Submitting BVH?
Hello,
I'm working on building a library of animations for the WorldForge project based on motion capture data which I am producing myself. You can see a video which I created to show the community and outline the structure and benefits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jm4Lsbwkk
WorldForge media is completely open, but its also GPL 2.0, which would make it unavailable for some other projects to make use. I would like to offer the original BVH's produced before they are translated onto the WorldForge rig in a more open license so that other open source projects who are not compatible with GPL 2.0 could make use of it to build their own libraries.
Would OGA accept submittion of BVH files? If so what category would I submit them under?
I was planning to release the data in "packs" of compressed files which deal which would include a number of action sequences as I get them processed and cleaned up before applying them into WF rig structure to add the extra bone animations.
Would OGA be a good place for this data? If not could you suggest a good place? I don't have the resources to host this data myself.
I don't know for sure if OGA accepts BVH's, but I believe that a workaround could be to import those files in Blender, and submit the Blender file here, in the "3d Art" section (as it will be used for 3D art / 2D renders from 3D art anyway).
Since you would probably have to compress the files anyway, couldn't you just submit them packed into archives?
But if you really need to upload every single file separately, Bart will probably agree to allow uploading of BVH files. (It's only a simple Drupal configuration task afaik.)
I do import and work with them in blender myself so that would not be a problem. There are really two main reasons why I suggest Zipping or Compressing these as archives.
- Most major 3D modelling software allow for importing and working with BVH. For those not using blender this would require them to install a piece of software just to export it out as BVH to use it in their software of choice. I use blender myself so this is not a problem but not everyone does.
- I have a blender file with about 8 Animations I am using to do some quick testing of Workflow etc. With the human mesh it is 5 megs roughly, with no mesh only rig and animation it is 4.5 megs. The same files in BVH format equal just under a meg, and compressed into a zip archive well under half a meg. Thats pretty significant once you potentially start talking about a library of animations that could reach 100+ over time.
BVH just seems like the best format to provide the data in.
Yes I would like to submit them as packed archives, probably based on subject. So eventually there could be "Idle_01" which would be a package of idle animations like:
- scratch belly
- stretch arms wide
- yawn
- shift weight
and once there was enough anims in an archive to hit a general file size limit I would create an "idle_02" as I expand, and I could provide a list or text file which lists what animations can be found in what archives for those looking for specific actions.
I would rather not load every single bvh file, it would be a bit hairy to manage as there got to be alot of them. I think archiving in packs is the best idea.
I was just wandering if this would be acceptable, if so what category would make sense, 3D, or make a new one? I could provide a simple blank Blender and some images as well to go along with the data.
So whatever Bart feels would work best or easiest to implement I am sure won't be a problem for me.
Direct BVH upload or zipped +1:
Blender-import-only would reduce the versatility just like Demarii said.
BVH is IMHO the defacto standard format for mocap-data.
And zipped-BVH may be a good idea anyway as for the size - plus you can add readme/lizence.
Anyway: Animations on OGA +1.
If you make some cool FPS type motion-capture data with your home studio also, I would be all for hosting it on OGA ;)
--
http://freegamedev.net
Hey, just thought I'd chime in here. If BVH files are large uncompressed, I'd rather people just zip them and sumbit that. :)
If need be, I can explicitly allow the format, but it seems fairly uncommon.
@hc Good point on the zipping
@Julius I do plan to include all manner of animations including those for FPS style gameplay.
@Bart BVH's are quite compact, its a completely text format string of numbers really, and compresses nicely as well.
So I think thinking releasing packs of combined related BVH files in a zipped format is the way to go. So should I just categorize them under 3D?
Go for it!
Any chance of having (animated) preview images of the data?