I have another problem. If create a Character, and completed him, if i edit character skinning changes or something and save, it not showing on Add Character but appear in “Edit Character”
Example, i create a Test1 character, i complete this and open this character with “Edit Character” and save this as Test2. Go to Add character and only shows Test1.
I’m not the expert on this but my guess would be your either not saving it in the right directory for ART to pick it up or ART doesn’t have all the information to do what you’re trying to do such as the ref files.
TBH, it sounds like you might be using this in a workflow that it wasn’t intended for.
For example. If I create a character named Test1 and I want a modified version of that character I think the way to do it is as you are creating Test1 you need to save things for it along the way. What I mean by this is that at nearly every step in ART there is the ability to save a template of the work you have so far. So at each step when creating Test1 you should save things like the skeleton template, the physique template, etc. And then to create Test2 you would go back through the process from the beginning and apply the templates and make the changes you want at that time.
If you already have Test1 and would like to go back and make a modified version of it and you didn’t save templates you can always tell ART you want to edit Test1 and then go through and save the templates for Test1. Then just create a new character with ART and apply the templates.
Additionally, if you just need to add a character for animation and the only difference is they have different meshes but their skeletons are the same you can do the animation on any rig that has the same skeleton and just import the animation into UE4 and everything will work as expected. You don’t need to do the animation on model you want to animate, just on the underlying skeleton.
I understand what you tell me, this is the method that i’m using now. But i don’t understand the “EditCharacter” use.
In the pipeline of ART:
Setup skeletal config
Setup skeletal position
Setup Skinning
Build Rig Control
When animating, if the skinning isn’t perfect and i need to edit, i go to “EditCharacter”, setup correct skinning, save and add the character with correct skinning. This isn’t working, if you save the character from “EditCharacter” dosn’t appear in “AddCharacter”. So, what is the function of “EditCharacter”?
How I would imagine this should work would be to “Edit Existing Character” and then “Edit Export File” of T1 (from the example we were talking about earlier). Do what you need to do in here and then re-publish the character as T2 like you mentioned before. I wouldn’t save the file directly but rather republish the character by clicking “Build Control Rig” at the end of the “wizard” and either saving it with a new name (which is basically save as) or overwriting the existing rig I’m editing (which is basically save). Saving this file as is (without renaming it) should do the same thing as republishing unless you have added joints or something so I don’t really think there is much difference when it comes to that. But if you want a second character (T2 in this case) I think you need to republish so the rig file gets built. If I remember right the rig file is what you use when you’re animating and if one isn’t created then you won’t see it in the menu for animation.
Hey guys, i wanted to export an animation of my character that has a weapon attached to the hand, so when i attach the weapon in unreal it won’t be any penetration. The problem is if i want to export the animation of the weapon which i made with my character, tried to att a namespace of the weapon as documentation said but the tool doesn’t recognize my weapon in the combobox. Anyone knows how to solve this problem? I’ve been like a month trying to figuring out how is the pipeline for weapons with this tool.
i’m having some issues however that i’d really like your help with…I’ve installed the plugin and clicked on the “character rig creator”. I then clicked “skeleton placement” after clicking yes to the popup i get this error and no mannequin shows up… any help would be much appreciated.
Error: RuntimeError: file C:/Users/Colin/Documents/maya/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_jointMover.py line 25: File not found.
i should add that im using maya 2015 and this is using the latest in the ART dropbox folder.
you can definitely save the file at any time during the process. The tools don’t care! Step 4 I’d be interested in seeing what you mean by that. Is the model just in a different pose? I’m assuming after step 2 and before you save/export, you go to the deformation phase, yeah? Otherwise, you don’t actually have a skeleton yet, since it gets created at that point in the process. If you are doing that phase and then saving, then the proxy geo would not be visible unless you chose to have it skinned. Saving should work regardless no matter what point in the pipeline you are, but exporting definitely requires you to be in deformation phase to get anything useable.
As for your other question about the camera window, that’s for building the rig. It asks you to take a screenshot to be used as a thumbnail.
ah, thanks for the useful info! I think I’ll need to switch away from the cPickle module and use something else, since git/perforce screw with line endings. I’ll pick something more friendly to write to.
Right, add character is populated only with characters that have been published (had their rigs built). Saving a second character (Test2) would require you to build the control rig for that character to get it to show up in Add Character.
Edit Existing Character is used to make edits to your export or rig file. This includes things like:
Export file:
-touching up skin weights
-changing joint placement (requires a rebuild)
-updating meshes
Rig file:
-Adding new controls
-hooking up morph targets to controls
-making control adjustments (locking attributes, etc)
Heya!
The scripts/icons in the dropbox folder are not the full package. You’ll want to use those to overwrite the ones that come with your Unreal Engine install. The error above is basically saying that you don’t have the JointMover.mb file in your MayaTools directory.
In C:\Users\your name\Documents\maya\2014-x64\scripts there should be a text document named mayaTools open it and paste the path of your mayaTools (mine is D:\Unreal Engine\Maya_AnimationRiggingTools).
Not sure if this is the right place, but what I personally want to really see is more documentation and video tutorials about implementation of animations with C++, and as little blueprints as possible, controlling animmontages etc from code for instance. Would love to know. Thanks
I’m using Maya to create facial rigs in order to combine them with the ART toolkit, but I found that one of the main problem when building face rigs is that it has multiple roots and UE4 don’t like that.
Since I’m wasting time ( testing also other freeware rigs around the web having always the same error ) is there a more or less release date for the Facial Rigging toolkit?
By the way I would love to be a beta tester for the facial rigging tool
Thanks.