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Flux Studio: creating a interface for text input to animate 3d avatar

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    • CommentAuthorsecretzone
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007
     
    hi all,

    i am currently doing my final year project for the degree course i am currently undergoing.
    For my project, i need to do a english-to-sign language translator.
    the requirement is that i must use 3D avatar to present the sign language translated.

    I have no experience in 3D animations and stuffs.. but anyway i managed to created a 3d character in 3ds 9. Now i need to find any ways to allow this character to be animated using text input. BTW, this is suppose to be a web application.
    i read some information about java 3d and shockwave 3d, but still yet to find how i can make this work.
    im wondering if flux studio can allow me to create such interface?

    any help would be appreciated!

    Regards,
    Keith
    •  
      CommentAuthorjay
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007 edited
     
    Hopefully you'll get some tips from the people who know more about doing this than me, but I can say that yes you can definitely use Flux Studio to do this. The secret sauce is FS's support for the H-anim (Humaniod Animation) standard.

    I think you will be able to to import your 3ds model into FS, but then you will need to create H-anim joints for it. Or, you could use an existing H-anim avatar, though presumably you need fully-articulated hands and I don't know of a freely-available avatar with such.

    And of course it can be a web application, using FS to Export X3D.
    • CommentAuthorsecretzone
    • CommentTimeJan 15th 2007
     
    Thanks for the reply, Jay!.

    I still not sure how it can be done, but i guess i will try play around with it
    •  
      CommentAuthorMrPhillip
    • CommentTimeJan 17th 2007
     
    First, do some research....

    Seamless Solutions Signing Avatar
    additional links...
    Signing Avatar on Google


    Avatar Studio avatars do not have fingers, you need one with a higher level of articulation. In Flux Studio, if you use the Avatar Wizard and create a LOA3 model, you will have a fully articulated skeleton (with fingers). If your application is academic (non-commercial) you can probably use and avatar found here...

    http://philliphansel.com/avatars/hanim/

    Baxter or Nancy are fully articulated if I recall. They are the old "jointed" style avatars. You *might* be better off with a single mesh avatar, though it may be hard to define the Charaters Skin Envelopes for the fingers. Andy is articulated, but a part of Seamless Solutions product, so he and Raven should probably not be used unless you contact them. There are 3 parts to each avatar here, a container, the behaviors, and the avatar. They could all be in one file, but separate files demonstrates the portability of the gestures from one avatar to the next.

    You maybe better off starting with an articulated hand rather than a whole avatar. Keith used to have one as a demo in the old Spazz3D. It was made out of cylinders for finger segments and used spheres for the knuckles.

    Best of luck, I am interestedto see what you come up with.
    • CommentAuthorsecretzone
    • CommentTimeJan 17th 2007
     
    Hi Philip,

    thanks for the links and advices.

    as time constrain (3months to do) our 3d avatar will mainly have animation on the hand/fingers to perform the sign language. thou my supervisior wan us to have character expressions and lip movements.

    My university project is kinda strict. Basically everything have to be created by the whole project team and we are not suppose to use codes generator and stuffs like that.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMrPhillip
    • CommentTimeJan 18th 2007
     
    No reason not to stand on the shoulders of Giants. The Humanoid Animation standard should be followed both for portability and to keep from reinventing the wheel. Creating and animating an Avatar is tough enough even if you use the standard joint model. Getting one to sign based on keyboard or motion capture input will be even more complex. You can do a whole lot of it with Flux Studio, but it is definately a "code generator".
    • CommentAuthorfabricator
    • CommentTimeJan 23rd 2007
     
    For the text input you can link a KeyboardSensor node to a Text node via a Script node.

    The basic idea is to have one animation for each sign, then have the Script node start the correct gesture for each text input. If an animation 'isActive' then you need to set the 'startTime' of the following animation to the 'stopTime' of the previous one.

    Bitmanagement software have a plugin for 3DS MAX which exports seamless H-Anim avatars, the catch is it doesn't work for Max 9 yet. Its also a commercial product so its unlikely you'll have access to it.

    I have a full seamless H-Anim model here made with flux studio, its got the proper fingers and everything. You mention having a project team, perhaps they can help setup the H-Anim model.

    Let me know when you need help with the skin envelopes in flux studio, I have a few tricks to fixing envelope problems.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMrPhillip
    • CommentTimeFeb 1st 2007
     
    Fabricator General:
    I have great problems with the envelopes and would love to know a few tricks whcih may fix them. Often, mesh outside of the sphereoids gets bound and I hav the classic chewing-gum deformation avatar. I have tried "big all encompassing" spheres as well as small ones just around the joints. The solution many propose is to re-pose the original avatar (to DeVinci pose). I have trouble with this also as it messes up the previous animations when I alter the base model.
  9.  
    Instructions for use here (under the title of H-anim vertex finder PROTO)
    http://www.vrmlworlds.com/h-anim/


    Example

    http://www.vrmlworlds.com/h-anim/advanced-select-vertex-example.wrl


    to use to fix your own Humanoids simply copy/paste the block at the bottom of the file that starts with:


    #######################################################
    # Select Vertex code and HUD below #
    #######################################################


    Next put a Group (or Transform) node around the Humanoid node (you probably have one there already) and alter the link in this line "group USE G" to point to it.

    Its not the easiest way to fix these problems but so far its really the only way to do it.

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