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

[ernstAlert]

@;184188

Thanks for the amazing tool. I have some feedback and bugs to report. I just updated from your dropbox before testing and re-checking these.

Feedback

• Joint Placement: The default rotations for the objects correlating to joint placement should be oriented to world space! This makes my process of placing the joints take literally over 10x longer than it should and I’m not exaggerating There doesn’t seem to be a way to zero out all their rotations and I actually have to eyeball them, then go from there… Other things I have tried break symmetry. Ideally this would be the default (0,0,0 rather than -5.132, 9.1, 0.093 for example). Fingers / Thumb is the major one here. There is an ‘auto world space’ option but it doesn’t help much.

Bugs - Occur with Maya 2013

• When you need to make a change you can’t actually go back and do it. I forgot a leaf joint I needed and now I have to start from square 1 just to add it in. It says depending on the change some weight may not be restored and so forth but when I click OK it gives this error:

# Traceback (most recent call last):
#   File "D:/Development/UnrealEngine-4.5.0-release/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 7103, in unlock
#     continueProc = self.cacheWeights()
#   File "D:/Development/UnrealEngine-4.5.0-release/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 10868, in cacheWeights
#     for i in range(int(verts)):
# ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'Nothing counted : no polygonal object is selected.' # 

• Using the OS File Dialog instead of the Maya File Dialog causes a crash without any error or warning when saving templates. A lot of people thought 2011 replaced it, it just made an alternative the default option, find it here: Preferences → Settings → Files/Projects → File Dialog.

• Sometimes the shape nodes are named _Shape instead of _DeformedShape for no transparent reason and it prevents me binding to it, have to go back to export file and duplicate the mesh and I can no longer use the original name. This happened in an entirely new file, too.

// Error: line 0: No object matches name: Facial|UV_Grps|Hair|Hair_Geo|Hair_GeoShapeDeformed // 

The name of the object I’m trying to bind and it’s hierarchy starting from world are like this: UV_Grps -> Hair -> -> Hair_Geo (-> Hair_GeoShape).

• Using an Ascii file results in an error that is unrelated to the issue, using Binary solves it - I don’t have the message on hand. Occurs near the end of the process.

Heya! Not sure entirely what you’re looking for in regard to the default joint rotations. I can’t imagine you mean all joints should be in world space? If you could provide some imagery, it might help me understand what you’re looking for there.

I wonder if that issue you’re having is also related to the shape name issue you mentioned. I have no idea why Maya would be naming your shapes all inconsistently, but the tool isn’t touching those, but it is probably expecting some consistency.
I can make a change to the dropbox files to fix this though. I can make sure that if it can’t find the vertices, it just skips and doesn’t error out for you. I’ll post an update on here when that’s done!

the ascii file throws an unknown node error when the tool goes to save as a binary. It’s an annoying Maya issue that is meant to protect the user from plugin issues, but yeah…usually just ends up being an annoyance.