Hi all
I have tried looking for the answers but it seems hard to find the info.
I’m trying to basically animate a 3D model via it’s skeleton. Not sure which help guide to turn to or part of the website / manual to consult.
I have the node understanding for moving the positions over time, I just want to expose the skeletal parameters of a 3D model.
It will be simple - a hand where the fingers close independantly, etc.
Thanks in advance!
hey skuven,
i’m afraid we don’t have a ready sample of exactly what you’re looking for.
but: we have quite some packs in the Motion Capture category that do avateering, ie. control a mesh from motion capture data. if you want to dive in a bit and see how it is done i recommend starting from VL.DollarsMoCap. you can open all nodes in there and should be able to find what you’re looking for.
let us know if you need any further help.
@joreg hey, thanks for the info
I keep making 2 steps forward and 1 step back it seems. I found a ‘VL.Skeleton’ experimental nuget but i feel like it’s all maybe built in-exactly what i need. Anyway, i’m making progress. My aim is to do some vr/xr interactive demos for my students. I feel like I’m so close. Anyway i just wanted To skeleton animated a hand to open and close dependant on the motion controller triggers from quest 2 vr system.
I think i have a workable stack of nodes but I’m missing something..
so if you have some patch already that you say is close to what you want to achieve, then please share it here with comments of where you’re stuck. that will help us understand what you’re up to and will make it easer for us to help.
Hi joreg
Thanks for your reply
I’m becoming quite frustrated as I can’t seem to easily find the information. The help guides or documentation on the website seem legacy, the nodes look totally different in the examples. Maybe the theory is the same but I can’t make sense of it and i’m new to this
see my layout below, i have a rigged hand from blender, I’m trying to keep simple so only built the node tree for the index finger (tip, middle, base, palm then to wrist), and this is as far as i have got with the node structure. I’ve been using the vl.skeleton nuget but not sure if thats right, etc.
I havent managed to make anything move, nothing responds to changes in values of ‘axis shift’ in the child node.
At some point the title has turned red, which i assume means something is wrong or i have made an error. any help would be greatly appreciated, or even if someone could send me in the direction of help materials? I’m pretty clueless at this point, but feel like i must be so close…?!
in the help patches, or the examples that come with VL.skeleton, each patch outlines connections to a sensor like leap, or kinekt. I just wish to manually tweak the numbers to know how this all works. i want to push a number up or down and see the fingers move somehow.
Thanks all!
Hi, the bone rigs are quite compilated stuff by nature. They normally don’t expect you to have raw operations on bones. What I would suggest, is to try look for IK-Solver or something similar first if there is no, then bake animation to FBX and run it, since it’s also may not be straightforward as one would expect.
if you find anything that looks legacy, please send the specific links so we can check.
then please upload that patch of yours here, with the model, so we can see where you are.
Hi joreg
This is the only help guide i could find RE skeleton animation
Skeleton Animation Nodes Tutorial | vvvv beta documentation
I found a nuget that looks like it may be possible to translate sensor values from leapmotion to a model via skeleton. it’s vl.Skeleton and it has examples, but that link directly to sensors, so i am trying to backwards engineer it. the theory is those sensors are passing values, and those values must be being ingested by the skeleton nodes, and translated…
Seeing as you know vvvv far better than I do - do you think it’s possible to animate manually via skeleton inside vvvv alone? my intention is to link a control pad trigger to simple skeleton rotations. I will assign a practical VR controller so that in VR it’s represented by a hand. then when i pull the trigger, a finger on the hand will close or move. Is it possible?
I am going to see this right to the end as I really want this to be possible but currently my knowledge is limited.
Thanks for your guidance!
@antokhio thanks for your response - I have just looked into IK-solver and that seems like an advanced tool that would simplify the translations or movements. That would be an excellent tool for future but at this basic level i want to get one element of my rigged hand to move. if i can achieve that, then i know what is possible. so i am only looking to animate (for example) the tip of the index finger. I have seen working patches in an older edition of vvvv, but those nodes don’t seem to exist anymore. if then the animations need to become more complex, i would look into an IK-solver. My stretch goal would be to make a hand open and close around another model. just simple ‘position 1 → position 2’ animation for each bone in the hand model.
Thanks in advance!
Just to update this thread, I have finally been successful with one of the VL.skeleton presets. I can manually apply skeleton transforms in realtime to a mesh. I haven’t applied the theory to my own patch yet but I will list my findings here soon - I am sure someone else will want to achieve the same I have here. It’s very exciting!
Edit: I applied transforms to my own blender created character model! What an achievement. @antokhio , the IK solver isn’t necessary in my own sketch - the way blender set the hierarchy of the bones has meant you can rotate the base of the finger for example, and the middle and tip of the same finger move appropriately.
i will build this into a help patch that people can download / look at. The node trees are quite interesting. I have adapted sensor logic to make it work, i feel like i might have noticed a method to simplify the complex logic. I need to do some more playing
My progress!
think its worth sharing this - I will make a patch that outlines what ive learned
