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

[Shepherd]

I installed Art on Maya 2016 and it seems to be throwing a wobbly here and there. Is there a later version of the ART Tools I can grab somewhere or do I need to wait for the next Engine Update?

Script loads fine in 2016 with some deprecation warnings here and there. And then throws some errors for certain functions.

I can post more details if that would help but I am certain you already tried 2016 by now:-P

[pabe]

Epic Games plug-in not showing up. RESOLVED

@Anitlunia;268051

Hi! I just followed the tutorial to install the toolkit in Maya 2014, and the menu bar “Epic Games” doesn’t appear. I’ve reset it and nothing. I am missing something?

Hey, i had the same problem. I menaged to fix this after coupple hours of intense research.

1. Search for “usersetup” files in you computer browser.
2. Delete all usersetup.py/usersetup.pyd files.
3. Remember locations where you deleted these files.
4. Copy fresh usersetup.py from UE4/extras.
5. Paste only in one location (where you deleted before) at a time.
6. Run Maya.
7. If nothing happens - delete usersetup.py you recently added.
8. Try other location.
9. Location which succeeded was bizzarre, not a default one, it was like -C:\Autodesk\Maya2015\plug-ins\bifrost\scripts.

Have a nice day!

[ernstAlert]

Hey all!

I’ve been on vacation for the last week and a half. Will get caught up on this thread today. Apologies for any delays and thanks for your patience!

[Komahz]

Welcome Back . Just to let you know. In your first post you have this issue.
**

• Supplied hand poses in the pose editor do not work

**
This is my fix

[ernstAlert]

@Kheka;280260

Welcome Back . Just to let you know. In your first post you have this issue.
**

• Supplied hand poses in the pose editor do not work

**
This is my fix

awesome! Thanks man! I will update that first post with a link to your fix!

[calmasacow]

when I try to launch the side bar I get the following:

Error: ImportError: file C:/Users/username/Documents/maya/MayaTools/General/Scripts\customMayaMenu.py line 609: No module named je_Tools

Anyone know how to resolve this one?

[ernstAlert]

@James Barnette;280452

when I try to launch the side bar I get the following:

Error: ImportError: file C:/Users/username/Documents/maya/MayaTools/General/Scripts\customMayaMenu.py line 609: No module named je_Tools

Anyone know how to resolve this one?

Ah, that shouldn’t be an option. I must have forgotten to remove that from the menu. It’s some legacy Gears of War tools I had that are no longer used

[ernstAlert]

@Shepherd;270961

Would this work with Maya 2016 LT? I have had no luck trying to get this installed in LT. Am I missing something?

unless LT now has Python support, which previous versions have not, then nope I have no idea why there is MEL but not Python support. I’m sure they have a good reason, I just don’t know what it is.
I talked with a rep there about getting the new version of the tools packaged as a plugin available on the autodesk exchange site for free. Hopefully we can get that going

[ernstAlert]

@Shepherd;271316

That would be really fantastic! Will rock on with 2015 for now until ART can be used with LT Great job on the tools BTW Unreal is just simply fantastic to work with!

thank you sir! Much appreciated. I’ll post a V2 update on the dev blog tonight or tomorrow with all of the latest stuff that’s been done. I think people will dig it
Here’s a peak:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz098oeeftbp3mn/ART2_publish.mov?

[ernstAlert]

@MistaShoes;271593

Is anyone here having an extremely hard time getting attachment bones to orient correctly? I’m following the documentation - making a leaf joint then using the mover to place it. However every time I build the controls both the attachment controller and joint are a few degrees off on all rot xyz. The orientation in the export file is perfect, but in the rig file it’s off. I thought this was just “what it did”, however when I add sockets to the joints in Unreal they too are a few degrees. Am I doing something wrong?

Any suggestions/workflows would be great!

Cheers,

I’ve made a small videos of the issue. https://youtu.be/f1HMudLX3L0

Hey man!

Thanks for the video! Super helpful in figuring it out. So take a look at this frame:

- YouTube

When in rig pose, the added leaf joint looks like it now has the same orientation you were getting in the rig. I think you just need to orient it in the rig pose however you want it and you should be good. It’s curious why it’s not keeping the relationship the same, but you can see on that frame it’s clearly not world axis aligned anymore. Editing your rig pose should fix it. Just edit your export file, go back to skeleton placement and select reset rig pose from the reference pose manager menu, auto world space like usual, and then make any tweaks. Once you rebuild from that, it should fix it.

The whole rig pose process is a total mess in V1 and has been significantly improved in V2:

Dropbox - ART2_publish.mov - Simplify your life?

[ernstAlert]

@MistaShoes;273009

Thanks very much for taking the time to describe a solution, much appreciated.

ha! Guess I should have read down the thread more. Thanks !

[ernstAlert]

@;272604

Hi , one thing I’ve noticed is that the finger joints by default have non-zero translations in Y and Z. I haven’t looked at the mover group or skeleton creation code so not sure how complex the fix is yet, but just wanted to give a heads up. All the other bones have X-only translate so that’s all good

I got clean translations by doing some quick snapping. It makes the movers Trans/Rot values wonky, but as long as it’s manipulated in Local mode it’s cool

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Edit: yeah looks like the mover groups (e.g. “ring_02_mover_l_grp”) aren’t defaulted to zero Trans YZ and zero Rot XYZ. Maybe a fix for V2?

Yep. Terrible. That’s some rookie $h!t right there, amiright? I actually fixed this in V1 in the jointMover file. I think it will ship out with 4.8. We noticed that a while back and I hung my head in shame. V2 has everything super aligned straight. Each module gets created in it’s ideal pose, which it then uses for the rig pose, and you can modify it from there:

Dropbox - ART2_publish.mov - Simplify your life?

[ernstAlert]

@310Thirty;274965

Hey , dropbox an updated ART for MAYA 2016

I need to get 2016 first What are the current issues ?

I wish things would just continue to work in new autodesk product releases

[ernstAlert]

@BetoGilardino;275965

Hey , that simple thing just made the trick. I removed the preferences and suddenly I was able to create the rig. Thanks so much!

It’s going to take some minutes to reconfigure the hotkeys, but man, I’m excited to be able to use the tool.

Thanks again!

awesome! thanks to once again!

[ernstAlert]

@Gandosh;275531

any news on facial rigging?

Being worked on right now! We should have a demo available in 3-4 weeks. Then we’ll add it to the UI as a module.

[ernstAlert]

@HughieDM;275999

How do you run this script Im haveing some trouble? Do I just copy and past into the mel command line or do I put this in the scripts folder and run the command?

Thanx!

paste the code in the python tab in the script editor. It will fail if you try to run it as mel
Then just hit the execute button!

[ernstAlert]

@michaeltrainor;277528

Copy and paste this into a new Python tab in the Script editor

import maya.cmds as cmds

def convertSkelSettingsToNN():
    orig = 'SkeletonSettings_Cache'
    if cmds.objExists(orig):
        if cmds.nodeType(orig) == 'unknown':
            new = cmds.createNode('network')
            for att in cmds.listAttr(orig):
                if not cmds.attributeQuery(att, node=new, exists=1):
                    typ = cmds.attributeQuery(att, node=orig, at=1)
                    if typ == 'typed':
                        cmds.addAttr(new, longName=att, dt='string')
                        if cmds.getAttr(orig + '.' + att):
                            cmds.setAttr(new + '.' + att, cmds.getAttr(orig + '.' + att), type='string')
                    elif typ == 'enum':
                        cmds.addAttr(new, longName=att, at='enum', enumName=cmds.attributeQuery(att, node=orig, listEnum=1)[0])      

convertSkelSettingsToNN()

beaten once again! haha. Thank you Michael!

[ernstAlert]

@Shepherd;277889

I installed Art on Maya 2016 and it seems to be throwing a wobbly here and there. Is there a later version of the ART Tools I can grab somewhere or do I need to wait for the next Engine Update?

Script loads fine in 2016 with some deprecation warnings here and there. And then throws some errors for certain functions.

I can post more details if that would help but I am certain you already tried 2016 by now:-P

I haven’t gotten my copy yet, so no idea what types of issues you may run into with 2016. In a perfect world…none! But something tells me that isn’t going to be the case

Please post any details, as I can start looking into them once I get my license!

[ernstAlert]

@pabe;279327

Hey, i had the same problem. I menaged to fix this after coupple hours of intense research.

1. Search for “usersetup” files in you computer browser.
2. Delete all usersetup.py/usersetup.pyd files.
3. Remember locations where you deleted these files.
4. Copy fresh usersetup.py from UE4/extras.
5. Paste only in one location (where you deleted before) at a time.
6. Run Maya.
7. If nothing happens - delete usersetup.py you recently added.
8. Try other location.
9. Location which succeeded was bizzarre, not a default one, it was like -C:\Autodesk\Maya2015\plug-ins\bifrost\scripts.

Have a nice day!

Heya! Thanks for helping out!
The correct location should be in your maya/scripts folder, and if there is a userSetup file in your maya/mayaVersion/scripts folder, then that one should get removed. Not sure why you had to go all the way to that particular scripts folder to get a success

My suggestion would be to try this:

1. Search for “usersetup” files in you computer browser.
2. Delete all usersetup.py/usersetup.pyd files.
3. Copy fresh usersetup.py from UE4/extras and paste into documents/maya/scripts folder
4. Browse to documents/maya/mayaVersion#/scripts/ and delete the mayaTools file (this stores the path)
5. Run Maya.
6. You should now get the prompt and get no flickering.

[Xodroc]

Hey ,

ART2 is looking pretty slick, can’t wait to get it.

Keep up the good work, will have to bug some people to get you your copy of Maya 2016!