NEURON MOCAP LIVE Plugin for C4D

This plugin provide the ability to stream motion data from Axis Studio/Axis Neuron into Maxon Cinema 4D.

Requirement
Installation
Quick start guide
How it works
Connection settings
Skeleton Building
Recording
Neuron Mocap Live Tag
Retargeting
Setup a model from scrach

Requirement

• Maxon Cinema 4D r23 or higher
• Windows x86_64

Installation

1. Download plugin package from Github release page

2. Unzip the plugin package to C4D plugins folder ( which can be located by click Open Preferences Folder button on C4D preferences dialog )

3. Restart C4D

   

Quick start guide

1. Launch Axis Studio, Open a sample motion file

   

2. Enable BVH Broadcasting - Edit, configure the broadcast settings as follows:

   • Skeleton: Axis Studio
   • BVH Format - Rotation: YXZ
   • BVH Format - Displacement: Checked
   • Frame Format - Type: Binary
   • Frame Format - Use old header format: Unchecked
   • Protocol: UDP
   • Local Address: 127.0.0.1:7003
   • Destination Address: 127.0.0.1:7001

   

3. Launch C4D, open Neuron Mocap Live dialog within Extensions menu

   

4. Click the Create Axis Studio Skeleton button to create a preset skeleton, locate the Neuron Mocap Live tag, and configure the Character Name which you can get from Axis Studio

   

5. Play the motion file in Axis Studio and connect the BVH Stream in C4D, done

   

How it works

The BVH stream is routed from Axis Studio to C4D, and there is a Connection Manager in C4D to receive this stream, the Neuron Mocap Live Tags attached to models will fetch the motion from Connection Manager to drive models

Connection settings

• Procotol: TCP or UDP, which should be same as Axis Studio Settings
• IP: the IPv4 address, which should be same as Axis Studio Destination Address
• Port: the IPv4 port, which should be same as Axis Studio Destination Address
• Skeleton: Axis Studio work with Axis Studio, Axis Legacy work with Axis Neuron

Skeleton Building

• Create Axis Studio Sekelton: build a Axis Studio preset skeleton with a workable Neuron Mocap Live Tag settings.
• Create Axis Legacy Sekelton: build a Axis Legacy preset skeleton with a workable Neuron Mocap Live Tag settings.

Recording

• Click Begin Record will send Record message to Neuron Mocap Live Tags, the Neuron Mocap Live Tag will perform the record action, so only the models with a Neuron Mocap Live Tag can be recorded.
• The recording data is saved in the tracks of a model with Neuron Mocap Live Tag, the tracks of the model should be empty before recording, you can bake the tracks data into a Motion Clip before/after recording.

Neuron Mocap Live Tag

• Character Name: the character name which should be same with the character name in Axis Studio
• Detect Joints Map: try to match a joints map by the model's joint name
• Clear Joints Map: clear the joints map
• Set T-Pose: set current pose as T-Pose, the T-Pose should follow the preset skeleton built from Skeleton Building
• Go to T-Pose: restore current pose to T-Pose
• *Scale Root Position*
  : if checked, the position of root will scaled by leg's height, which will perform a coarse position retarting
• Joints Map: the joints map, you can manually setup the map here, the source joint's name will have a T suffix if the T-Pose of this joint was saved. The R(rotation) controls whether transfer rotation channel data and the P(position) controls whether transfer position channel data.

All these settings can be saved to a preset and used next time:

Retargeting

• The Neuron Mocap Live Tag has a buildin retarting method, the position retarging of the buildin method is coarse, see Scale Root Position
• The C4D buildin retargting is also supported, if you want to use C4D buildin retarting, you should use the preset skeleton built from Skeleton Building as source.

Setup a model from scrach

1. Import a model and adjust it's pose to T-Pose

2. Attach a Neuron Mocap Live Tag to this model and locate the tag settings

3. Configure the Neuron Mocap Live Tag settings

4. Connect, done