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

ernstAlert · April 29, 2014, 9:29pm

I’ll check for you. I don’t handle the distributions, so I’m not sure if whoever does grabbed latest. Sit tight!

HosFross · April 29, 2014, 10:04pm

Hello all! UE4 is totally agnostic when it comes to your rigging/animation tools. If you can export a .fbx with animated joints, then UE4 can use it. The A.R.T. tools are absolutely not required to get animated meshes into UE4. It’s a tool we happen to use and we wanted to offer it to the community. If you aren’t using Maya and can’t use A.R.T. tools, you still have a ton of options.

Element808 · April 30, 2014, 6:44am

FIX Selecting between Paint and Select modes

FIX
For those having an issue with selecting between Paint and Select modes, here’s the fix for that.

Error Description: ‘ART_artAttrSkinPaint could not be found’ when switching between Paint and Select modes in ART.
Issues Caused: Prevents “Select” and “Paint” modes from being displayed.
File Affected (Windows): C:\Program Files\Unreal Engine\4.1\Engine\Extras\Maya_AnimationRiggingTools\MayaTools\General\Scripts*ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py*
File Version: Latest from 's DropBox at the time of this posting.
Maya Version(s) Affected: Autodesk Maya 2013, Autodesk Maya 2015

Solution

Replace Line 10221 - 10224:


def paintWeightsPaintMode(self, *args):

	cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx('ART_artAttrSkinPaint', edit = True, spm = 1)
	cmds.selectMode( object=True )

With:


def paintWeightsPaintMode(self, *args):
	#start fix 1
	#if our Paint Mode tool does not exist, create it. Else, switch to it
	if cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx("ART_artAttrSkinPaint", exists = True) == False:
	    self.paintWeightsPaintMode = cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx("ART_artAttrSkinPaint", ch = True )
	#end fix 1
	cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx('ART_artAttrSkinPaint', edit = True, spm = 1)
	cmds.selectMode( object=True )

Replace Line 10241-10243:


    def paintWeightsSelectMode(self, *args):
	cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx('ART_artAttrSkinPaint', edit = True, spm = 0)
	cmds.selectMode( component=True )

With:


    def paintWeightsSelectMode(self, *args):

	#start fix 2
	#if our Select Mode tool does not exist, create it. Else, switch to it
	if cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx("ART_artAttrSkinPaint", exists = True) == False:
	    self.paintWeightsSelectMode = cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx("ART_artAttrSkinPaint", ch = True )
	#end fix 2
	cmds.artAttrSkinPaintCtx('ART_artAttrSkinPaint', edit = True, spm = 0)
	cmds.selectMode( component=True )

I hope this helps…even though Paint mode is selected by default and the Paint tools are available when menu loads, I added the script to prevent the error and properly create/display the tools if they don’t already exist when switching between them.

Man, what a learning curve. I just started using Maya, MEL and ART last night - I’m a seasoned programmer, but wanted to learn rigging and animation to get an unrigged/skinned character into UE4, so had to learn all this overnight and get this portion fixed to get access to the tools I wanted to check out Thanks for all your hard work, man…I’m really impressed with all you’re doing and it’s greatly appreciated. If Epic ever needs an additional programmer…hint hint

EDIT
Switching between menus twice in a row causes a new error to spike up if you implement fixes I provided above…I’ll be looking into it a bit later if one of you don’t get to it first.

Error: TypeError: file C:/Program Files/Unreal Engine/4.1/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_skeletonBuilder_UI.py line 10273: ‘unicode’ object is not callable

The error is caught when self.paintWeightsSelectMode() is called in this section of code:


	if value == "Paint":
	    self.paintWeightsPaintMode()
	    
	if value == "Select":
	    self.paintWeightsSelectMode()

Enter_Reality · April 30, 2014, 8:36am

Soooooo…any idea when the facial rigging system will be available?

I’m eager to try it out

matttardiff · April 30, 2014, 8:22pm

Feature Request

Would it be feasible to offer a way to mirror multiple poses over a range?

For example:

I create a walk or run cycle and want to mirror the first half to the second. At the moment I have to make a pose of each then right click and select mirror pose for the appropriate frame.

It would be great to have the ability to select frames 1-8, save pose sequence then select frames 9-16 and apply the mirror sequence.

CharlestonS · May 1, 2014, 7:18am

I have installed this plugin but haven’t tried it yet, i have 2 quick questions before jump into it.

Can this rigging tool be used for any type of character rig or only the standard biped human?

I have a creature with multiple arms and legs, will this work for such a model?

I also have a standard biped character which i already rigged, can i use the existing rig with this tool?

Thanks in advance!

Torabi · May 1, 2014, 2:00pm

I keep getting weird errors. Like Maya not being able to save my work when working with the Mannequin. I managed to export my test animation before it all crashed. But not being able to save doesn’t make any sense at all. Should I just use the ART export function instead and then reload the animation or something? Because ART doesn’t seem to like to be saved like an ordinary project.

Timbo · May 1, 2014, 3:33pm

+1 A tutorial would be nice!

Torabi · May 1, 2014, 6:47pm

I second this tutorial suggestion.

CharlestonS · May 1, 2014, 6:57pm

Epic already has 15 video tutorials for ART on their page covering pretty much everything…

https://www…com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaCL2XjKluO7N2Pmmw9pvhE

Demeese · May 1, 2014, 9:59pm

They mean replacing the mesh that is generated with the tool, with a mesh of the character you are going to use for your game. That… they don’t have.

Torabi · May 2, 2014, 3:46pm

Anyone else have a problem with auto hips? I regret ever turning it on. Screwed up my walk cycle and now I can’t disable it. Decided to try and make a run cycle and bam, auto hips is still on even though the setting says 0 and it is a brand new project.

Edit:

Why is it that a lot of times when I mention a problem. The second after I solve it. Turns out it was still enabled in the Rig settings panel even though it was set to 0 in the attributes panel. Seems to be off for good now.

Edit:

And it appears to have enabled itself again. Even though it says off everywhere.

Edit:

http://pahlavan.se/dump/2014-05-02_18-15-53.png

Yay. I have to redo everything because auto hips refuses to stay off. :mad:

It appears to be turning itself on when I select the entire rig and add a key. If the auto hips channel is keyed it will turn on even though the value is set to zero and from that point on it will stay on forever.

Edit again:

Tried animating by not touching the hip control, very tedious and it doesn’t matter anyway. I have a million other issues with the toolkit. Is it still bugged like hell because I’m using a student edition or something? Errors left and right and when I load and reload a file the arms flip out and rotate themselves. Sounds like I’m the only one. Guess I’ll re install Maya, again, and delete the toolkit completely. If that doesn’t work I guess I’ll give up on using it.

The toolkit is awesome, like the mirroring tools and whatnot. But it is such a chore to use at times that it almost doesn’t feel like it is worth it. You’ve created a great tool here so it bums me out even more that I can’t use it properly.

Wobbler47 · May 2, 2014, 6:50pm

http://vimeo.com/92601333#at=0 at about 1.25 minutes.

Torabi · May 2, 2014, 10:55pm

They just uploaded a bunch of stuff to their channel. Among them, exactly what we wanted.

https://www…com/watch?v=KHGyVJ4LD6Q

Timbo · May 2, 2014, 11:32pm

Yeah. That helps me a lot. THX

Wobbler47 · May 3, 2014, 1:15am

[QUOTE=Torabi;26645]
They just uploaded a bunch of stuff to their channel. Among them, exactly what we wanted.
https://.com/watch?v=KHGyVJ4LD6Q[/QUOTE]

The vids have been up for a while now and I figured you’d both already watched them, but if I have caused offense then I apologise as it wasn’t my intention.

anon36098794 · May 4, 2014, 2:52am

BUG:

When inside the Export Motion, if I add a sequence, I can export fine. But if I try to right click and Remove sequence, it will crash Maya.

danielcohn · May 7, 2014, 1:41am

Hi,

Seem to be having some missing features. Been having a problem with importing mocap onto ik/both, seems like the pole vectors and foot rolls aren’t solving. I noticed in the import options I don’t have the Solve Foot Roll or Solve Pole Vector options. I’ve tried updating the scripts and plugins but no luck. Has anyone had this and what possible workarounds are there is the mocap doesn’t work on the ik CTRLs (it works fine on fk, and when trying to match over a frame range from fk to ik this still fails).

Cheers

AntonioE · May 7, 2014, 9:13pm

When I export the character in a non T pose, the hand IK control its oriented to the world intead of the hand like the hand FK control. Is that how its supposed to be?
Thanks.

ernstAlert · May 10, 2014, 12:32am

It sounds like you must’ve keyed something that broke the functionality, perhaps pickwalking up a node? Is there a visible locator in the scene where his hips are? Perhaps that got keyed, as that will totally break stuff. In the latest version of the code, if you were to rebuild the mannequin, those locators now are hidden and locked down to prevent this.

I don’t have a way of testing in a student version, so I have no idea what issues that introduces, but messing with the attribute here, it works as expected and doesn’t show that behavior.