2548 free downloadable BVH files
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By Hogarth-MMD   |   Watch
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Published: August 28, 2016

Free BVH (Motion capture) files

The CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) database of 2548 free BVH files:
sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com…
Daz-friendly version
sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com…
3dsMax-friendly version
sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com…
MotionBuilder-friendly version
sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com…

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More free BVH files:
Truebones 500 free sample BVH files
www.truebones.com/500Free.rar

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Here are some more free bvh files, from the Second Life online game:
static-secondlife-com.s3.amazo…

The link to this file is on this page of the Second Life wiki:
wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Inter…

The Second Life armature is using the same bone names as the DAZ/Poser armature, so its bones can be renamed using the Bones Renamer operator of mmd_tools_helper. The bvh files don't include eye bones or toe bones or finger bones.

Comments15
anonymous's avatar
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androm3dart's avatar

I am having issues with daz genesis 8 female. Anyone else?

Hogarth-MMD's avatar
I have figured out a few more things about how to convert CMU bvh files to vmd.

1. The "hip-uncorrected" bvh files are more MMD-compatible than the "hip-corrected" bvh files. "Hip-corrected" means that the resting pose (Blender edit-mode pose) of the hip bone will be located at the world origin(0,0,0). These BVH files have been "corrected" to make them compatible with DAZ characters whose rest pose hip bone location is at the world origin(0,0,0). MMD models do not have their center bone located at the world origin, however, so the "hip-uncorrected" BVH files are more compatible with MMD models.

2. The CMU bvh files have a frame rate of 120 FPS (120 frames per second). VMD animations normally have a frame rate of 30 FPS.
To correct the frame rate, you need to manually set the frame rate of your Blender scene to 30 FPS. When you import the BVH file, you need to enable the Scale FPS option to change the frame rate from 120 FPS to 30 FPS.

3. In the CMU BVH animations, the character's rest pose (edit mode pose) is a T pose with the arms outstretched at a 90 degree angle from the body. MMD models have the arms rotated downward at a 45 degree angle in an A pose (or collar bones rotated down 5 degrees and shoulder bones rotated down 40 degrees). To convert the animation from being T-pose-compatible to being A-pose-compatible, before you export the BVH animation to VMD, go to the first frame of the animation and rotate the character's left arm 45 degrees, and rotate the character's right arm -45 degrees. When you export the animation to VMD, enable this export option: "Treat Current Pose as Rest Pose".
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
The Blender bvh importer has a bug. If you try to import a bvh file which has Japanese bone names, it won't import into Blender, and you get an error message. This simple fix worked for me:

Open this file (from the Blender program folder) in a text editor, such as Notepad++:
scripts\addons\io_anim_bvh\import_bvh.py

Change line 97 from:
    file = open(file_path, 'rU')

to:
    file = open(file_path, 'rU', encoding = 'utf-8')
buidoi8x's avatar
I am also figuring out how to convert BHV to VMD.  There are a lots of BHV files but I can't use in MMD :(
VMD to BVH is Oke, opposite is not :(

Thanks for your test.
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
Okay, if you read my comments below, you can see that I have been making some progress in figuring out how to do BVH to VMD conversion, but once again this effort has hit a snag. In MMD, the character's arms are bending behind her back when they should be bending forward in front of her. :-(
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
Maybe zeroing/clearing the bone roll of all bones in Blender fixes this problem(?).
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
No, based on an experiment that I did, bone roll should not be cleared or recalculated.
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
Another problem. With the "hip-corrected" bvh files, the hip is located at the world origin(0,0,0) in Blender edit mode. Because of that, the character will be floating about a meter off the ground when the .vmd file is imported into MikuMikuDance. :-(
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
Okay, I have brilliantly solved the scaling and height problems. Import the .bvh file into Blender with scaling 1/7, export the .vmd file from Blender with scaling 1.0. After loading the vmd motion into MikuMikuDance, click edit, click select all bone frame, click apply center position bias. In the dialog box which appears, set Y equal to -12 to make the model move downwards 12 MMD units of distance for all keyframes..
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
Another problem that I have found to convert the CMU .bvh files to .vmd files:

The scaling of the imported skeleton is roughly 10 times too big for MMD, which means that the animation of the character's location needs to be corrected for each and every keyframe.

It looks like this problem is tough nut to crack. :-(
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
To correct myself, the scaling problem can be easily solved. When you import the .bvh file into Blender a list of bvh import options appears on the left side, including a scaling option.
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
There are a few problems with converting these bvh files to vmd files:
1. The need to rename bones to Japanese bone names.
2. The bones in these bvh files do not have any equivalent for MMD lower body bone, no equivalent for MMD mother bone/root bone, no equivalent for MMD leg and foot IK bones.
Hogarth-MMD's avatar
MikuMikuMoving does import/export of bvh and vmd.
Blender with the MMD tools add-on by powroupi can do import/export of both bvh and vmd.

I don't think that you can find any bvh files which have the MMD standard Japanese bone names though. Renaming of bones is needed. So there isn't a perfect solution yet, but I'm sure it is only a matter of time.

There is a Blender add-on which (I think) is called Motion Capture Tools, which can be configured to re-target an imported bvh animation to a skeleton which has different bone names.
anonymous's avatar
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