Cool, thanks for the reply.
Al passed on what you sent through.
Re the mentioned/known pySide issues w Maya 2016.ext2, that’s true for ART v1 too, correct ? I’m asking as I’m seeing some oddities w Maya GUI in 2016.ext2 after using some bits of ART v1 that integrate into Maya’s GUI (in the channelBox area specifically).
Also, as a side note, +1 from me for custom jointOrients, and a general compatibility w Y-up scenes. Both would be swish.
Cheers.
c.
2016 is actually fine, we’ve switched over to it here at work for both projects. 2016 extension 2 however might be buggy as it hasn’t been tested.
I haven’t had a chance to test v1 in extension 2 yet, but I think the main issue with v2 is how it seems to be handling close events in pyside somehow differently than previous versions. Should be fixable once I get to dig into it. If you can though, use 2016 instead for now 
I think custom joint orients would be achievable by simply editing the joint mover files, assuming you just mean having Z up on the spine instead of X for instance. Once I get through the immediate list of tasks to get it to parity, I can look at having that as an option in the UI that will edit the joint mover for you.
So far, how are you liking it?
The tools from 4.9.2-release (along with that engine version) caused many problems with 2016 (student version - yes, I applied the save fix). Missing data upon binary save, or -the worse part- importing exported FBXs into unreal sometimes stuck onto 75% -> crash or just crashed from the beginning. Sometimes it just worked and imported it no problem. I am currently downgrading to 2015 for that reason (thanks student licences )
Heya,
when you say
Is that 2016.0.04 (2016 vanilla SP4) or 2016.1.04 (=2016 ext1 SP4) for ART v1 & v2 you tested with ?
RE
Ideally the whole shebang (might be too ambitious to be completely customizable… 
), but e.g. I’d want to use skeletons w Y-aim / X-up (in most cases) with as clean as possible aims/parent space as a general rule, which goes off ARTs X-aim / Z-up defaults. So for now I’ll get by with a quick & hacky motion re-map to go from our source (the Y-aim/X-up) to your ART spec skeleton to use in Unreal. But, this is very case specific, and would require some deeper customizations… i.e. as another example for customizations/specific needs, which I haven’t found a way to do yet within ART, I would want 4 thumb joints (thumb is the only finger that’s seem to 3 in rig builder in ART v1 ? ) to fake multipivots for “thumb_01_l” to allow the thumbs metacarpal to rotate around its root, but also to allow the sliding on top of the Trapezium saddle via rotations.
Hence our hope was that v2 will address some of these and keep things more modular & customizable.
You mean v2 ? Unfortunately the “Missing Features” outlined in A.R.Tv2KnownIssues.pdf have stopped me from looking at this further other than a quick poke around as I need to generate things quickly for production, as well as come up with a pipeline at the same time.
When I get some time to poke around some more, what’s the best channel for feedback / to get in touch ? Did you get my email from a few weeks ago ?
Cheers
c.
Ah, student version. I’m hoping to get an edu version to test with soon to figure out what’s so different and hopefully fix these issues. Do you by chance have one of those busted FBX files you could share with me?
2016.0.04. I skipped extension 1 and went right to extension 2, so extension 1 is completely untested.
If you get a chance to look things over, definitely let me know what hooks or things I can expose that would make it easier for users like you guys to customize it better to your needs! I don’t think it will be a problem in the future to add support for aim and up axis.
Hopefully, the modular nature will allow you to achieve things like the multi-pivots, as you could now just add a single joint module anywhere in the hierarchy. I’ll also have an individual finger module, so you could use the fingers included with the arm or set all of those to zero, and add individual finger modules.
I checked my email, but didn’t see anything from you. Email would be fantastic. I think AC should have it handy
You can grab the assets at Mediafire. The OmniWrenchSwingCombo imported normally. I procceeded into splitting it into the 3-part-combo inside of Maya and then exported the first combo swing(frame 0~45, SwingOne), it made the editor crash. Also, if I try to reimport if from a binary save file, it does stuff like initialize a JointMover and then there is a extraJointMover1 created, this error:
.as well as on the Match over Framerate window, the “Manequin” part is missing, it has only got the “:Upperbody” , “:etc” part, thus turning it unusable.
Probably student version has got some save limitations because Autodesk does not allow making money with their student versions (=exporting assets).
P.S. Are you supposed to match FK to IK before exporting?
Just out of interest, do you start off by flooding the pelvis with all the weight and then blocking out from there? I would love to see your methods for blending weights and getting the right result!
Yup, confirmed with him, it’s the same he’s got. I just sent an email again to test Header is “ART v2 - preview/WIP access ?”, and my email starts the same as my user name on here.
Cheerio.
c.
Ok great! I will take a look this week. I don’t have a student version yet, but I’ll see if I can repro any issues with a normal 2016.
And you do not have to match FK to IK before exporting or anything like that
When it exports, assuming you use the export motion tool, it duplicates the skeleton, constrains it to the original which is driven by the rig, and then bakes the animation down onto the dupe. Then it exports that duplicate skeleton and deletes it from your scene, making sure your scene is still intact.
That is the method I use, but I’m old school like that However, it has never failed me!
If you have a digital tutors sub, I actually have a video up there that goes over my weighting process:
@Zarkopafilis I took a quick peek at the FBX files, and they look clean. I’m not seeing any junk in there that would cause an issue on import into the engine. What version of the engine were you running? (4.9.2?) Have you tried any other engine versions just to see if it was an engine bug? I tested importing into 4.11.2, and both imported great. (I didn’t have a skel mesh, so I just added a sphere to the scene and skinned it to the root)
Yeah I prefer the old school method too, mainly because I have control issues. 
Using an auto method has almost always resulted in more work than if I did it all from scratch myself.
Thanks for the DT video link, I’m always looking to discover other/better ways to weight the mesh.
Tested with 4.10 and it works, currently building source of 4.11.2-release (github). Thanks for the help! I will keep posting if something goes wrong
hi guys, im kind of new on this and i’ve read a lot of coments in this topic but i can’t find where to download the latest version of ART, i currently use the normal one and it is really cool but i would like to use more than bipeds in my rigs, is the new version avilable already?
thank you 
So with the recent engine release (4.12.0), there is a option for “Art Tools” when you install the engine. What does this mean and include?
I can’t find anything in the Documentation and I also can’t find anything in the engine release information that was posted upon the engine being moved from Preview to Full version. Anyone know?
nope
i downloaded the newest version and replace my old ART with this and is exacly the same one :c
also if it is not out yet, and they still working on it, would it be much to ask for some kind of import for props and weapons? 
pretty please? or even a section to generate the rigs for weapons, because there is extremly low info about how to rig a weapon for import.
most of the times is only shown how to atach the weapon to a character, but not what the weapon requires itself, and the few that i found that talk about the weapon they only copy another weapon export the fbx and then replace the mesh, but i find that really limited.
being able to do weapon rigs an and animations and export them directly from ART would be perfect to make that transistion super smooth.
At home, I’ve moved Maya_AnimationRiggingTools to my user/Documents/maya/scripts path and that seems to work fine. At work, if Maya_AnimationRigginTools exists anywhere other than in the game engine path, I get “Selected directory is not valid. Please locate the MayaTools directory.”
Any chance there’s a quick fix for this? Maybe I need to add a path to my environment variables? I might start there.
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Alec
I was more asking because the “Art Tools” that are a optional install with the new engine also work with 3ds Max (or so it says). What are these 3ds Max “Art Tools”? Where do I find them and what do they include?
