Question Advice on animations for a beginner

[MTK274]

Started VaM again a couple weeks ago and i wanted to start creating animations.

I already used VaM but never to create anything (meaningfull) in it, and aim to change that.

I checked the Timeline turorial from AcidBubbles and started doing some very simple animations (One person) to understand the plugin.
I also got the basic plugins like AutoThrust and stuff.

I saw people speaking about doin some of the work in desktop mode and the rest in VR(I got a Index), but didn't find a explicit answer about what you do in what, and how.

I know VaM got a pretty steep learning curve, but i'm actually intersted in learning about it, and in animation in general.

 

[Saint66]

Started VaM again a couple weeks ago and i wanted to start creating animations.

I already used VaM but never to create anything (meaningfull) in it, and aim to change that.

I checked the Timeline turorial from AcidBubbles and started doing some very simple animations (One person) to understand the plugin.
I also got the basic plugins like AutoThrust and stuff.

I saw people speaking about doin some of the work in desktop mode and the rest in VR(I got a Index), but didn't find a explicit answer about what you do in what, and how.

I know VaM got a pretty steep learning curve, but i'm actually intersted in learning about it, and in animation in general.

Check Ascorads awesome tutorial videos:

Guides - asco's Timeline Tutorials (1-5)

These are the first five tutorials in a series I've been working on to help beginners learn Timeline. The videos combined are just under an hour and are all located on this page. There is a supplementary var file and zip file as optional...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[MacGruber]

The benefits of working in desktop are:

• You have a full keyboard and mouse. Meaning you can use hotkeys (KeyBindings Plugin!!!!) and of course also write things much more easily. Making trigger connections is far less painful, and because you can type you can use the comment fields, rename atoms, etc much more easily. Having a mouse also makes complex plugin UI more easy to navigate.
• You can switch back and forth to other applications more easily, whether you are coding plugins, working in Unity, Daz, Blender, etc.
• You can much more easily rotate around a selected object and watch it from all sides. E.g. are those finger morphs tweaked to precisely align with the body? (Don't rely on collision, it's not precise enough)
• You don't have to wear that headset for hours upon hours.
• Animating by hand (keyframes) works best in Desktop.

The benefits of working in VR are:

• You can more easily judge the size and distance of things. In the end your scene is supposed to work with the contrained FOV of the headset...so does that character need to be 20cm more to the left so the player can actually see it? Should it be 10cm closer? That's best done in VR.
• Animation by MotionCapture only works in VR, since only there you have the motion tracked controllers.

 

[MTK274]

The benefits of working in desktop are:

• You have a full keyboard and mouse. Meaning you can use hotkeys (KeyBindings Plugin!!!!) and of course also write things much more easily. Making trigger connections is far less painful, and because you can type you can use the comment fields, rename atoms, etc much more easily. Having a mouse also makes complex plugin UI more easy to navigate.
• You can switch back and forth to other applications more easily, whether you are coding plugins, working in Unity, Daz, Blender, etc.
• You can much more easily rotate around a selected object and watch it from all sides. E.g. are those finger morphs tweaked to precisely align with the body? (Don't rely on collision, it's not precise enough)
• You don't have to wear that headset for hours upon hours.
• Animating by hand (keyframes) works best in Desktop.

The benefits of working in VR are:

• You can more easily judge the size and distance of things. In the end your scene is supposed to work with the contrained FOV of the headset...so does that character need to be 20cm more to the left so the player can actually see it? Should it be 10cm closer? That's best done in VR.
• Animation by MotionCapture only works in VR, since only there you have the motion tracked controllers.

Is there any complete tutorial out there that show how to do Mocap in VR using timeline ?

 

[atani]

Is there any complete tutorial out there that show how to do Mocap in VR using timeline ?

You can get the Timeline basics from the link shared earlier, then use the record feature to make a mocap animation:

Record screen

Advanced and intuitive keyframe animations for Virt-A-Mate - acidbubbles/vam-timeline

github.com

Practice makes perfect.

 

[Fay33]

The benefits of working in desktop are:

• You have a full keyboard and mouse. Meaning you can use hotkeys (KeyBindings Plugin!!!!) and of course also write things much more easily. Making trigger connections is far less painful, and because you can type you can use the comment fields, rename atoms, etc much more easily. Having a mouse also makes complex plugin UI more easy to navigate.
• You can switch back and forth to other applications more easily, whether you are coding plugins, working in Unity, Daz, Blender, etc.
• You can much more easily rotate around a selected object and watch it from all sides. E.g. are those finger morphs tweaked to precisely align with the body? (Don't rely on collision, it's not precise enough)
• You don't have to wear that headset for hours upon hours.
• Animating by hand (keyframes) works best in Desktop.

The benefits of working in VR are:

• You can more easily judge the size and distance of things. In the end your scene is supposed to work with the contrained FOV of the headset...so does that character need to be 20cm more to the left so the player can actually see it? Should it be 10cm closer? That's best done in VR.
• Animation by MotionCapture only works in VR, since only there you have the motion tracked controllers.

Just reading this as I'm frustrated with trying to utilize timeline. Watched tl tutorials and may have missed what I am looking for.

How do you take a segmentat let's say it's 86sec long, how do you shorten it up just to play the time frame you want? Like 8sec - 20sec then loop it? Also how to cut out what you want and past it to another segment? Ex 1 seg is 50sec Long with a person walking and at 25sec they jump then back to walking. Seg 2 has a hand wave you want to cut out and past it to get a person walking then wave and last jump then loop and replay.

It's a tough trying to figure out.

Also is there a plug in yet that you can load in poses and play them in your order? Like ex standing person then does a handstand. 2 poses standing up and one handstand hit play and the person does a handstand.

 

[MTK274]

You can get the Timeline basics from the link shared earlier, then use the record feature to make a mocap animation:

Record screen

Advanced and intuitive keyframe animations for Virt-A-Mate - acidbubbles/vam-timeline

github.com

Practice makes perfect.

Thx, i've been playin arround a bit and at first it looks hard, but when you start doing it over and over again you start to get it.