyone else have pointer for setting up blend spaces and dealing with animation trees?

Gowydot

kuligs2

Oh in that case I did this awhile ago.
https://godotforums.org/d/30611-gd4-using-animationtree-to-blend-animations
I think @Tomcat got some tutorial as well.

I prefer animationBlendTree as root animation but animationStateMachine is also popular.

What my player's animationTree looks like:

For quick starter I have 2 player animations when on Floor state:
"stand-walk-loop"
"stand-idle-loop"
I added a node type "Transition" for my states ( floor, air, crawl,.. )
I added a BlendSpace1D node and named this node "idle_walk".

When you click BlendSpace1D's Open Editor you can see I placed the 2 animations like this (the 2 dots):

The position of the "stand-idle-loop" dot is at 0.0 and "stand-walk-loop" dot is 1.0.

So you can see that BlendSpace1D's values (0.0 and 1.0) as the 2 animations.

I then code the change of the value:

	if direction:
		anim_tree.set("parameters/idle_walk/blend_position",0.1)
	else:
		anim_tree.set("parameters/idle_walk/blend_position",0.0)

Some animation nodes offer automatic blending from the properties menu. You can also add and mix any type of animation node to your root tree. Each one offers different style of animation blending, depending on how you like to use them.

That's my basic set up. I then keep adding animations and expanding the animationTree with states like in Air, Crawling, Crouching...etc.

I'd say learn how each animation node works first (try blending them with 2-3 animations) then you will be able to set up your own animationTree. It could get messy if you try to dump like 15 animations in a tree without planning. (currently I have 25, there will be more)

Once you got the hang of it, it's really fun to work with. 😃

Gowydot

kuligs2

More info on basic AnimationTree tutorial

Animation StateMachine node with conditions. I haven't used this node much before but it looks powerful.

That should help you to get started. The first step is setting up your character to a rig and animate them before import to godot. Since you plan to use rigify I can't help much (I make my own simpler rig), but tutorials should be widely available.

One thing I'd point out is take care on how you use parameters in code.

eg. AnimationNode:

Transition
$AnimationTree.set("parameters/Transition/transition_request", "floor")
Blend2
$AnimationTree.set("parameters/Blend2/blend_amount", 1)
BlendSpace1D
$AnimationTree.set("parameters/BlendSpace1D/blend_position",1.0)

I always get confused when to use blend_amount or blend_position 😅

kuligs2

Gowydot thanks! Very nice