In your script editor, under history I believe, can you turn on ‘show stack trace’ and ‘show line numbers’ and then repost the error you get? That should help narrow it down.
Oh, also, what version of Maya are you running?
Hey there!
You sure can! That particular asset wasn’t built on the standard skeleton the rig comes with, but that’s no a prob. You can just right click the asset and export as an FBX:
Then bring that into your content creation app and make whatever animations you want on that skeleton, then export those fbxs when done and make sure to import back onto the same skeleton uAsset:
Skeleton’/Game/Character/HeroFPP_Skeleton.HeroFPP_Skeleton’
Heya,
There is actually a thread on this here:
with the files you will need.
Reposting that link here
Dropbox - EpicMarketPlace_Assets - Simplify your life?
The way you’re doing it sounds fine. Do you happen to have another node in your scene named weapon? That seems like what is probably the case here. Export motion creates a duplicate of the skeleton, so if it were to try to create a duplicate joint named weapon, and something already existed named weapon, it would rename to weapon1.
The part it is erroring out on is when it is trying to constrain the dupe skeleton joint to the original one using the newly created name (so it’s trying to run constrain hand_r|weapon1 to character:hand_r|character:weapon1)
Sounds like you’re only using the files from the dropbox, which are only updates to the scripts/icons and do not contain the complete toolset (not allowed to put the full tools in there). You need to take the dropbox files and overwrite the files that come with the UE4 install in the extras folder.
Thanks for the links.
The way you’re doing it sounds fine. Do you happen to have another node in your scene named weapon? That seems like what is probably the case here. Export motion creates a duplicate of the skeleton, so if it were to try to create a duplicate joint named weapon, and something already existed named weapon, it would rename to weapon1.
The part it is erroring out on is when it is trying to constrain the dupe skeleton joint to the original one using the newly created name (so it’s trying to run constrain hand_r|weapon1 to character:hand_r|character:weapon1)
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for your quick response. This was exactly what was going on - my imported dummy geometry was under the namespace “weapon” and it clashed. Thanks so much for the help and the tool.
Thanks for replying! I found a workaround for this problem, just switched from maya 2012 to maya 2013 and it worked like a charm, no problems.
Some feedback and issues (Maya 2015):
-
Ever since I installed this, whenever I open Maya by selecting an .mb file, it opens the .mb file and then immediately closes it and leaves me with a new document. This is a real pain and happens every time.
-
Forcing a nonstandard orientation is a pain. I have to keep changing it back and forth, and it breaks compatibility with lots of assets. It’d be nicer to rotate things around at export, and do things the Maya way while in Maya.
-
The “Create Rig Pose” dialog is cut off. I see “Save Rig Pose” and the second button is cut off halfway.
-
The Publish Character dialog is also cut off. I had to edit the source for this one to be able to click Build (it won’t tab to offscreen controls).
-
The first time though, I think I closed the rig pose dialog without doing anything, and the “skeleton creation” and “deformation setup” buttons were stuck greyed out. I could bring the dialog back with Ref Pos Manager -> Reset Rig Pose, but when I selected Save Rig Pose the dialog just closed and the UI was still stuck. I had to start over and select Save Rig Pose the first time through before the “Skin Proxy Mesh” dialog appeared. (The exceptions below left me in a similar state. Reselecting rig generator from the menu can reset the UI and fix this, but in case it’s leaving objects in a bad state I reload when it happens anyway.)
-
I hit undo during skeleton placement and it went back to skeleton creation. I then hit redo, the skeleton reappeared, but I was still in the skeleton placement panel.
-
The global and object movement modes are showing different results. This is supposed to just act like a different movement tool and shouldn’t show different results, right? My middle spine is much further forward in global compared to object, and scales applied in global disappear in object. (I’m assuming it’s okay to scale things at this point and that they’ll be fixed later on, since scaling isn’t locked.)
-
When I clicked “deformation setup” after roughing in the joints against a mesh, I got two prompts to update the poses. After hitting yes to both, I got an exception:
# Error: setAttr: The attribute 'thumb_02_geo_mover_r.scaleX' is locked or connected and cannot be modified.
# Traceback (most recent call last):
# File "maya/scripts/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 12751, in createRigPose_execute
# self.lock_phase1b(None)
# File "maya/scripts/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 13809, in lock_phase1b
# self.setRigPose_JM()
# File "maya/scripts/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 13125, in setRigPose_JM
# cmds.setAttr(mover + ".sx", float(sx))
# RuntimeError: setAttr: The attribute 'thumb_02_geo_mover_r.scaleX' is locked or connected and cannot be modified. #
After wiping clean and starting over I didn’t get this error and I’m not sure what I did to trigger it.
I tried for a bit to import an existing skin (renaming joints to match), since I have a skinned model I’m learning with and I don’t want to reskin it, but didn’t have much luck. Going to take a break…
No object matches name: :Skeleton_Settings
No object matches name: :Skeleton_Settings
I placed this question in UE4 Answer Hub last night. But, I thought it would be wise to ask it here for those that may not visit the hub.
*I’ve tried to solve this problem by editing the Art_Animation.py line 6019 and change the :Skeleton_Settings to E3DVamper:Skeleton_Settings but it just sends me to the next issue of Rig_Settings name not found.
I’ve downloaded the latest Maya Tools from 's Dropbox. When I open the Export File I see the Skeleton_Settings under JointMover and of course when I create a new scene and add the actor, the naming changes based on the referenced file so the Skeleton_Settings is now called E3DVamper :Skeletong_Settings
I don’t know what to do because every time I flip between keys or scrub the timeline this bright read error pops up. And today I noticed that when I try to access the Pose Library, it gives me the same error with a different line #*
apologies if this has been answered already but is there a on adding your custom mesh already out? I watched all the rigging tool tutorials, but i didnt see one on what you do to actually add your custom character to the rigging tool setup. if someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. thanks 
In the 6th video, 2:05 minutes in click “no” when it asks you to skin the Proxy Mesh. After it creates your skeleton select the root bone so it selects the entire skeleton, Shift-click your mesh so they’re both selected, and then “Skin” in the top menu, “Smooth Bind Skin.” Then you can use Epics skinning tools to get it just right.
thanks 
do you guys know if you can use the files for anything other than unreal?
You export it out as a FBX to get it into U4, so any other game engine/3d Package that allows for that file type should be able to use it.
I know I’ve mentioned this before probably in this thread and many times in the answerHub, but it’s important to remember these tools were initially developed for internal use and thus stuck to our conventions. Unfortunately, it didn’t get testing in Maya 2014 or Maya 2015 before its release as it was written for 2013 and that’s what we had access to. The Z-Up restriction is there because that’s what the pipeline at Epic has always been. I’m looking into ways to support Y up, but it’s definitely not trivial. Right now all of the rig code was written to fit that standard so supporting Y up means adding a lot of stuff in there to determine the upAxis and then do the operation accordingly. Like I said though, it’s definitely something I will look into when I get a chance.
As for the UI issues, I’m working on those with the new version currently. Not sure if you’ve seen that stuff, but it’s using a different UI language that works cross platform and independent of Maya. The problem with Autodesk is that between versions, they’ll deprecate certain commands that breaks tons of stuff. It’s good times.
**- I hit undo during skeleton placement and it went back to skeleton creation. I then hit redo, the skeleton reappeared, but I was still in the skeleton placement panel.
** this makes sense. Not sure how to solve off the top of my head. Undo/Redo work well with nodes, but not scripts.
- The global and object movement modes are showing different results. This is supposed to just act like a different movement tool and shouldn’t show different results, right? My middle spine is much further forward in global compared to object, and scales applied in global disappear in object. (I’m assuming it’s okay to scale things at this point and that they’ll be fixed later on, since scaling isn’t locked.)
They can definitely show different results. The offset control is manipulating just that ‘joint’ and not the rest of the chain, so you could move it away from its parent, which is the global control. There is an option under joint mover tools menu to get those in sync again (can’t remember what it’s called right now. bake to global I think)
What actually matters here is that sphere with the 3 arrows coming off of it. This is the LRA representation and it’s going to show you where the joint will actually be created. Everything else is just there to manipulate those in a faster fashion pretty much, so you can do whatever you want to them.
Heya!
I looked at this section of code, and it seems that you either don’t have an icon for this character, or the wrong one is showing up? In the top right of your UI, do you have an icon for the character? If you hover over it, what is the annotation that pops up?
The line it errors on is this one:
attrs = cmds.listAttr(name + “:” + “Skeleton_Settings”)
where name is the character name, which is found by querying the icon. So in this case, it’s finding nothing for name, and just leaving you with :Skeleton_Settings. Basically, this issue is coming from an issue with an icon. Not sure what’s going on there, but that’s where I’d look!
Sure, I know there are practical issues–just letting you know what I saw. I think I’ll move on for now, since this is designed with specific uses and workflow in mind and I’m looking for a general-purpose rigging tool. Thanks.
V2 of the tools is definitely being developed as this, which still trying to maintain maximum compatibility with the current version. You can see that progress here:
http://jeremyernst.com/devblog/
Thanks for your feedback! Hopefully we can get it to the point where people will see it as that, but admittedly, it’s not there at the moment.
Solved
Jeez. That did the trick, I created a folder and followed the same structure and naming format as the Mannequin.
No more error message. Thanks .
And the reason I didn’t have an icon is totally my fault. An error message popped up when I brought the character into the scene and figured,“Ah, it’s no big deal, its just an icon” Little did I know that ignoring that icon would slap me in the face and scream,“Lazy!”
High Memory usage when painting skin weights with ART tool
I’m using Maya 15 from work and wanted to mention that when skinning complex meshes with the ART tool over time my memory climbs up till windows asks me to close it to prevent data loss.
The rig in question: Image
I saw that Dakar also had mentioned this earlier in the thread:
I think it’s got something to do with history and undo states so I’ve been working around it when my mem gets high by exporting skin weights/reimporting the character into a new doc/loading skeleton/loading the pose/reimporting the weights/ and then continuing painting weights till it gets high again. It’s a bit of a hassle of a work around but it takes a while for my mem to get high so I can get a decent amount done each time.
I hope we can get some good support for Maya 15 soon, but I’ll see if I can get my hands on a version of 14 from work in the meantime
—EDIT with update!—
I’ve noticed that the ram usage built up over a few hours of work and after taking a break afk for about 20 minutes it returned to normal working usage by the time I returned. Not really sure what’s going on there. Felt like updating to mention that.