Question Advanced/More in-depth animation/posing tutorial?

[ordinarymann47]

TL;DR: pls give link to tutorial how to put people in a sex pose properly (watched the official basics tutorials already)

I am a newbie here and trying to transition from StudioNEO to VaM is a nightmare for me. To create something worthwhile, I am willing to jump through three thousands hoops to change one little thing in the most user hostile UI I have seen yet, but janky colliders and stubborn positioning are just infuriating.

I have attempted to make several sex scenes and every time models keep either having a stroke and jiggling or their geometry exploding beyond repositioning or some other nonsense. I've tried "SexAssistant" plug-in and it just ruins the positioning misaligning the models. Even without the animation part and using a "PosingHelper" plugin, the process of aligning the models into something that resembles two people having sex instead of two stacked corpses being electrocuted is stunningly frustrating.

I see people creating fantastic animations like this or this and I can't help, but wonder what ritual they performed to call upon the Devil so that they can sell their souls and be so fantastic at what they do. I wish I could wrap my head around VaM and create like they do.

Jokes aside though, I really need some help with grasping how to pose models together. I don't expect to go from zero to the guys I've linked above, but I wish to gain some sort of foundation in basic alignment that I could do in StudioNEO in about 15 minutes.

 

[HolySchmidt]

First, get this:

Plugins - Timeline

Timeline 🎉 Do you like Timeline? Support me on Patreon and get early access to new features: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39197180 💬 Need help creating animations or want to share your works of art? Join us on Discord...

hub.virtamate.com

Second, get this:

Plugins - AutoThruster | AutoGensThruster

This is a new and more generic version of my other plugin, SexThruster (https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/sexthruster-v1.9752/), which was based on SexHelper by physis. This package contains two plugins: AutoThruster enables you to easily...

hub.virtamate.com

Third: practice.

The problem with exploding physics is about peoples colliders collide to hard. Always be very careful when positioning people. Dont throw them around to fast. Make sure theres no jiggling in the body parts, if so, change the position a little, always. The colliders are pretty unforgivable. Then you should always first position one person and then the other one. Always switch the various joints you wanna stay in place to "rotation and position ON" so they cant be moved (they are moving a bit anyways). At least position has to be "ON". Rotation depends.

Timeline is a very good tool for micro movements and to trigger animations. Timeline is THE animation tool in general. You have to practice on that. Autothruster is, to me, the easiest way to "animate" the thrusting itself. But the mighty tool is Timeline. If you can handle that right, you can do anything.

Joints I always want to stay in place: head, hands, feet, hip. If not the hands, then the elbows. If not the feet, then the knees. If you want the head to move more realistic so to say, you can alternatively pin the neck for example, or the shoulders. But always assure that theres not too much motion in the body itself, or you know what happens
After some time you know how to hold everything in place without any problems.

And fourth: save, save, save. Regularly. So you can be sure your work of the last ten minutes isnt flushed down the toilet because, you know why.

Other very good plugins:

Plugins - VAMMoan

⚠ PLEASE: If you like this asset, consider liking and reviewing it for the community Read the description, read the ingame help if you have any trouble. I will not answer private messages asking questions about things that are actually explained...

hub.virtamate.com

Put it in "interactive" mode and you are done.

Plugins - Life

Life is a collection of plugins intended to essentially awake a character, let him/her come to life. Central part so far is the audio-synchronized breathing, which can be used to drive complex animations. The Version 13 update helps with making...

hub.virtamate.com

For breathing, head focus and what not, pretty versatile.

Plugins - Glance: Realistic head-driven eye motion

Glance 🎉 Do you like Glance? Support me on Patreon and get early access to new features: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39197180 💬 Need help using this plugin or want to share ideas? Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/VtUpPkb - Predictive...

hub.virtamate.com

For a very realistic eye movement, essential.

Plugins - Silver Expression Tool

Silver Expression Tool cycles through 2 independent series of expressions in random order. Presets can be saved to quickly call up your favorite bank of expressions. Animating two different expressions on different timescales minimizes the...

hub.virtamate.com

For really nice face expressions, essential.

 

[ordinarymann47]

First, get this:

Plugins - Timeline

Timeline 🎉 Do you like Timeline? Support me on Patreon and get early access to new features: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39197180 💬 Need help creating animations or want to share your works of art? Join us on Discord...

hub.virtamate.com

Second, get this:

Plugins - AutoThruster | AutoGensThruster

This is a new and more generic version of my other plugin, SexThruster (https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/sexthruster-v1.9752/), which was based on SexHelper by physis. This package contains two plugins: AutoThruster enables you to easily...

hub.virtamate.com

Third: practice.

The problem with exploding physics is about peoples colliders collide to hard. Always be very careful when positioning people. Dont throw them around to fast. Make sure theres no jiggling in the body parts, if so, change the position a little, always. The colliders are pretty unforgivable. Then you should always first position one person and then the other one. Always switch the various joints you wanna stay in place to "rotation and position ON" so they cant be moved (they are moving a bit anyways). At least position has to be "ON". Rotation depends.

Timeline is a very good tool for micro movements and to trigger animations. You have to practice on that. Autothruster is, to me, the easiest way to "animate" the thrusting itself. But the mighty tool is Timeline. If you can handle that right, you can do anything.

Joints I always want to stay in place: head, hands, feet, hip. If not the hands, then the elbows. If not the feet, then the knees. If you want the head to move more realistic so to say, you can alternatively pin the neck for example, or the shoulders. But always assure that theres not too much motion in the body itself, or you know what happens
After some time you know how to hold everything in place without any problems.

And fourth: save, save, save. Regularly. So you can be sure your work of the last ten minutes isnt flushed down the toilet because, you know why.

Other very good plugins:

Plugins - VAMMoan

⚠ PLEASE: If you like this asset, consider liking and reviewing it for the community Read the description, read the ingame help if you have any trouble. I will not answer private messages asking questions about things that are actually explained...

hub.virtamate.com

Put it in "interactive" mode and you are done.

Plugins - Life

Life is a collection of plugins intended to essentially awake a character, let him/her come to life. Central part so far is the audio-synchronized breathing, which can be used to drive complex animations. The Version 13 update helps with making...

hub.virtamate.com

For breathing, head focus and what not, pretty versatile.

Plugins - Glance: Realistic head-driven eye motion

Glance 🎉 Do you like Glance? Support me on Patreon and get early access to new features: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39197180 💬 Need help using this plugin or want to share ideas? Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/VtUpPkb - Predictive...

hub.virtamate.com

For a very realistic eye movement, essential.

Plugins - Silver Expression Tool

Silver Expression Tool cycles through 2 independent series of expressions in random order. Presets can be saved to quickly call up your favorite bank of expressions. Animating two different expressions on different timescales minimizes the...

hub.virtamate.com

For really nice face expressions, essential.

Thanks, Jesus! I knew I could count on you.
Though I must say, I am famliliar with all those tips to a degree varying from 80 to 100%
StudioNeo has timeline and many other autothruster plugins built in by modders. Know that. Done that. No use if I can't align even the first keyframe.
Haven't tried Autothruster, chose assistant instead, so that's quite a valuable suggestion.
Other mods I briefly visited, because many scenes I tried picking apart depend on them, but quickly lost interest in exploring any gimmicks they offer since I wanted to create a scene myself first, then enhance it.

Pinning however is very interesting topic and I suspect my failure lays within that realm. The system of controller states is unintuitive, which probably should be the name of this game, and I struggle to understand what effect will follow after pressing what. The abundance of all sorts of buttons and sliders that do nothing at all doesn't help either.

So yeah, patience and experience is what I need it seems...

BTW! Do you have a list of all hotkeys? Maybe I am also missing something important in that department. At least they would speed up my workflow a bit, if they are what I hope they are.

 

[HolySchmidt]

Hotkeys? Where I play I dont need hotkeys
Im playing on VR, if you dont, change that immediately. Total different game, believe me.

Positioning things is a pain in the ass in desktop mode.

 

[ordinarymann47]

Hotkeys? Where I play I dont need hotkeys
Im playing on VR, if you dont, change that immediately. Total different game, believe me.

Positioning things is a pain in the ass in desktop mode.

Yeah, I've noticed lmao
But I don't have a tiny fortune to buy Vive or Index right now. Welp, off to torture myself again

 

[HolySchmidt]

It really is no surprise you cant position things in desktop mode very well. Thats 100x easier in VR. And everyone creating good scenes is using VR I guess, everything else would take weeks.
There's a "Move" tab on every atom in case you dont know. Makes positioning easier for you maybe.

 

[yasparukko]

Yeah, I've noticed lmao
But I don't have a tiny fortune to buy Vive or Index right now. Welp, off to torture myself again

I would highly recommend getting a VR headset, quest 2 maybe, recording animations in VR is so much better and easier than keyframe animating

 

[ordinarymann47]

I would highly recommend getting a VR headset, quest 2 maybe, recording animations in VR is so much better and easier than keyframe animating

I would suspect so, but I'm worried it'd be janky too.

 

[ordinarymann47]

It really is no surprise you cant position things in desktop mode very well. Thats 100x easier in VR. And everyone creating good scenes is using VR I guess, everything else would take weeks.
There's a "Move" tab on every atom in case you dont know. Makes positioning easier for you maybe.

Would you kindly try to put it into words how exactly it will be easier? I am a bit sceptical it'd be worth it buying VR over this. After all janky are the physics, not the controls really.

Also, is there an option to make bodies rigid or reduce their colliders maybe. Hope that might help.

 

[HolySchmidt]

Its easier because you can move object 3 dimensional of course. Grab and move, intuitive. Like in the real world.

VR is totally different to desktop experience, totally.

 

[ordinarymann47]

Its easier because you can move object 3 dimensional of course. Grab and move, intuitive. Like in the real world.

VR is totally different to desktop experience, totally.

I move with gizmos and frankly it feels like that would be more precise, but who knows. I won't be able to tell till I see for myself. Thanks anyways!

 

[yasparukko]

I would suspect so, but I'm worried it'd be janky too.

Positioning/moving characters and everything is easier in desktop mode for me, but recording animations is so much easier in VR.
You simply start recording in timeline and move any control whichever way you want in VR, afterwards you can use "smooth" filter in timeline to improve the motion, very easy, takes minutes, and it looks great.
I think it would not be possible to do the same using keyframe animation