MSFS Animated People (Character Animation)

[Christian Bahr]

It took a while, but with a good tip from @SimArc & @Paul Domingue here in the FSDeveloper Forum it worked - the Bahrometrix Living People have finally made it into the MFS

If anyone is interested in how to bring animated objects into the MFS, they can read it here: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/simple-animation.449219/

 

[RomanDesign]

Can you share the info on your workflow? Where did you make your models (and how did you reduce the poly count), how did you animated them and how did you implement it into MSFS? I know in general terms how to do bone animation in Blender -> MSFS, but this looks like motion capture most likely, and I'm not clear of what the workflow would be.

 

[Trespassers]

Christian, congratulations, your Bahrometrix people just look amazing and add the very living touch I'm trying to feature on my small airfield, but I'm a long way behind you. That's funny because I was struggling for a while with conditional visibility of the umbrellas for the bistro terrace when I found and read the "visibility" thread on this forum where you already cleared the path months ago, which allowed me to fix my issues an get it to work.

Hope you will share some info on your workflow as RomaDesign wrote above.

Thanks for your help and showing us your progress.

Cheers
Antoine

 

[Lagaffe]

The workflow, is simple:
- create your model,
- upload it to mixamo site (https://www.mixamo.com)
- choose your or yours animations for your 3D file
- launch the animation(s) creation and then it will result the post-process made by mixamo on your file
- download your(s) FBX files
- import them under Blender and finish your stuff.

You can find some youtube on this process.

 

[RomanDesign]

The workflow, is simple:
- create your model,
- upload it to moxamo site (https://www.mixamo.com)
- choose your or yours animations for your 3D file
- launch the animation(s) creation and then it will result the post-process made by mixamo on your file
- download your(s) FBX files
- import them under Blender and finish tour stuff.

You can find some youtube on this process.

Thanks. I suspected this exact process, but never tried it yet, and wanted to make sure I get the right idea. Did you ever do series of animations, like a sequence: walk-turnaround-walk-stop or something like that? How do you merge several animations together so that transitions look smooth and character doesn't jump around because animations start and end in different XY coordinates from neighbouring animations?

Also, when you export simobject, how do you use several simobjects in a single group? It seems to me that I have to create new group for every simobject I do, and if I do people, there are going to be too many.

 

[Christian Bahr]

Christian, congratulations, your Bahrometrix people just look amazing and add the very living touch I'm trying to feature on my small airfield, but I'm a long way behind you. That's funny because I was struggling for a while with conditional visibility of the umbrellas for the bistro terrace when I found and read the "visibility" thread on this forum where you already cleared the path months ago, which allowed me to fix my issues an get it to work.

Hope you will share some info on your workflow as RomaDesign wrote above.

Can you share the info on your workflow? Where did you make your models (and how did you reduce the poly count), how did you animated them and how did you implement it into MSFS? I know in general terms how to do bone animation in Blender -> MSFS, but this looks like motion capture most likely, and I'm not clear of what the workflow would be.

Maybe I'll do a tutorial later. Unfortunately, I don't have the time at the moment. When I write something on the subject, it's all about 3dsm2020.3. I don't use any other 3-D software, such as Blender. Do you use Blender or 3dsm?

In the meantime, something to loosen up

 

[Trespassers]

Maybe I'll do a tutorial later. Unfortunately, I don't have the time at the moment. When I write something on the subject, it's all about 3dsm2020.3. I don't use any other 3-D software, such as Blender. Do you use Blender or 3dsm?

In the meantime, something to loosen up

On my side I’m using 3DSMax 2017, so the MSFS SDK tools are limited in comparison to later releases. In many cases I rework things in Arno’s MCX after export from 3DSMax...
Cheers

Antoine

 

[Christian Bahr]

On my side I’m using 3DSMax 2017, so the MSFS SDK tools are limited in comparison to later releases. In many cases I rework things in Arno’s MCX after export from 3DSMax...
Cheers

Antoine

Very nice. You should be working with the FBX format. I've got the best results with this in 3dsm. Both animations and the 3-D models can be imported and exported without errors. That is what I can contribute to the subject so far

 

[Trespassers]

Very nice. You should be working with the FBX format. I've got the best results with this in 3dsm. Both animations and the 3-D models can be imported and exported without errors. That is what I can contribute to the subject so far

Thank you Christian for the hint, I’m actually using a mix of formats depending on the situation : dae, obj, fbx, gltf... not very familiar with fbx though, the default import/export settings in 3DSMax 2017 seem poor to me, but maybe this format might be superior when it comes to animations handling.
Cheers
Antoine

 

[Christian Bahr]

Okay, maybe it's time to talk about the sewing process in the hope that a variety of creativity will emerge from it

For users of the 3-D software 3ds Max! Look for this term: populate data 3dsm
And it immediately becomes clear to you how you can get dozens, hundreds to unlimited, animated people in one stroke -> Crowds

 

[Trespassers]

Okay, maybe it's time to talk about the sewing process in the hope that a variety of creativity will emerge from it

For users of the 3-D software 3ds Max! Look for this term: populate data 3dsm
And it immediately becomes clear to you how you can get dozens, hundreds to unlimited, animated people in one stroke -> Crowds

Amazing, thanks for sharing!
Cheers
Antoine

 

[RomanDesign]

I just spent almost the whole day trying to solve similar problem with animated people. Posted here: https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...ed-people-distorted-animation-in-msfs.452304/
Don't know what to do...

 

[Christian Bahr]

I would very much like to help. But I don't know anything about Blender.

 

[RomanDesign]

My whole workflow is around Blender, which I more or less know by know. 3DS is amistery to me... I'd rather not go through the whole new learning curve... We'll see if i can solve this with the help of the wisdom of this Forum

 

[Trespassers]

Well, I'm not any luckier than RomanDesign with 3DSMax : the populate function in 3DSMAx is just superb as long as I remain in 3DSMax.
Looking at some payware airport sceneries for MSFS I really have the feeling they actually managed exporting such population straight into MSFS (not even adding conditional behaviour like empty terrasse at 3 am or when it rains/snows).

On my side I spent hours and hours trying to export a single "populate" walking guy into MSFS, but to no avail.
My workflow idea was to turn the random "populate" animation into keyframes and export it as a conventional animated object.

I've been able to transform the random populate into an animated skeleton plus a skin in 3DSMax, and its animation as keyframes, so I can replay it in 3DSMax as a standard animation.
But the Babylon GLTF pluggin will just export a static guy from the last keyframe.

I tried also exporting as FBX to check the animation in MCX, but the FBX exporter claims it cannot export such a thing and transforms my walking guy into a static solid mesh.

I wonder if I'm just doing anything wrong (either wrong workflow or wrong/missing step) or if there is some protection in 3DSMax preventing from simply exporting proprietary population.

Has anybody managed converting 3DSMax "populate" people for MSFS ?

Thanks in advance for any help you could provide
Cheers

Antoine

 

[RomanDesign]

I made some progress, it's but very unpredictable. I try several time with similar file, but sometimes I get distortion and sometimes I don't. I narrowed it down to 3 important steps:
- I have to "clear all transforms" in pose mode from the pose and make it upright. If both of these are successful, and animation is still OK in Blender - there's a change it will work.
- It all revolves (pun intended) around rotation and scale. It has to be right, and applied.
- The "Default_State" animation has to be there, with 3 frames and done with 0 rotation/1 scale, or so -called "0 pose" (usually a T-pose)

If I manage to get all 3 correct without completely ruining the imported animation in the process - it works in MSFS. It is a bit of black magic though, I'm still not sure why I could do it a couple of times, and similar steps didn't work in a few other attempts...

 

[Christian Bahr]

Has anybody managed converting 3DSMax "populate" people for MSFS ?

Yes, it's actually very easy

One of the animated People from PopulateData was mapped in the final fine-tuning with specially made PBR textures and thus gets a certain shine in the eyes:

Perfect in design. Perfected in animation. Perfect with the PBR textures. The man who takes care of security at Dortmund Airport.

In the current project there will be animated people (Bahrometrix Living People). In the past they were simply animated people and were now processed into SimObjects especially for the Dortmund project. Only for the purpose that they can be used universally and flexibly. In Dortmund they are controlled by a new type of WASM module that a developer friend wrote for me

 

[Trespassers]

Well, you say very easy, but without sharing much information. I had no success so far in exporting “populate” animation into MSFS, so I gave up for a while to develop my own runway lights using LOD levels and an invisible cube 25m below ground level un order to increase visibility range.
Slow progress due to lack of time...

Cheers
Antoine

 

[Christian Bahr]

I had no success so far in exporting “populate” animation into MSFS

Where exactly where are you stuck?

In 3dsm, an animation group is created for animations. In relation to animated people, this means that you mark all bones and the mesh and then create an animation group:

 

[Trespassers]

Where exactly where are you stuck?

Hi Christian,

Sorry for my very late repy, I was kept away from this project for a while.
Looking back at it, I think my conversion of a "populate" walking guy into Keyframes in 3DSMax doesn't work properly, it doesn't behave like other animations I did.

Then, the 3DSMax 2017 tools seem to have much less options than 3DSMax 2019, at least I don't think I have your babylon animation groups menu.

I'll givi it again a try.

Cheers
Antoine