Mixamo All Access account

dreampunchboy

So after looking at the options and a bit of motivation last night I decided to get it.
http://www.mixamo.com/pricing

$1499 / year. So I was hoping someone here might have the same motivation
and would want to go 50/50 on the account.

It would be like a kid from a divorced marriage. We can make turns having it over for weekends...
Send me a PM if you are interested.

mattbenic

Does their licensing allow for sharing like this?

dreampunchboy

mattbenic said:

Does their licensing allow for sharing like this?

I hearted your post because it looked like a downvote :)
But no, I'm gonna go with no.

mattbenic

And there's no un-heart :)

But no, I'm gonna go with no.

Then just be aware that while you should be ok using these resources for private/mess-around projects, you'll probably want to buy your own license if you end up releasing something that uses them to be safe.

@LexAquilla can probably give more useful comments on the risks you might run using a split account like that.

dreampunchboy

@LexAquilla can probably give more useful comments on the risks you might run using a split account like that.

Thanks so much man

Fengol

mattbenic said:

And there's no un-heart :)

Hit refresh, see Unheart option ;)

LexAquillia

From their EULA:

One account, one user. Mixamo accounts are not to be shared. If you need to get several All Access accounts, you can save big time by buying them at the same time. Email sales@mixamo.com to get a sweet discount. If you share your account with someone else, we will know. We will hunt you. We will find you. And… we’ll make you watch Taken 2. Just don’t do it.

So no, no sharesees

Elyaradine

When I played with their stuff last year as part of a competition/promotion, they had a lot of mocap, and some of it was really quite good, but it's either extremely useful or absolutely useless depending on your game.

And the fact that it's pretty much a "stock mocap" place means that, by nature of being stock, for the most part they're trying to create the most generic, broad, general stuff that they can think of. Which, right now, is pretty much first person shooters. And while there's some leeway in getting stuff to feel snappy by tweaking the animation speed, it doesn't always give a believable feel for the result and lacks weight (as would happen when you're trying to repurpose one animation for another use). But basically, building your game with their mocap as a limitation pretty much forces your game to be generic imo.

As far as I know they sell some of their animations in packs. I imagine those would work out much cheaper, and let you sample some of their stuff, see if it actually works in your game, before dropping a crazy amount of money on something like that.

dreampunchboy

Elyaradine said:

When I played with their stuff last year as part of a competition/promotion, they had a lot of mocap, and some of it was really quite good, but it's either extremely useful or absolutely useless depending on your game.

And the fact that it's pretty much a "stock mocap" place means that, by nature of being stock, for the most part they're trying to create the most generic, broad, general stuff that they can think of. Which, right now, is pretty much first person shooters. And while there's some leeway in getting stuff to feel snappy by tweaking the animation speed, it doesn't always give a believable feel for the result and lacks weight (as would happen when you're trying to repurpose one animation for another use). But basically, building your game with their mocap as a limitation pretty much forces your game to be generic imo.

As far as I know they sell some of their animations in packs. I imagine those would work out much cheaper, and let you sample some of their stuff, see if it actually works in your game, before dropping a crazy amount of money on something like that.

Great advice, thanks so much.

dreampunchboy

LexAquillia said:

From their EULA:

One account, one user. Mixamo accounts are not to be shared. If you need to get several All Access accounts, you can save big time by buying them at the same time. Email sales@mixamo.com to get a sweet discount. If you share your account with someone else, we will know. We will hunt you. We will find you. And… we’ll make you watch Taken 2. Just don’t do it.

Mind sharing a link? Can't find anything like that here:
http://www.mixamo.com/home/legal

LexAquillia

Actual clausefrom the EULA is this:

3.4 For the avoidance of the doubt, the All Access license is per-seat and does not allow the concurrent use of the same login/account by more than one user. All Mixamo All Access subscription fees and charges are nonrefundable and there are no refunds or subscription fee credits for partially used annual periods, provided, however, that a User may receive a refund of the User’s Mixamo All Access annual subscription fee if the User requests such refund within 24 hours of the time of purchase or renewal of the Mixamo All Access annual subscription.

(my emphasis)

The section I quoted above is from their FAQ (which is in non-lawyer speak) :)

dreampunchboy

The section I quoted above is from their FAQ (which is in non-lawyer speak) :)

Haha, ok thanks.

bischonator

Elyaradine said:

But basically, building your game with their mocap as a limitation pretty much forces your game to be generic imo.

I disagree, The mocap should be a base - you can tweak them in Max if needed. We have found the quality to be AAA and added to that with All Access you can request Custom movement with a short wait. What is the alternative? Comissioning mocap is a heck of an expensive exercise. Key framing?

I suggest that interested parties should grab their free caps and check them out. http://www.mixamo.com/motions

Elyaradine

Okay, I concede that you can still make lots of different types of games using the mocap, and the game itself won't necessarily be generic. That was an overstatement.

In my experience, pretty art sells screenshots, but great animation sells personality, feeling, and responsive gameplay. I feel that the nature of stock is that it's meant to be generic, and you lose out on all of the personality that'd really make your art come alive.

In your case, Stasis, for example, can use the mocap much better because the entire game is pretty much cinematic, and isn't rooted in having to have (character) animations that are tight and responsive. But if anything art-related in the game could use improvement from what I've seen, it would be the character animations, which I feel are dull and quite lifeless.

When we made Bladeslinger, we went the mocap route at the start. In the end, we used mocap for one cutscene in the entire game. All of the rest of the cutscenes and gameplay animations were key-framed. Granted, some of this can be written up to our recording custom mocap as people who were probably really inexperienced with having to record that stuff, but I've been told by animators with far more experience than I have that the amount of time needed to clean up (even professional) mocap to get the timing and weight working right for solid, gameplay-friendly animation that sells personality is about the same amount of time as it'd take to do it fresh -- but that you end up with a far less satisfactory result with much less personality and the nuances that really sell a character. There are games where it's worth it. For the most part (i.e. almost all of the indie games I've seen?), I don't think so.

dreampunchboy

As a total noob to all of this I'm finding this conversation very informative. Thanks :P

Chris_Bischoff

The animations in Mixamo aren't suited to 'just' FPS games. I would say that a very small % are based on the classic 'soldier in a war zone' game.

There is everything from Tombraider style acrobatics, soccer moves, swords, bows and arrows, sky diving, death, jumping, rowing, driving, climbing, farming, super hero moves (spider man style swinging, flying) 'Matrix' style fighting, MMA fighting, boxing...and the library is constantly being updated.

As a resource you could either use these as a base for animations or use them completely 'out of the box'. While for a more stylized game they may not be ideal - but for a game where you are after realistic motions for your characters you really cant go wrong with Mixamo. Of course having an animator provide custom animations for your characters is going to be better, but if you had access to an animator you wouldn't really be looking at a service like Mixamo - thats not where they are aiming their product.