BVHView (fork)

This repo is a fork of BVHView developed by Daniel Holden. This BVHView version has been developed for the GENEA Leaderboard research project.

Roadmap & features

The features below target the command line usage of BVHView. If a feature is "checked", it does not guarantee that the feature will be properly implemented in the GUI.

• 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

(The list could change with time.)

Dependencies

Raylib

Used to open a window, render GUI and graphics (OpenGL), and process user input.

1. Prepare raylib (refer to the original BVHView instructions).
2. Uncomment #define SUPPORT_FILEFORMAT_JPG in raylib/raylib/src/config.h
   • This allows loading .jpg textures for user meshes
   • Other formats have not been tested, but feel free to try
3. Build raylib by running make -B in raylib/raylib/src
4. Build raygui (refer to the original BVHView instructions)

cwalk

Convenience library for manipulating file paths.

1. Download include/cwalk.h and src/cwalk.c from here.
2. Copy cwalk.h and cwalk.c to the src/external folder in this repository.
3. The Makefile will handle the rest when you start building.

FFmpeg

Used to record videos by streaming the raylib framebuffer.

1. Refer to the original FFmpeg instructions.

Building

Refer to the original BVHView instructions.

Usage

It is recommended that you run the software via 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. There are many undocumented arguments that Daniel already included in the 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

Executable

Windows:

• For releases at BVHView/bvhview.exe
• For your own builds at build/BVHView/bvhview.exe

Linux:

• There are no releases currently
• For your own builds at build/BVHView/bvhview

Importing your mesh

Loading your mesh in BVHView is trickier than other DCC and game engines which have been developed for a long time. For example, there is currently no .fbx support to import a mesh (but we can use .gltf instead).

The steps below guide you through the process of preparing your mesh for BVHView. Note that these steps may differ depending on your character -- you may need to play with the import/export settings, textures, bone orientation.

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
      4. (You may need to set Textures to export the textures as files.)
   5. Press Export glTF 2.0
   6. Test export by running ./bvhview --mesh="<path_to_gltf>"

Texture issues

If your textures are not loaded correctly or visible, it could be due to:

• Texture file is not .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. While it is tricky to diagnose these issues, you can take some measures to reduce the risk of your animation breaking:

• Ensure your BVH and model have the same bone hierarchy. This includes making sure that your "root" bone is in in fact a bone, and not the model object itself.
• Use the same naming scheme between model and BVH, namespaces included. (This is unlikely to cause issues for now, but 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.