http://youtu.be/0Ny7xmCGu80



Will be trying to find one of these as soon as they are out.

QUMA is rather like an artist’s figure-drawing mannequin with sensors in the joints that report all the articulations through a USB cable. Appropriate software can then position a character’s rigging to match, which seems like it would be both faster and more intuitive than dragging bones around a screen with a mouse.

Will it work on other software?

I think there is already a thread about this. But You'd think that it would come with plugin for major softwares like 3dsmax or maya no?

yeah see............I don't know about this one....

WANT!

if it works for max, i'm sold.

Originally Posted by thatanimator

yeah see............I don't know about this one....

I agree. Learn to pose the character in the 3d program instead. Many people don't even rig their character when posing them so I'm pretty doubtful.

Saw this a few weeks ago it was posted in thread of awesomeness.

Anyhoo, I don't think its all that useful. Its a cool toy. But I reckon it would only slightly speed up posing. Plus you'd need a separate models for hands and face, etc. Or you'd have to do it the "old fashioned" way of posing them in the software.

As for animating. It would be like stop motion and would take ages. Also you'd have no accurate control. So keying a walk cycle that loops would be near impossible without tweaking in software anyway.

Also...once the model is posed and you move it no matter how slight. You'll never be able to return to the original pose exactly.

Also, also...with mocap and now the stuff with kinect starting to appear. I doubt this is very useful or cost effective tbh.

nice toy though. Might have use in augmented reality gaming...

Originally Posted by Stinger88

nice toy though.

Yeah, if it was cheap and 3-4" I'd prolly have one on my desk.

i was going to post this, but at the end i forget it hehe.

This is pretty nice to pose our characters and do cool renders. i think Celsys will sell it, and if you know apps like comic studio, it won't be so expensive.

For me, this is like a figma toy

Originally Posted by Blaizer

i was going to post this, but at the end i forget it hehe.

This is pretty nice to pose our characters and do cool renders. i think Celsys will sell it, and if you know apps like comic studio, it won't be so expensive.

For me, this is like a figma toy

I don't know, it's a super niche hardware product - the Microscribe "pen-on-an-arm" digitizer runs around $7,000 - $10,000. I don't think it will be that crazy but I could see $200 - $500.

Rick: I think it would be faster to key poses using this than by hand in software.. it wouldn't be like stop motion because you're only posing key frames, not the entire animation. Sure you'd need to tweak a bit afterwards but I reckon it'd be a great tool

That's ridiculously cool, altho prolly not something to stick in a pipeline but still something I would totally get if I wanted to splash some cash about on a new toy essentially.

And the mannequin's design is soooo mech fan awesome, the wires out the back! Love it! ^o^

If they sell it for ~100 dollars, it's sold :P

We must think this toy is aimed to mangakas.

Originally Posted by rooster

Rick: I think it would be faster to key poses using this than by hand in software.. it wouldn't be like stop motion because you're only posing key frames, not the entire animation. Sure you'd need to tweak a bit afterwards but I reckon it'd be a great tool

well...true. But I still dont think its a tool any animator would use if they had the option of mocap or kinect. Might be good for getting down some animatic stuff but final animation..I dunno.

Posing is, imo the quickest and easiest step in all the modelling to rendering processes. Once a model is rigged and weighted properely, posing is easy.

It is a cool object/gadget, and I would love to have one. But I dont think its practical as a tool.

Plus the designers missed a trick. It should be slightly bigger and look a bit more like this, then it would have a double purpose. Not that i've ever felt the need to buy one of these either like.

Don't act like you guys don't want one... :P

Originally Posted by Stinger88

well...true. But I still dont think its a tool any animator would use if they had the option of mocap or kinect. Might be good for getting down some animatic stuff but final animation..I dunno.

Posing is, imo the quickest and easiest step in all the modelling to rendering processes. Once a model is rigged and weighted properely, posing is easy.

It is a cool object/gadget, and I would love to have one. But I dont think its practical as a tool.

to me, this argument sounds a bit like "i can already paint well with a mouse/tablet, why would i need a cintiq"

if you're more comfortable doing it the way you do it, fine. but for a lot of people this will probably be much faster and more intuitive.

to each their own, though

one of the cool things about this to me is how you can't create a pose that's off-balance (well, unless you propped it up and you intended to)

so stances and stuff like that will always have the right center of balance

So how do you get it to hang in mid-air? It does some kind of calculation to adjust the rig to the foot plane, I guess you manipulate it after the fact in the 3D app? Can you turn that off, not every animation contacts the ground.

How stable is it in odd positions? like the passing position of a run cycle or some tip-toe ballerina pose? I see people holding this thing in one hand straining to reach over to the mouse to click a button and capture a pose.

It doesn't have a gyro so you're still stuck animating the root node/Center of Mass, no swimming or superman poses?

What happens when you're posing it in the 3D app, does the physical model update?

What happens when it falls over and ruins your pose?

This solves one of the easiest things to solve already when animating. No one really has a problem interacting with the models... If they do, whoever rigged it up sucks at their job...

This does nothing to help with timing.

This does not account for squash and stretch which even in realistic animations helps quite a bit.




Still... even with all that left unanswered its pretty cool and I would have fun playing with it even if it wasn't all that applicable to what I do every day.

As an animator, I agree that this would be a niche product. I don't agree that [all] animators would prefer mo-cap. I think it's cool, and I may buy one when I see a complete feature list.

I think it could be very useful in production. In fact the Jurassic Park movies were animated with mannequins. Even Pixar did research into it.

http://graphics.pixar.com/library/DinoInputDevice/

I'm not really arguing anything tbh, In fact i'm not even sure if this was designed to be used as an animation tool. As a posing tool, yes, its fast. But its a tool that speeds up the fastest part of modelling, for me anyway, so it might save me 5 minutes. Also. its limited to major joints and only humanoid rigs.

As I say, I'd love to have one. and yes, i'd love to have a cintiq as well. Never used one so I dont know if i'd prefer it over a normal tablet anyway. But at the price, i'll stick to a tablet and software posing coz this thing will be pricey as well I expect.

btw, rich. I always have difficulty getting figures at this scale to stand up without support, I doubt this will be any different. The center of balance will incorrect as well. The feet dont seem to be very stable looking and you'll notice alot of the poses in the video are sitting down or have 3 points of contact.

Anyhoo,
Heart: Yes, i'd like one.
Head: No, I don't need one...

Probably someday there will be similar model with adjustable height/proportion, detachable parts for perhaps : quadraped creature etc.

I'm not an animator, don't really care about how useful this mannequian actually..
However!! this is still a badass looking mechanical shit with better articulation than a figma.
I can see myself paying $100 for this :p

I think it would be cooler if it worked the other way around....

Originally Posted by Josh_Singh

I think it would be cooler if it worked the other way around....

would be the best way to know if your poses were balanced :P

Josh_Singh, yeah I wouldn't buy it if you couldn't repose the toy based on the model pose.