Holzi

Did you check the Offset parameter in your collision object?

Realistic movement! Thats what matters most! If you look at the axyz design or rocketbox 3d characters, they look rather game-ish. But if you place them in mid to background in a viz, especially one with moving pictures, they just blend in very nicely. However a lot of them tend to walk in this gangster style, with there arms relatively far away from the body. Just not as a 'normal' person would walk, if the walk in a natural and relaxed way. So keep that in mind if you work on any of that =). FYI: axyz Design released a new software together with modified versions of there characters so you actually have a crowd control tool with agents. Not very bright agents, but they don't have to be in arch-viz. So rather good for that use. I haven't had time to try it yet though. But from what I see from there homepage, it could be quite a time safer for large areas and massive population in mid and background. foreground still has to be done by hand, with proper human greenscreened people, but thats fine for me. But they too tend to have this ganster-style walkcycle. http://www.axyz-design.com/anima/

Hi everybody, I read this thread with much interest because I am looking for different methods of how to implement human (realistic) characters in architectural scenes. Especially in animations. I am going to write my bachelor thesis about this topic (and about how to improve the system - or at least the work flow). What I have so far are the following: green screened footage: Nice, if the camera faces only one way. However, the moment it makes a turn > 30� you either see the person turn without movement (plane is linked to the camera) or he turns flat. Both ways are not very good. Another problem is if people actually have to walk somewhere. You need to have enough space in your scene so the people dont walk through a wall or similar. And the always walk only in one direction due to their nature. And, as you mentioned, greenscreening takes time, and is rather cost intensive. However, once you have proper footage (the place where I work has decent footage for non-walking but in place moving [or whatever you call that] people). Then there are RPCs. RPCs are a great idea, but as i find, poorly realized. Most of them are not animated, so completly useless in an animation. Those who are animated often cause problems (some of them turn reddish during rendering, some seem to stand a few centimeters above the ground although their proxy is positioned correctly etc. etc.). Those problems especially occure, if you combine different methods (like greenscreen footage, rpcs and 3d characters. All respond differently to light and shadow settings.). The idea of walking rpcs seems quite good. the way you add them to your scene is perfectly easy and you dont need ANY animation skills. However they look like they are out of a 1995's computer game. So again, rather useless (apart from filling the background with a croud). And the last method would be rigged/pre-animated 3D characters. Those seem to be the best choice for mid to foreground. However, their faces often look unrealistic due to too much symmetry and missing emotions and facial movement. Moreover they need rather high animation skills which most people in this field don't have. And they too make problems. U can use axyz-design characters with axyz-design motion capture data and u can use rocketbox characters with rocketbox mocap data. However interchanging those two makes everything horrible! I experienced that the axyz character (the free one) moved his hand through his thight. And the rocketbox character moved his arms like an anabolics addict but at the meantime moved his hibs like a supermodel and his legs like he needed to pee for several hours, but didn't find a decent spot to do so... Long story short, interchanging mocap data looks s***t. Interchanging them would be awesome though, becaus axyz is much cheaper (with nearly the same quality about looks) but the rocketbox mocapdata is perfect for animating people (they seemlesly fit together). So much for what i found out. Do you guys no any other method (or have any idea how to optimize all this)? Or know what to search for (my attemtps on google did not show me any other results than the ones above)? Any help, ideas, inspiration or motivating words are much appreciated kind regards, Christian