endorphin 2.7 includes several new and improved features:
Fluid effects - Characters and objects can now interact with fluids (e.g. water, air, mud) in a physically-plausible manner, including buoyancy and drag forces. Additional effects such as moving fluids and waves are also supported.
endorphin Control Panel plug-in for Maya - New plug-in allows animation generated by a Maya control rig to be mapped onto an endorphin character, and allows animation generated by endorphin to be mapped onto a Maya control rig. This enables users to drive complex IK rigs using endorphin, and allows users to animate over the endorphin motion, to enhance or replace it on a joint-by-joint basis.
Extended forces and torques - The Push physical effect behavior allows a force to be applied over multiple frames. The Twist physical effect behavior allows a torque (rotational force) to be applied over multiple frames.
Improved hold effect - A new ‘stickiness’ parameter allows users to model the effect of sticky surfaces.
Improved file format support - Extended support for new Acclaim 2 file format.
Improved resources - A new library of standard simulation characters and prop characters, a revised endorphin User Guide, and additonal tutorials for fluid, push and twist physical effects.
Current endorphin users include Blitz Games, Sony Computer Entertainment, Tigar Hare Studios, EA, Namco, Capcom, Konami, Giant Killer Robots, CIS Hollywood, The Mill and Moving Picture Company.
endorphin 2.7 Learning Edition
The endorphin 2.7 Learning Edition (eLE) is available for immediate download from;
Endorphin is a next generation software for character animation. Able to create character animation, based on simple A.I. behaviors applyed on characters, mixed with build-in dynamics, the results are truly realistic!
The software starts up with a scene and the default character. Characters are made up of mesh and colliding geometry objects like sphere and capsule. The artist has the ability of creating his/her own character as well.
In "time line" you apply actions and setting coresponding parametres as well as the length that each action lasts. To begin with, actions can be behaviors applied on the characters, like "look at", "hand reach at" e.t.c. Those behaviors are beatiful and usefull to use, but dont realy help, using them without other actions in the timeline as well.
About those other actions, there are constrains to apply on one or more body parts and severity. The most intersting "action", was the transition from dynamic world to non-dynamic world, using premade FBX or BVH animations made elsewhere.
For example you could apply a non-dynamic action on a character that has a running BVH animation set on him and then make a transition to dynamic while activating a "staggle" behavior on him also. As a result you will have a running person, that suddently slips and try to fall, but at the end he does, since at full dynamic state a character has gravity applyed to him and is but a ragdoll.
Setting dynamic or not can even be body part specific which is very usefull as well.
Another great feature is the use of static poses, which you create very easy and save them. Now, when a static pose is applyed on a character in dynamic state, what happens is the character tries to bring his body parts as close as possible to the pose told him to go and this is also affected by the "strength" of the action which acts something like a muscle power that the character has.
Last but not least, in Endorphin 2.7 you can create basic geomentry objects, or import objects made in other software and then apply colliding geometry on them, thus making things more...interactive. Premade materials are also there for you to choose like ice or plastic, but you can even make your own by using the parameters.
A basic fluid system is also included in the last (2.7) version to make objects or characters (or whatever has collision objects applied on them) to be able and surface on fluid systems.
Sad to say but maybe needles for this kind of software, there is no keyframe animation.
The software is easy to use as well as fun enough and the good part is that Natural Motion has a Learning Edition free of charge which has all the features of the software, except exporting the combosition.
nice find Starry, i often check back at their site, altho ive not used endophin inn a long while, i loved it when i did. I will keep my eye out for a crkd'# version in the future.
@ahmedabdalla check out the video demo's on the naturalmotion site, youll probally see what endorphin does best, i dont do facial animation so i cant say.
Yes, ahmedabdalla, you can't use this app for facial animation.
As for the first question you can use it for animation as an addon to speedup the animation combined with Max/Maya.
You have to learn a 3D program. Endorphin is used to automate the manual keyframe process.
Generall the animation is not difficult but need time. (3 months)
Character animation needs a lot of time to achieve good results. (8 months and counting).
For facial animation you can go manual or automatic using a video camera.
Digital Tutors and Gnomon have facial animation tutorials.
To automate the facial process animation you can use the Movimento, or PFTrack application which are tracking systems.
Another way is to capture with two cameras a talking face (front/side) and use the rotoscoping technique.
Unfortunatelly i don't know any easy program for facial animation.
If you, for example, work in Maya then you can use the motion data generated by Endorphin to animate you characters inside Maya.
Without Endorphin (or similar apps) you have to manually set keyframes for every move you want your character to make, a *very* time consuming task if you want the kind of realistic movements Endorphin delivers.
To learn the basics of 3d animation you may find the help files coming with Maya, 3dsMax etc. very helpful.
I took another round to to reach the fact of endorphin and i found that in the faq of it
1 -
Quote:
Previously, animation data had to be manually created (through key-framing) or recorded (through motion capture). This is often expensive and laborious, and results in static non-interactive data.
that means the keyframing is an old system and take along time
2-
Quote:
endorphin uses DMS to create canned (or baked) animation data (but much faster than key-framing or mocap).
3-
Quote:
endorphin is in use at game publishers (e.g. Sony, EA, THQ, Take-2, Namco, Konami), VFX houses (e.g. MPC, Sony Imageworks, Giant Killer Robots) and simulation companies (e.g. Airbus, Northrop Grumman)
that mean its alone for game but with another application like maya cane used in animation movies
4- after i saw the 15th vedio demo's i under stand how to make the relation between endorphin and maya .
so now because i like the Natural Motion of endorphin ,i will learn it but beside it i must learn another animation program , here is the qustion what the simplest or easiest program to learn beside endorphin
I know ther is many program like (mocap - character animation - motin builder - mocca ) which of these ?
Linear Mode
