Something strange just happened! I used to import animations and tweak them, but today after a restart when I try to import the same animation that I was working on before the restart I get the message ‘Warning: There is already a skeleton in the scene with the name “root”. Aborting #’
Can you help me out? This issue came from nowhere after an unrelated update.
update
Nevermind, the problem was due to the fact that maya fbx plugin got disabled by itself…now it works
I made a leaf joint under the wrist for the weapon. I need to space switch it under chest / back to wrist. But I can’t because the space switching isn’t setup to handle the default location.
Sadly all those animations I made will need to be re-adjusted for this 
I must go back and change it to be parented under root instead of the wrist.
I need to go back and redo the skeleton but I can’t because it errors when I click <-Skeleton Placement:
# Error: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'Nothing counted : no polygonal object is selected.'
# Traceback (most recent call last):
# File "D:/Development/UE4.5/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py", line 7103, in unlock
# continueProc = self.cacheWeights()
# File "D:/Development/UE4.5/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.' #
Have to go all the way to the beginning and just transfer weights across later 
Edit: Your space switching is very buggy. It attempts to match the pose, and it succeeds except without reducing the other influence. Now if I have it set to the chest, and switch to the hand, it sets the wrist to 1 and doesn’t set the chest to 0. Then if I do that manually I lose the matching.
Also: I have no way of knowing if I have the latest version or not or if updating will solve anything or what has been solved in later updates already. Need a changelog and version.
Edit 2: I manually reproduced the steps in your code for space switching and it worked, the issue is related to it not resetting the other custom spaces to 0. The code is there, but it’s under a try: statement so it’s obviously failing but you aren’t catching the error … for example:
try:
doing this
except KeyError:
print "Had a key error!",
By printing instead of using cmds.error it’ll continue on but will still print what the error was, adding the comma to the end of the print string it will reduce the additional white space following the print command so it shows up in the script line.
I recently had to re-install UE4 and update it to 4.4.3 (in this process i had a problem and ended up un-installing ue4). When i attempted to access old animations i had done, i realized that the character file i had used was gone (due to the un-install). Is there any way to retrieve this? I have all the maya projects that contain all my animations.
, is there a way to import animations with root motion and preserve the motion? I mean whenever I import a fbx with root motion, the motion itself get removed.
Thanks in advance
That has nothing to do with ART and a quick search will answer your question.
First, if you have the answer it would be nice to say it, instead of an obvious phrase like search it.
Second, yeah sure if I use maya import fuction to load the fbx it gets with the root motion, however when I use art import function (the one inside ART UI) all root motions become zeroed to the middle of the master.
Your question is indiscernible from importing into UE4.
**
however when I use art import function (the one inside ART UI) all root motions become zeroed to the middle of the master. …**
I was never referring to UE4, but only to ART since we are in a thread about ART.
, the auto hips is not working anymore on rigs created by me. Is there a way to fix it? Regards
Update: Nevermind I just realized that this feature got broken after some update but it isn’t very used.
Hi, great tool, I have two questions someone might be able to answer:
in the weight painting step I created custom controlls to test out deformation on leaf joints and blendshapes for my face rig.
Is there any way to keep these bones from being changed by the “build control rig” step? Atm my custom controls get broken when doing so (set driven keys to be specific) and I would have to key them all over again in the rig file. Not a mayor problem but it would save me quite some time if I could just exclude those bones since no further controls have to be build for them (maybe its possible using the pro-build script funktion? I have no idea about MEL).
And secondly:
How would I go about adding my custom controllers to the rig the art tool creates so that they can be reset using the animation tool?
Edit:
Already answered in the Answerhub, thank you again 
,
regarding the root motion not being imported, I just realized that animations with root (like ‘RootmotionExample’ inside UE4 example contents) does not import the root motion, instead animations without root (or with hip as root) does bring the root motion when imported.
Regards
Hey folks,
Just got back from holiday break. There are a ton of threads to go through and I’ll try to hit them all today. Please be patient while I work through all of the questions on here and on answer hub and let me know if I missed one!
Thanks!
** But I can’t because the space switching isn’t setup to handle the default location.**
Not sure what you mean here? There is a space actually called Default, which is the default parent space. Plus, you can create any object you want and put it in any hierarchy, and make that a custom space. There shouldn’t be a reason to go back and do anything.
It attempts to match the pose, and it succeeds except without reducing the other influence. Now if I have it set to the chest, and switch to the hand, it sets the wrist to 1 and doesn’t set the chest to 0. Then if I do that manually I lose the matching.
Sounds like it must have errored at some point, then, otherwise it would have continued through to zeroing out the other spaces. Not sure what it would have failed on. Most likely, incoming connections?
I have no way of knowing if I have the latest version or not or if updating will solve anything or what has been solved in later updates already. Need a changelog and version.
The dropbox location always has latest, regardless of the engine version. I don’t control engine version releases and have no idea what changelist of the tools gets included with an engine version release, so the dropbox is always the safest place to find latest.
I believe I replied to your answer hub about this.
Hm, I see what you mean. That was done to suit our pipeline here, but I can see how you may not want that result. So it depends on what you’re actually looking for here.
For instance, the root itself has a rig control that is not the master (it’s a little purple sphere) that you could transfer that motion to post import. It’s hard to explain, but our workflow here for root motion generally goes like this:
-animator creates animation the way they want, not worrying about root and animating only body and limb controls (no master)
-the animator then animates the purple sphere (root) the way they want the root to follow(generally, this is a point constraint with maintain offsets to the body control)
-end result gets exported and you now have root motion animation.
by animating the master directly, you’re still getting root motion because the root control will follow with. I don’t have a quick fix for getting mocap to directly import onto the master, but if the above method would suit your needs, it might be the way to go.
Sorry about that, and sorry for the delay. I was attempting to enjoy some vacation time and got sick instead 
yep, sorry about that. Working on getting a roadmap made public soon so I can share the priority order of what’s coming up and what features/fixes are under way.
Hey there! I think I followed up with you on your answer hub threads. let me know if you have any further questions there!
Let me know if the previous response addressed this. In the quick test I did, I just made an animation on the rig on the master control moving forward. When bringing it back in, you’re correct, it puts that motion instead on the hips and the master has no keys. I think that’s what you’re pointing out here? Sorry if I didn’t understand!
I think I got everyone or got them on their answer hub threads. If I didn’t, please let me know!
Thanks! and Happy New Year!
Thanks for the answer , luckily I started by myself to work on a pipeline similar to that one that you just told me. That said, I would get the opportunity to ask you for an advice. Let’s say that i’m doing cover animation and I would like to keep a root motion in the stand to cover transition (let’s say that he turn 180 against the wall with a slight translation). Before adding root motion, to actually rotate and translate the character, would be better to move the body_anim or the offset_anim control? I mean if I move the body_anim control I will have to adjust things like knee vector to follow body rotation but having the feet grounded (in case i’m using ik on them), however if I move the offset_anim control I will not have much work with knee vector (other than few adjustments) but my feet will follow the control thus requiring me to change their space to something external before starting animation so I can keep them steady and work separately.
I’m asking this because you can archive the same result with both method but surely they follow two different path and one them might give better result/less headaches on the long run. I would like to hear a good suggestion from someone who has better experience than me.
Thanks in advance