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

[anonymous_user_bb0e176f1 (anonymous_user_bb0e176f)]

@'[aCe

Total;97839’]Yep, I’m using Maya 2015

Have you noticed any other issues besides the cutting off of the A.R.T GUI in Maya 2015? What service pack are you running? Thanks!

[ernstAlert]

@AdamZ;98457

Have you noticed any other issues besides the cutting off of the A.R.T GUI in Maya 2015? What service pack are you running? Thanks!

nope, I think it’s just been an issue of some of the UI flags being deprecated. (thanks Autodesk!)

[ernstAlert]

@'[aCe

Total;97839’]Yep, I’m using Maya 2015

alrighty. All scripts updated in the dropbox with the UI fix.
Thanks!

[anonymous_user_1a500d7e]

@;98049

what’s your user name on your machine? Does it have any non US keyboard characters? If so, that would cause this.
That’s really the only thing that makes sense here.

Many thanks that was my problem now it works as spected, Thanks and cheers!!

[ernstAlert]

Hello!

I recorded a video today of where progress in going on the tools.
You can check it out here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10939513/ART_July18_media/ART_July18.wmv

I’ll also be starting a dev blog either this weekend or early next week to have all of this in a centralized place you can view and leave comments on. I’ll post the link when it’s ready!
Have a good weekend, all!

Edit: Boom! DevBlog up! Will be posting videos like the above hopefully every Friday up there as well as some in here!
http://jeremyernst.com/devblog/

[matttardiff]

@QuickBrownFox;100310

You’re doing great work man! Keep it up! I love the dev blog idea and the first post was great! Very excited about the idea of a modular rigging system as opposed to one just for bipeds.

Agreed. I’m excited for the additional modularity and improvements on an already amazing tool.

[AntonioE]

I’m really excited to test the new tool. It’s looking great.
Will it be compatible with rigs created with the previous tool?

[_aCe_Total]

@: You are doing a brilliant job with these Maya tools. Can’t wait to test your new tools!!

Btw, The ‘Edit existing character’-Window have the same problem in Maya 2015.

[ernstAlert]

@AntonioE;100563

I’m really excited to test the new tool. It’s looking great.
Will it be compatible with rigs created with the previous tool?

Oh, absolutely! It’s a must! Otherwise, the animators here would probably murder me

[anonymous_user_666cd738]

@'[aCe

Total;101268’]@: You are doing a brilliant job with these Maya tools. Can’t wait to test your new tools!!

Btw, The ‘Edit existing character’-Window have the same problem in Maya 2015.

+1, Edit existing character have the same problem. Other windows are now resizeables but this not.

[Devero]

@;99520

Hello!

I recorded a video today of where progress in going on the tools.
You can check it out here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10939513/ART_July18_media/ART_July18.wmv

I’ll also be starting a dev blog either this weekend or early next week to have all of this in a centralized place you can view and leave comments on. I’ll post the link when it’s ready!
Have a good weekend, all!

Edit: Boom! DevBlog up! Will be posting videos like the above hopefully every Friday up there as well as some in here!
DevBlog — Jeremy Ernst

Nice video , the new toolset seems more modular Can we get standard build options for the legs instead of just biped legs, such as Plantigrade, Digitigrade, or Unguligrade?
thanks!

[ernstAlert]

@;101437

+1, Edit existing character have the same problem. Other windows are now resizeables but this not.

updated! (dropbox location)

[ernstAlert]

@Devero;102076

Nice video , the new toolset seems more modular Can we get standard build options for the legs instead of just biped legs, such as Plantigrade, Digitigrade, or Unguligrade?
thanks!

yep! definitely in the plans. Wings, hindleg, foreleg, pistons, tank treads, wheels, tentacles, whatever the hell I can think of to make the weirdest creature possible

[Spade]

I’m having an issue where Maya 2015 fully crashes during the build of a control rig. I first noticed the issue when upgrading to the latest version of ART. I rolled back to an older version but still encountered the issue. I’ve now updated it again to use the build bundled with UE4.3 . I still have the issue even when trying to build the normal test geometry. I’ve also tried re-installing Maya. Still not sure if I am having an issue with Maya or ART, but ART is the only thing I’m having issues with.

Other issues I’ve experienced are saving at certain portions of building character rigs such as the weight painting section will cause a full crash. Those have been ongoing for me.

EDIT: Correction it seems I only experience that when saving my scene when in the joint mover.

I checked the crash logs and this was the first chunk of it, I can provide the full logs if necessary:

Exception code: C0000005: ACCESS_VIOLATION - illegal read at address 0xFFFFFFFF
Fault address: ECF96CA6 in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2015\bin\FOUNDATION.dll
0001:000C5CA6 Logical offset (see .map file for location)

[anonymous_user_666cd738]

@;102375

updated! (dropbox location)

Thanks !

Now works fine, yeah!

[anonymous_user_4721da8d]

I am having a few issues with the ART plugin. First off, the save/export feature in Maya seems to break things…for example…after I created the skeleton using the plugin and save/export to FBX and then I reopen the file in Maya …all the ART plugin associated data is corrupted or skewed on the screen. This has caused me a ton of frustration and has lead me to have to redo the entire rig setup numerous times trying to figure out what I am doing wrong when saving/exporting…until now I am starting to think it isn’t just me.

Secondly, I tried placing a control rig and this little camera thing pops up and now won’t go away. I included a screen shot.

[anonymous_user_4721da8d]

I really want to get this tool to work I believe it will be extremely helpful in our pipeline.

[anonymous_user_4721da8d]

@GameHatcher;102891

I am having a few issues with the ART plugin. First off, the save/export feature in Maya seems to break things…for example…after I created the skeleton using the plugin and save/export to FBX and then I reopen the file in Maya …all the ART plugin associated data is corrupted or skewed on the screen. This has caused me a ton of frustration and has lead me to have to redo the entire rig setup numerous times trying to figure out what I am doing wrong when saving/exporting…until now I am starting to think it isn’t just me.

Secondly, I tried placing a control rig and this little camera thing pops up and now won’t go away. I included a screen shot.

Just for clarity…

1. I use my own character model to place the proxy mesh and rig. (SKELETON CREATION)

2. I make sure everything fits and is in place where it should be. (TWEAK SKELETON PLACEMENT)

3. Here is where I save/export to FBX. (SAVED BEFORE MOVING FORWARD WITH RIGGING)

4. Once I reopen the file…all the proxy stuff is distorted. (FILE SEEMS TO UNDERGO SOME FORM OF CORRUPTION UPON SAVE/EXPORT)

5. The fix I have used…is just to NOT save until completed…(ALTHOUGH I AM STILL SLOWLY WORKING THROUGH FINISHING THE RIGGING TO GET IT RIGHT)

6. My question is…shouldn’t the file be able to be saved and reopened at anytime during the pipeline?

[iniside]

I’m having issues.
After clicking Skeleton Placement, the placement mesh is showing up, but menu doesn’t change.

# Error: ValueError: file D:/Unreal/Unreal Engine/4.3/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_jointMover.py line 1507: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''

Workaround for this, is to click Skeleton Creation, then thew Skeleton Placement menu show properly.

But clicking on anything, causes crash.

I’m using maya 2014. I downloaded the latest version from dropbox.

[anonymous_user_ecb5cc49]

Hi ,

I was having an issue regarding the error that some were posting about that said ART was giving the error “can’t convert string to float”. Well I did some digging and playing around and it seems it’s an issue with pickle on load. It is (as some have mentioned) an issue with line endings and it seems that git (at least for me) is what is causing this issue.

The short term fix for this for me was to tell git not to autocrlf so it would keep the line endings the same. I tried a few things like changing all the data files to binary on read and write and I also tried to open files with rU instead of just r which should tell it universal line endings. None of that seemed to work.

I think a long term fix would be to maybe add a try around pickle.load and if it fails try to convert the line endings (there are some py libs that do this like dos2unix). Or maybe on maya start just run through the files real quick (maybe on a bg thread) and make sure they are converted.

I took the easy way out on this one because I didn’t want to have to manage having a separate version of your code while you’re still actively updating it.

Anyway, those were my observations with this issue and some thoughts on it. Great work on this so far btw. It’s definitely a useful tool and I only see it becoming more useful as time goes on. Thanks for all the hard work on this.