Sweet! Also… I’m making a custom channel box python module atm for my own scripts as an alternative to stealing the maya one because the channelBox command doesn’t have a menu, and also because I want to remove unused commands from the massive menu it gives you as well as adding support for custom commands that you might want to execute from the channel box itself. I’ll send it your way after I’m done in case you want to use it for ART.
And I hope you do because ART takes up a lot of screen space and sometimes you just want the channel box
right now, the channel box isn’t part of the animation interface at all. I plan to keep it that way. The rigging interface has it in the same tab as the outliner:
Awesome, I’m excited to see what you come up with!
I’ll link you to wherever I present my channel box module when it’s all done anyway, it’s a lot of work completely re-writing everything to be modular and in python but I’m almost there!
As usual I went overboard and instead of making one that fits my needs I made one that fits… every need, ever. Mine will allow you to customize everything in the menu, re-write any of the functions, add your own, and so forth. So you could put a ‘mirror attribute’ option if they have any of the translate/scale/rotate attributes selected and so forth. And you can have as many channel boxes in as many scripts with any variation of menus (and even swap menus based on conditions) as you want. Whereas maya restricts you to a single channelbox (with menus) with little room for modification - at least, with ease.
I’m re-writing most of the Maya tools I use for rigging because they’re all completely lackluster and it’s high time I optimized my production environment.
Maybe I should link Autodesk when I’m done too and make them pay to use it.
The path doesn’t exist, because I don’t have a D: drive
When I click on ‘Browse’ and navigate to the file on ‘c:/Program Files (x86)/Epic Games/4.10/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/ART/Projects/Sample/ExportFiles/mannequin_Export.mb’ the character is being imported, but 90° flipped
Just a question: Why is this? Since I do work for film vfx I keep my maya on Y up, and Ive never experienced an issue with my exports coming from a Y up scene into UE. Always works. Skeletons, static meshes, animations, etc. etc… seamless.
Seems like UE4 has a pretty neat system to convert Y to Z on import I suppose. So why change the maya default? Is there any destructive reason im not aware of?
The Zup is due to Epic workflow, meaning that ART was created by accordingly to that.
Standard Maya is Yup and I read somewhere on the forum that is possible to work with ART having Yup, but I honestly don’t mind switching to Zup.
Allot of games have Zup not just epic, In fact I’ve always used Zup since 2008 ish that I only realise it’s not default when I use a fresh install of Maya
First of all amazing rigging software truly awesome. V2 looks amazing
Your videos got me up to speed quick though I’ve run into a few hiccups.
If I use the version that comes with 4.10.2 I cannot see my export buttons at the bottom of Edit Existing Characters menu as they’re cut off.
I also get the whole left side is wonky thing in viewport 2.0 but not in legacy.
I tried search through the 30 pages in this thread and found a multitude of different drop boxes with different files etc. I’ve tried a few of them and when I tried the last one posted I got the same error as Luigi posted about:
However in the dropbox build I did see options I didn’t have before in the one that shipped with 4.10.2 such as other options instead of just biped.
So what I’d really love is just a single link to the correct updated version and if it is the last one posted then any advice on fixing the error with skin_obj would be much appreciated
Y-up originates from high school math working with 2D graphs where Y is vertical and X is horizontal.
Z-up originates from the concept of making sense
Went z-up in Maya, never going back. You can group Y-up with the other failed standards such as 29.97 frame rate that came about after the black and white era ended, call it a lack of foresight
Y-up is more common in film because it’s been the standard for reasons listed since forever, Z-up is more common in games because making sense actually matters a lot more when you can’t mostly ignore the axis system to the extent that a significant amount of artists aren’t aware of the differences between euler and quaternion rotations or how the axis system works.
I don’t know if these have been solved already and if yes, sorry in advance, but I’m having a lot of trouble trying to get past the “Control Rig Building” stage of the ART Tool in Maya. Every time - doesnt matter what project Im working in - I build the Control Rig, it saves the correct files in the correct path, but I can’t open the Animation Interface. It says: “There are no characters found in this scene, would you like to add one?” And when I hit “Yes”, the message “No projects with characters found” pops up- and all I can do is confirm. (All the thumbnails were created)
I’m running Maya 2015 - I am grateful for any help on this matter, thank you!
edit:
This is the error I get after trying to add a character for Animation:
Error: RuntimeError: file …/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_addCharacter_UI.py line 215: Object ‘addCharacter_UI|columnLayout3|formLayout82|textScrollList1’ not found.
edit2:
Alright, nevermind… that was very odd. I fixed it by saving out a proxy mesh as control rig (worked with customs before) and suddenly I see all my projects when I click “Add character for animation”… Glad to have it working now.
HI Guys,
I need help, I’ve built in using ART tools for my students here at Uni. after many set-backs we are at the last stages and they are getting their rigs ready for UE4. A couple of issues have arisen.
some characters have been successfully rigged in ART tools and exported to UE4, however after animation is applied the .fbx export file option has vanished from the window
Error: WindowsError: file C:/Program Files/Epic Games/4.10/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_exportMotion.py line 2093: 3
This is the error in Maya.
Also another error is that some of my students are working on the proxy rig but the animation interface isn’t working, if they switch it on it says there is no rig found in the scene, would I like to add one. But the proxy rig is in the scene. These students have done animation on these rigs and I don’t want them to add it again.
I am having an issue with custom joint chains and fbx export. I use the ART tool, added custom chains for pony tail. I animated, bake the keys then finally export. When I re import the keys on my custom joints are missing. I have looking in forums and do not see anyone else having this issues.
Using pony tail as example, chain rooted to head. I have seen some articles that indicate the chains needs to be direct to root, but I can not see how I would get it to follow head movement without manually keying.
Standard ik and fk baked and all work i.e the legs walk but the bob the pony tail is now static.
I am pretty sure I am just missing something fundamental, but for the life of me I can not figure it out. Any “did you try …” would be very much appreciated, cause I have run out of ideas.
Using :
Unreal engine 4.10.2 (original folder no updates applied from Jermys drop box. Did try that but no luck, ended up rolling back during trouble shooting.)
Maya 2016
Alright, just being curious - are there any tips already for the face mask feature? I know its not finished yet but since you guys worked with it for Paragon I assume you found a way to work with it. For example, how do I scale the face mask in order to fit my mesh’s face? Just manually scaling every joint? I also noticed that I’m not able to import joint placement data and add the face mask. I can only add a face mask to a “completely new mesh/rig” in the first step of the plugin, without importing any joint data.
Hello ,
I am having an issue where there is a discrepancy between a character’s ik and fk hands and feet. When switching between the two modes there is a noticeable difference between them. This is causing game assets to appear slightly different (e.g. One character’s feet clipped through the ground plane). Also, when viewing the bones in Maya the translation values on some of the bones were different than their reference pose when in IK.
A little lazy to read through all 30 pages and since it’s not addressed in opening post - how is facial rigging going and when/if it’s going to be released?
And just add it looks like an awesome tool. I’m learning basics of rigging/skinning/animating and this seems to be a tool that should let me jump through some hoops :d
