GF5 GF5: Animating 3D Characters

Before coding

Setup and Viewer Guide

Previous: Overview Next: Part 1

This is the canonical student setup guide for running the GF5 viewer.

Create The Environment

From the repository root, create the course environment once:

mamba env create -f env.yml

Then activate it whenever you work on the project:

mamba activate gf5

If the environment already exists and the project has been updated, refresh it:

mamba env update -f env.yml --prune

Run The Viewer

Start the local viewer from the repository root:

python viewer/asset_viewer.py

This opens the viewer page in your browser automatically.

If the default port is already in use, choose another port:

python viewer/asset_viewer.py --port 8090

For a remote or headless session, suppress automatic browser opening:

python viewer/asset_viewer.py --no-open-browser

Then open the printed localhost URL in a browser or forward the printed port from the remote machine.

Files You Will Edit

For Part 1, implement forward kinematics in:

viewer/student_submission/part1_fk.py

For Part 2, implement one-hot and LBS skinning in:

viewer/student_submission/part2_skinning.py

Useful viewer files to read when following data flow:

  • viewer/asset_viewer.py
  • viewer/motion_sequences.py
  • viewer/smpl_support.py
  • viewer/skeleton_profiles.py

Main Viewer Controls

  • Motion and Animate: choose and play a built-in or custom motion clip.
  • Show Skeleton and Show Mesh: inspect the rig and visible character surface.
  • Selected Joint and Joint Editor: rotate individual joints and debug the hierarchy.
  • Timeline: capture keyframes for the custom Part 1 motion.
  • Export Motion Video: render evidence videos for the interim submission.

Local Files And Outputs

The viewer may create local working folders while you experiment:

  • libraries/poses/ and libraries/motions/custom/: local poses and custom motions from the viewer
  • exports/: rendered videos
  • .viewer_imports/: uploaded character packages

These folders are local outputs, not files you need to submit as source code.

Git Starter

If Git commands are new to you, use the Git starter guide as a quick reference for cloning, committing, pulling, and pushing.

SMPL Model Files

SMPL is needed for Part 2. The detailed download instructions are in Part 2. The expected local folder layout is:

assets/smpl/
assets/smpl/models/

You can also start the viewer with an explicit model path:

python viewer/asset_viewer.py --smpl-model /path/to/smpl/model.pkl

Troubleshooting

Run viewer commands from the repository root, the directory containing env.yml and viewer/. Running the command from the wrong directory is the most common cause of viewer/asset_viewer.py not being found.

If video export fails, check that ffmpeg is installed and available on PATH.

For more setup notes, see the FAQ.

Next Step

Once the viewer runs, continue to Part 1.