Fun Stuff! Instant HumanIK Character from 3D Coat to Maya. In seconds.

[fneill]

To all you Maya users (free no restrictions 30 day trial) a really fun thing to do is model a character in 3d Coat and import in to Maya and instantly it can be characterized with humanik joints and bones and ready for key frame animation INSTANTLY with skinning. We are talking about NO creating skeleton joints NO tedious skinning or anything like that. This is beyond fast and fun. Here is how to do it ....

1. in Maya (Iam using 2013) go to your PAINT EFFECTS/GET BRUSH menu. In the HUMAN IK examples grab the humanoid.ma file. SELECT that object and EXPORT THAT HUMAN FIGURE FROM MAYA AS AN OBJ.

2. In voxel mode MERGE that OBJ human character file. DONT change the dimensions of the human object or the TSTANCE while you are sculpting as you will want to export it back to Maya with same size AND TPOSE. When you are done sculpting it and adding textures, etc export it to Maya.

3. In Maya import it as an a obj. Go up to HUMAN IK/SKELETON. Click on create a skeleton. It will place a totally positioned human IK skeleton perfectly back in to your obj file (since its the same size and tpose as when you exported it originally from Maya)

4. Click on SKIN/BIND SKIN SMOOTH BIND.

5. all done! you have just in minutes imported your 3d Coat character and instantly characterized it with a super human ik skeleton which you can key frame animations on or import bvh animations on to or export to Motionbuilder which in Motionbuilder it will automatically be characterized too (as Motionbuilder and Maya use the same HumanIk character template)

Just a real blast if you want to create and animate characters from 3d Coat to Maya super duper fast.

See attached images

[bisenberger]

That's cool! Wonder it the same method would work with Poser.

[ajz3d]

Thanks for sharing Fneill, that's really good to know. I think this means that 3D Coat keeps vertex order unaltered, right?

[fneill]

Thanks for the last 2 posts. I will answer your questions.

re: Poser Daz question: when you import your obj file back in to Maya from 3d Coat and DROP on the FULLY RIGGED HUMAN IK BONE TEMPLATE and then CLICK ON SMOOTH BIND SKIN your have an instant FULLY RIGGED IK CHARACTER that can be KEYFRAMED in MAYA or you can drop on bvh or fbx animation clips. This is a fully rigged charcter in Maya only (works in Motionbuilder too because Motionbuilder uses same rig) BUT this does not work in POSER or DAZ 3D (because this rig is for Maya and Motionbuilder and the bones are not named or setup for Daz or Poser). However! any animations you do on that character you can EXPORT as A BVH and those animations will work well in POSER OR DAZ. So that workflow would be from POSER export your character as an obj. Then import in to 3d Coat add sculpt and textures then export to Maya. Drop on the skeleton (you will have to resize bones a bit as a obj from poser to 3d Coat to Maya will be different size than the rigged skeleton template) and then do the skin smooth bind. Then export the OBJ back in to Poser or Daz and export the BVH animation in to Poser or Daz and there ya go. In your Poser or Daz That should work as I did something like that before. (also you could export that 3d Coat obj from Maya to Poser or Daz and use it as a morph target obj)

re: vertex order question: As for the keeping the VERTEX order unaltered it seems to work perfectly. Because when you drop in the skeleton template in to your obj character and click on skin/smooth bind skin then Maya binds the skinning to the vertices. As for the color diffuse and normal maps those come in beautifully to Maya just as exported from 3d Coat paint room.