Anima to Vantage

[owen_mcdonald]

I've been struggling trying to figure out how to get my Anima to work correctly in Vantage 2.0. I have tried the various ways of exporting from Max to Vantage - Live link vs exporting to a VRScene. Live link only brings in the characters on the path and leaves out the characters that are ready posed, ambient and rigged characters. When I export to a VRScene - all the characters are there but they only slide around.

The attached shows a test scene I created with my Anima, Max and Vantage screens with the characters circled in red indicating the missing characters in Vantage .

Is there a procedure to have all of the characters show up?

Thanks for the help,

Owen

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi Owen,

In order to view anima characters properly you can do the the following:

• when in Live link make sure you have Use IPR render state enabled before starting live link
• when using vrscene the assets do not update every frame in interactive mode so you have to use the "Updates image sequences and animated meshes for the current frame of the timeline" button or use the shortcut U. When rendering high quality sequence all textures and frames are updated automatically

Tell me if these work for you.

Best regards,
Alexander

[owen_mcdonald]

Thank you for your help.

For the live link, when I clicked the Use Render State in IPR - it brought over all of the characters but I can't get the characters to move in Vantage and then when I go back to Max, the animation will no longer run when I press the Play Animation button - I have to use the animation slider to get the characters to advance. Also, the Use Render State in IPR button is greyed out and I can't unclick it until I restart Max.

I tried export again and click on the Update image sequences and it showed the characters sliding - so I tried to render a sequence of 120 frames and the characters just stayed in place (legs and arms moved but the character remained in the same spot without advancing) - like they were moon walking. It's great for a Michael Jackson video but I don't think it works well for a walkthrough.

I noticed that this simple scene, that is a little over two megs for Max - jumps to 11 plus gigs for a vrscene file. Is that normal?

I feel like I'm not doing this correctly and I'm aimlessly pressing buttons -

Thanks again,

Owen

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi Owen,

it brought over all of the characters but I can't get the characters to move in Vantage

Yes, you cannot manipulate or use the timeline inside Vantage when in Live link. Only the current frame is sent so there is no actual animation, you have to play the animation in Max.

when I go back to Max, the animation will no longer run when I press the Play Animation button

This is an issue that it logged and will be investigated in the future.

Also, the Use Render State in IPR button is greyed out and I can't unclick it until I restart Max

You do not need to restart Max, you just need to stop Live Link and it will enable to toggle it.

I tried export again and click on the Update image sequences and it showed the characters sliding - so I tried to render a sequence of 120 frames and the characters just stayed in place (legs and arms moved but the character remained in the same spot without advancing)

How did you placed the characters inside Max? Can you send a video of how the characters move inside max and inside Vantage? Or send us the whole scene(including the anima project if any) for us to investigate.

I noticed that this simple scene, that is a little over two megs for Max - jumps to 11 plus gigs for a vrscene file. Is that normal?

Yes, this is normal. When exporting an animated vrscene, the geometry deformation is baked for each frame - the more frames the animation has, the larger the file.

Best regards,
Alexander

[owen_mcdonald]

Alexander,

I appreciate all of your help.

I wanted to update you on my progress and see if this is the correct workflow.

I exported a static scene from Max to Vantage. Didn't worry about my characters moving or not moving.

Created my cameras and camera movement in Vantage.

Saved the Vantage file. Closed Vantage.

I imported the Changes from Vantage into Max which adds the cameras that I had created in Vantage.

Made sure that the Use Render State in IPR was clicked.

Opened Vantage without a scene and went back to Max

Then I selected the Render animation with Chaos Vantage

Selected the CamPath Camera

In Vantage, I check my render setup and make sure the settings are correct and press Start.

Watch Vantage work it's magic and then I have a few seconds of animation with the people walking around and moving like they should.

Is this correct? Is there a better / different way?

Thanks again,

Owen

[owen_mcdonald]

Alexander,

I forgot to mention in my previous post - all of the characters were placed in Anima 5.1.1 and then imported into Max through the Import Anima project

The link below is an animation that I created showing the two ways I created the animation. The first two seconds show the animation I created by using the Render Animation with Chaos Vantage. Everything looks like that is working. The remaining part of the animation was created when I exported to a vrscene file and then processed the animation - here the characters just walk in place without advancing down the path.

https://youtu.be/aIx-mV6pIdA

Thanks again,

Owen

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce the moonwalking on my end. Can you please send us the scene to try it on our end? Additionally which V-Ray and Max versions are you using?

Best regards,
Alexander

[owen_mcdonald]

I'm using Max 2023.3, Vray 6 1.2, Vantage 2.0 and anima 5.1.1.

Below is the link to the files

Thanks again,

Owen

[vladimir.nedev]

here the characters just walk in place without advancing down the path.

Thanks for the scene. Somehow you have disabled the "objects" animation, which means the animated transformations. That's why the characters walk in place.
You can re-enable it by right-clicking on the "Scene Animation" track and enabling "Objects" :



Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[owen_mcdonald]

That was it - They are moving along the path now.

I appreciate everyone's help - but on the plus side - If I ever need to do a scene with dancers, I will know how to get them to moonwalk!


Thanks again,

Owen

[jeff_coleman]

HI, my characters are moving down the path but they are not moving themselves. So no character animation. They are floating frozen through the scene> any idea how to fix this

[npg]

You are probably referring to the live playback option in the viewport timeline. This intentionally does not update deforming meshes as it would cause heavy stuttering. Meshes are updated if you scroll to a specific time (if the relevant button on the right of the timeline is toggled on, as it is by default). They are always updated for each frame when rendering an "offline" sequence.