Animation and Rigging Tools: FAQ, Known Issues and Feature Roadmap

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@rujuro;546669

Hi, Thanks for tracking down that root motion issue , I am back with another issue! Chances are this is my lack of understanding about something, but I was trying to edit the vert weights on my mesh Using “Edit Rig File” (because I wanted to test wrist movement and associated forearm twist while painting the weights). I didn’t see any description of “Edit Rig File” in the docs, so I am not sure if it is even ever supposed to be used, my guess is that changes to weighting in that file won’t propagate to any exported animations? When I went to “build control rig”, I got an error:

# Error: setAttr: The attribute 'root.translateX' is locked or connected and cannot be modified.
# Traceback (most recent call last):
#   File "F:/[xxxxx]/RawArtAssets/AnimationTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 8883, in publish_UI_TakeScreenshot
#     self.screenshot_thumbnailCreationAndCheck(project, characterName, handCtrlSpace)
#   File "F:/[xxxxx]/RawArtAssets/AnimationTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 8650, in screenshot_thumbnailCreationAndCheck
#     self.publish(project, characterName, handCtrlSpace)
#   File "F:/[xxxxx]/RawArtAssets/AnimationTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 7659, in publish
#     self.setRigPose_Skel()
#   File "F:/[xxxxx]/RawArtAssets/AnimationTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 6924, in setRigPose_Skel
#     cmds.setAttr(mover + ".tx", float(tx))
# RuntimeError: setAttr: The attribute 'root.translateX' is locked or connected and cannot be modified. # 

Is this expected? Are you only supposed to edit weighting on the “Export Rig”? Also, I notice that by default the lowerarm_r gets the bulk of the vert weights assigned which messes with the forearm twist from the wrist. Should only the twist bones be included as influences (I am using two)? I want to understand the intended use of the rig. Thanks!

Finally, I was having a lot of trouble getting the range of motion tool to work. When I would click it with bones selected from the list, it usually complained that nothing was selected. Sometimes it would generate motion, but not for the bone I had currently selected, and any future attempt to generate motion would just regenerate the same bones, ignoring my selection.

ah!
So edit rig file was added way after the docs and I never updated them, but it’s used by us for two things mainly, to write and test our post-build scripts and to edit weighting on the actual rig.
However, with weighting, you can do it, but you will not be able to manipulate the joints as they are being driven by the rig. So, if you’re trying to get back to model pose, that won’t really work (you could do it by exporting that pose from the export file as an FBX and import it as mocap using the import motion tool). Also, if editing the rig, it’s honestly best to save out the weights and load them in the export file. The rig file will get re-created any time a rebuild happens, so you don’t want to lose those changes!

What I prefer to do, is open the rig file, animate a test that I want to weight to, and then export that out as an FBX animation using the export motion tool. Then in the export file, I can just import that animation onto my skeleton and weight from there. When I’m done, I just delete all the keys and ‘assume rig pose’ to get everything back to normal.