BVHView (fork)

Fork of BVHView by Daniel Holden, adapted for the GENEA Leaderboard research project.

Roadmap & features

Feature list focuses on command-line usage. Proper GUI support is not guaranteed, even for completed features.

• Add textured mesh load support (.gltf)
• Add GENEA avatar mesh
• Playback BVH animation onto target mesh
• Add scrubber-synchronized WAV audio
• Load BVH and WAV via command line args
• Add SMPL-X meshes for the BEAT dataset
• Add .mp4 video recording using FFMPEG
• Add audio recording to .mp4 videos
• Add support for multiple animated models in the same scene

Low-prio features:

• Model shadows
• Orthographic camera
• Dockerized setup, .devcontainer

(The list could change with time.)

Setup

The repository is entirely Dockerized. You must have these installed:

• Docker
• VSCode
• Dev Containers plugin for VSCode

To build the container, open VSCode in the cloned repository folder, and run:

• Ctrl+Shift+P > Rebuild and Reopen in Container

Build

When in the Docker container, run either of these to build for Linux, Windows, or WebGL:

make OUTDIR=build/linux PLATFORM=PLATFORM_LINUX
make OUTDIR=build/windows PLATFORM=PLATFORM_WINDOWS
make OUTDIR=build/webgl PLATFORM=PLATFORM_WEB

This creates folders ./build/linux, ./build/windows, or ./build/webgl. The executables can be found inside these folders. The repository also has ready builds uploaded in the Releases tab.

If you get errors, please create an Issue.

Usage

You are enocuraged to use the command line interface (CLI), as some features (such as .wav loading) are only supported via command line arguments.

CLI example:

• cd "[...]/BVHView/"
• ./bvhview.exe --bvh="./assets/bvh/genea/trn_2023_v0_000_main-agent.bvh" --wav="./assets/wav/genea/trn_2023_v0_000_main-agent.wav" (Remove .exe on Linux)

You can find example files in assets folder.

Args

All arguments are optional. Some additional undocumented options exist in the original source.

Data

• --bvh : Path to a .bvh animation data file.
• --wav : Path to a .wav audio file.
• --mesh : Path to a .gltf mesh. If not specified, capsules will be drawn instead. If .bvh is not specified, the mesh will be loaded with a default pose, otherwise it will be animated.

Recording

• --record : Toggle recording of the 3D scene (this hides the window and UI). Default is disabled.
• --recordFps : Toggle the FPS at which to record. Default is 30.
• --recordDirectory : Specify an absolute or relative path where recordings will be saved. Default is output/video in the working directory.
• --recordName : Specify the name of the recording. Default is the name of the .bvh file.

Camera

• --cameraTrack (boolean) : Forces the camera to track a bone.
• --cameraTrackBone (int) : Specifies which bone ID to track if --cameraTrack is specified.

Ground

• --groundGridX (int) : The number of grid cells along the X axis. Default=11
• --groundGridZ (int) : The number of grid cells along the Z axis. Default=11
• --groundCellWidth (float) : The size of each grid cell. Default=2.0

Mesh support

BVHView (specifically raylib) supports .gltf, not .fbx meshes. Read below how you can obtain those.

SMPLX (BEAT2)

There is provided compatibility with SMPLX for the BEAT2 dataset.

1. Download the SMPLX meshes from TBD.
2. Extract the .zip to a location of your choice.
3. Setup the smpl2bvh fork for the GENEA Leaderboard.
4. Convert BEAT2 .npz files with: python smpl2bvh.py --gender NEUTRAL --poses "[...]/1_wayne_0_2_2.npz" --output "[...]/output.bvh"
5. Load the bvh with BVHView (Linux): ./bvhview --bvh="[...]/output.bvh" --mesh="[...]/smplx_neutral.gltf"
   • Make sure to export with the same gender (smpl2bvh) as the mesh you want to load:
     • For smplx_male.gltf : --gender MALE
     • For smplx_female.gltf : --gender FEMALE
     • For smplx_neutral.gltf : --gender NEUTRAL
     • If you don't do this, you can still load .bvh files on all meshes, but the angles may be wrong.

Custom meshes

Convert fbx meshes with Blender:

Note: BVHView is a small software written in C and bvh-mesh compatibility is not polished. The instructions may be different for you based on your character specification.

1. Setup
   1. Install Blender (Official website, Steam)
   2. Start Blender
   3. Delete all scene objects (Camera, Cube, Light...)
2. Import
   1. File > Import > FBX (.fbx)
   2. Select your .fbx mesh
   3. Import settings:
      1. Reset settings via Restore Operator Defaults
      2. Disable Animation
   4. Press Import FBX
3. Configure model
   1. In Object Mode select your armature and then Object > Apply > All transforms
   2. In Object Mode select your mesh and then Object > Apply > All transforms
4. Export
   1. File > Export > glTF 2.0 (.glb/.gltf)
   2. Choose export directory
      • Example: [...]/BVHView/assets/models/<your_model_folder/>
   3. Choose a file name
      • Warning: you should update the contents of the exported .gltf file if you rename any files after the export
   4. Export settings:
      1. Reset settings via Restore Operator Defaults
      2. Format > glTF Separate (.gltf + .bin + textures)
      3. Disable Animation
   5. Press Export glTF 2.0
   6. Test export by running ./bvhview --mesh="<path_to_gltf>"

Texture issues

If textures are not loaded correctly or visible, it could be due to texture files not being .png or .jpg -- only .png and .jpg are supported currently. For other formats, you should uncomment the corresponding lines in /raylib/raylib/src/config.h, rebuild raylib, then rebuild BVHView.

Broken mesh issues

If your mesh or animation looks broken, it is likely because the BVH animation and model are incompatible. Diagnosing these issues is tricky, but you can try the following:

• Ensure your BVH and model have the same bone hierarchy. Different hierarchies can cause bone rotations to be loaded for the wrong bones.
  • You may need to enable Add Leaf Bones when exporting .gltf from Blender.
• Ensure ZXY rotation order in your BVH files.
• Ensure your model's root bone is exported as a bone and not a model / object.
• Ensure you use the same naming scheme in the model and BVH.
  • Namespaces shouldn't cause issues, but they could be used for data validation in the future.

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BVHView (original description)

BVHView is a simple .bvh animation file format viewer built using raylib.

bvhview_low.mp4

• Download (Windows)
• Project Page
• Web Demo

Building

Windows

Download and install MinGW in some form. Perhaps w64devkit or MSYS2.

Download raylib into C:/raylib/raylib.

Download raygui into C:/raylib/raygui.

Build raylib by going to C:/raylib/raylib/src and running make.

Download this repo and run make in the main directory to build bvhview.exe.

To build a release version with optimizations enabled and no console window run make BUILD_MODE=RELEASE in the main directory instead.

Linux

Download raylib into ~/raylib/raylib.

Download raygui into ~/raylib/raygui.

Follow this guide to install any dependencies.

Build raylib by going to ~/raylib/raylib/src and running make.

Download this repo and run make in the main directory to build bvhview.

To build a release version with optimizations enabled run make BUILD_MODE=RELEASE in the main directory instead.

Other

For other platforms you should be able to build BVHView by hacking the Makefile a bit. Contributions here welcome.