Importing BVH files

To import a BVH file click the open file button
Select BVH file types:


select the BVH file and click open.

To see the animation click the play button:

To view the skeleton of parts generated from the BVH file, open the scene tree window by clicking:


Each part node will contain simple geometry with a length specified by the BVH file. Each part has a pivotPoint field (new for 2.130) which specifies the position of the part's pivot point relative to the parent part's pivot point. Below the skeleton of parts are the NurbsLathe nodes that build the geometry for the parts . NurbsLathe  nodes make it very easy to control the shape of any part, you simply

Click on the NurbsLathe  that references your part  you want to modify and drag the control points but to see the control points in the correct place for the geometry, select the root part (usually it is named Hips) and set the translation field to 0 0 0 (tip: high-light the 3 numbers with mouse and type 0 just once) and reset all the parts to their default orientation by clicking:

Once a BVH file is converted and saved as a smls file, the animation can be imported to another smls file that has matching names and matching pivot points for the parts. The pivot points don't have to strictly match but the closer they are the more true the animation shall be. Because BVH files typically use captured poses at a rate of 30 per second, the number of poses can be reduced for VRML/X3D. To reduce, right click on the Anim node and select reduce captured poses:



The field keepCaptureForEvery specifies the number of captured poses you want to remove for each captured pose you want to keep. Because you will most likely want to experiment with different numbers it is wise to save before you reduce.


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