Sprite sheet AI generator?

[jumpjack]

I searched and tried a bit, but I was not yet able to find an AI able to create a complete sprite sheet, or even just a single sequence of frames for a moving character.

Did anybody successfully perform such search? Such an AI would make free adventures "market" literally explode! Now we already can count on advanced backgrounds and objects generators (just ask MS paint to draw them!), saving us a lot of time; the next ovious step is auto-generation of the sprites.

[Scavenger]

Generative AI can only resolve images from noise based on input, so making it generate proper, real animation is probably something it is least suited to. It can barely make still images, and even then, it's just laundering the work of actual artists into goo.

I would prefer your best manual attempt at a walk cycle than anything an AI produces. At least then it'll have thought put behind it and won't be stolen.

[jumpjack]

Just found a very interesting free resource:

http://mocap.cs.cmu.edu/

It's a database of body animations data!

Walking, runnin, dancing... everything!
I'll have to study it a bit, I want to figure out if I can turn the data for a walking character into something human readable, maybe a multiple chart or something.
Then I will try to  create a walking stickman based on this data.
And eventually I would like to attach "something" to the stickman (dresses, flesh,...), to make it cooler to look at... But this will be the hard part!

[jumpjack]

.BVH file players::
https://lo-th.github.io/olympe/
http://www.akjava.com/demo/bvhplayer/

BVH file of "walking around": https://mocap.cs.sfu.ca/nusmocap/0005_Walking001.bvh
BVH file for "walking straight": https://mocap.cs.sfu.ca/nusmocap/0018_Walking001.bvh

Found here: https://mocap.cs.sfu.ca/nusmocap.html#

Also found descriptions of file formats:


.hdf: raw 2D marker positions, as well as all intermediate data representations and the end results
.fbx: Autodesk file format
.bvh: final skeleton and skeletal animation
.c3d: labeled 3D marker positions in binary format
.txt: c3d data in ASCII format
.vsk: ASCII file format for calibrated skeleton and marker attachment positions

Alternative descriptions:
c3d: Reconstructed 3D data
txt: x,y,z translation data derived directly from the c3d data
FBX: FBX can also carry a mesh with image based textures or color per vertex, as well as virtual cameras.
bvh: The bvh file defines both the skeleton and the motion data all in one file
amc: Same as bvh except it is a different skeletal format

Difference between C3d  (3d coorindates) and BVH (bones rotations):





https://alinen.github.io/MotionScriptTools/notes/MotionBuilderC3D.html

C3d is binary positions, BVH is ASCII rotations.

To create an automatic spritehseet creator, I think BVH is better, because I'll have to overlay over each bone a rotated bitmap representing arms, legs, hands, and I already have rotation values... in 3d: I will have to convert to 2d, which may be tricky.
Instead, to turn C3d into 2d it should be enough to suppress depth (as long as movement of the character is exactly along horizontal axis).

Further study needed.

[jumpjack]

Interesting tutorial about how to create a sprithesheet from advanced hires 3d characters:
https://awentzonline.github.io/human-sprites/

It uses:
- MakeHuman software (warning! broken link in the tutorial, use this one) to create the character
- Blender to animate it
    - motion captur data available here as BVH files
- An ancient free version of ASESPRITE to prepare the sprite sheet.

[jumpjack]

Very interesting AI experiment by META!


https://sketch.metademolab.com/canvas

It cannot export into spritesheet... so I asked ChatGPT to create a webpage to do it:

https://github.com/jumpjack/MotionCapSpritesheet/tree/main/mp4-to-spritesheet

(Work in progress)

Also this AI experiment from Adobe is very interesting_

https://www.mixamo.com/#/?type=Motion%2CMotionPack

And you can also create speech and SFX: https://audiobox.metademolab.com/storymaker/demo

Probably creating a game is going from being a team work to being a movie-director. :-)