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

[ernstAlert]

@duxttyiyi;559283

hi,where can i find the plugin now in 4.12,i can found it in the path by help

In 4.12, it is now an optional download. If you click the down arrow next to the engine version in your Library, you can go to options to access/download it.

[ernstAlert]

@Shrooblord;558964

Hey, I’d like to build a rig for just a floating hand. So I created the default rig, did the T-pose thing and when it came to the skeleton, deleted all bones except [FONT=Courier New]root and [FONT=Courier New]hand_r and all children thereof, reattaching [FONT=Courier New]hand_r to [FONT=Courier New]root beforehand.

However, I can’t Build the Control Rig because the skeleton building tool throws an error:

Okay so I can’t manually delete the skeleton. Is there a way to achieve this? I really just want the hand, no the entire rig. But I like the built-in controls ART gives me when I create a Control Rig. I’ve created rigs manually before and I know the hands are where I lose hours upon hours easily. It’d be real sweet if I can just use ART instead.

Yeah, so probably the best way to do this in artv1 would be to either remove things in the post script(after the rig has been built, go delete rig groups and bones, but this will be a pain. You’ll need to make sure you remove connections in the right order, and likely re-constrain some parts), or, leave the anim rig and export file as-is, and in the FBX export for your skeletal mesh, delete the joints you want removed and import this. You’d still be animating on a full skeleton, but what you have imported would be only what you need. You can also remove unused skeleton tracks in Persona to get rid of any unwanted animation for joints that don’t exist.

[ernstAlert]

@Shrooblord;557555

I’m sure this gets asked like fifteen times a day, but is there any form of (informal) ETA on v2 of the ART? I love the blog posts, but they don’t give me any sort of indication whether I should get really excited for next week or keep it bottled until December or what have you.

well, not next week!

I hate saying because inevitably something comes up at work that derails progress on the tools (You wouldn’t even believe the amount of stuff we’re working on!). There is not a lot left to do to be at parity with what V1 has in terms of modules. I have the chain module left and a couple animation tools, which probably equates to about 3-4 weeks of work. However, given my daily desk time is nowhere near 8 hours, it’s likely double that. Don’t hold me to it though!

[ernstAlert]

@CyberDev;557943

Thanks very much for clearing it up! Was making sure it wasn’t just me.

May I ask how can I show the joints / skeleton ? When I try to use the outliner or unhide them weird things starts to happen where theres like half of a yellow skeleton n then like 1 giant skeleton n then a regular one, im not sure how to just view the regular rigs skeleton, so I can have better view of my animations

First, viewport 2.0 in 2016 at least does some weird stuff when it comes to displaying joints, so that might be part of your issue. Try switching to legacy default viewport.

The only joints you want to unhide is the hierarchy that is sitting ungrouped in the outliner, [yourCharacterName]:root.

Just grab that root bone, select hierarchy, and press Shift + h to show them.

[ernstAlert]

@order66;557643

Just read up on the stuff on your blog , ArtV2 looks awesome so far! Are you interested in beta testers?

I will be! Don’t have a good way of distributing yet. Would need to work with engine/marketplace to set something up.

[Shrooblord]

Thanks for the pointers I’ll see if any of those methods work out for me easily. But p’raps I’ll just rig this one hand myself and wait for cool tools like ARTv2 to help me set up modular systems with only one click . Good to give old rusty skills a run for their money again once in a while, anyway.

OK - I will await the release with great anticipation! However long it takes… !

[order66]

@;559696

I will be! Don’t have a good way of distributing yet. Would need to work with engine/marketplace to set something up.

Good to hear. You could just use a private Github repo for distribution.

[ernstAlert]

@order66;560587

Good to hear. You could just use a private Github repo for distribution.

Not that simple unfortunately. Everything needs to go through legal, etc. We’re trying to shift it to be on the marketplace as a plugin download. It’s in progress.
Moot point right now as it’s not totally ready to go out

[Enter_Reality]

Let us be beta tester, I can’t wait to try the Face rigging module

[order66]

@;560923

Not that simple unfortunately. Everything needs to go through legal, etc. We’re trying to shift it to be on the marketplace as a plugin download. It’s in progress.
Moot point right now as it’s not totally ready to go out

Sounds good. If you need an external contractor to help with the workload you can PM me

@Enter Reality;560937

Let us be beta tester, I can’t wait to try the Face rigging module

Same here

[Jaidek]

Hello,

We seem to be having a problem with saving our scene files after importing mocap to the rig. The tool successfully imports the .fbx and applies the animation to the ART rig, but when we go to save we get the following error:
// Error: line 0: Could not save file “C:/Users/VTB/Documents/maya/projects/default/scenes/test.mb”. //

We have tested this with the current version of the toolset from dropbox running in both in Maya 2015 Student and Maya 2016 Student. This issue is present on all machines in our lab. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[ernstAlert]

@Jaidek;561269

Hello,

We seem to be having a problem with saving our scene files after importing mocap to the rig. The tool successfully imports the .fbx and applies the animation to the ART rig, but when we go to save we get the following error:
// Error: line 0: Could not save file “C:/Users/VTB/Documents/maya/projects/default/scenes/test.mb”. //

We have tested this with the current version of the toolset from dropbox running in both in Maya 2015 Student and Maya 2016 Student. This issue is present on all machines in our lab. Any ideas?

Thanks!

It has something to do with the student versions, which I’ve never been able to test on. I can’t really say what the issue is. There was a post in this thread previously where someone had found a work-around and posted some code you can run to fix it.
I will look for it shortly.

[ernstAlert]

if type(newName) is list:
    newName = newName[0]
    cmds.file( rename=newName )
    cmds.file(save = True, type = "mayaBinary", force = True, prompt = True)
    print "File Saved as:", newName

from page 32 (python code)

[ernstAlert]

@ricardoMedina;549106

Hello, ,

Quick question, are the hind leg and foreleg modules supposed to be functional at the moment? I got the latest stuff from DropBox but I am running into some issues.

When I try to build a hind leg, the Skeleton Creation phase stops halfway through (the UI does not update to the joint mover) and the character is legless and a lot larger than usual (where its height usually matches the arrow that says “Character faces down -Y”, it is a lot taller).

And when I try to build a foreleg, it creates the joint movers and it looks like a regular leg, but when I go to the “Build Control Rig” phase, it gets stuck at 90% and never finishes building the rig.

Thanks in advance!

Hind Leg stuff is now available in dropbox. There are a few minor issues with FK, but you likely won’t be using FK much on that module. (matching between FK and IK not implemented, importing onto FK shaky).

Dropbox - ART - Simplify your life?

[Efrye]

Hey ,

I’m having a few problems exporting animations in Maya 2016 (Extension 2).
Using the ART files from UE 4.12 (or 4.11), I get the following error messages when opening the export window:

# Warning: The -bs/-borderStyle flag is obsolete and should not be used. # 
# Error: WindowsError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_exportMotion.py line 2093: 3 # 
# Error: KeyError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_exportMotion.py line 1211: addAnimSequence_1_TextField # 

I also tried using the latest files from your dropbox, but with those the animation interface doesn’t open at all and I get this error:

# Error: line 8: ValueError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_animationUI.py line 207: invalid literal for float(): 2016 Extension 2 #

Is it due to the Maya version I’m using? Either way I would appreciate if you could look it.

[Jaidek]

Thanks That worked and we are no longer getting the save error! Here is the full code:

import maya.cmds as cmds
fileName = cmds.file(query=True, sceneName=True)
multipleFilters = "Maya Files (*.mb *.ma);;Maya Binary (*.mb);;Maya ASCII (*.ma);;All Files (*.*)"
newName = cmds.fileDialog2(fileFilter=multipleFilters, dialogStyle=2, startingDirectory=fileName)

if type(newName) is list:
    newName = newName[0]
    cmds.file( rename=newName )
    cmds.file(save = True, type = "mayaBinary", force = True, prompt = True)
    print "File Saved as:", newName

[anonymous_user_73a30f7a1 (anonymous_user_73a30f7a)]

I tried installing ART for both 2016 and 2016 ext 2, which as I understand it might not work with anyway. But after copying the script over as per the instructions nothing popped up as was explained in the manual. Is this expected? Should I not even bother with it and just install 2015?

[ernstAlert]

@Efrye;563898

Hey ,

I’m having a few problems exporting animations in Maya 2016 (Extension 2).
Using the ART files from UE 4.12 (or 4.11), I get the following error messages when opening the export window:

# Warning: The -bs/-borderStyle flag is obsolete and should not be used. # 
# Error: WindowsError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_exportMotion.py line 2093: 3 # 
# Error: KeyError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_exportMotion.py line 1211: addAnimSequence_1_TextField # 

I also tried using the latest files from your dropbox, but with those the animation interface doesn’t open at all and I get this error:

# Error: line 8: ValueError: file C:/.../MayaTools/General/Scripts\ART_animationUI.py line 207: invalid literal for float(): 2016 Extension 2 #

Is it due to the Maya version I’m using? Either way I would appreciate if you could look it.

I’ll take a look and report back. It may be that something is out of sync in the dropbox location, so I’ll set my tools path to that and see if I can reproduce.

[ernstAlert]

@Labotomizer;563982

I tried installing ART for both 2016 and 2016 ext 2, which as I understand it might not work with anyway. But after copying the script over as per the instructions nothing popped up as was explained in the manual. Is this expected? Should I not even bother with it and just install 2015?

2016 works fine, as we have switched to it in-house now. Haven’t tested ext2.

Was there any errors or anything? Setup should just be, copy userSetup.py to your maya scripts folder. Re-launch maya. Also, where did the scripts come from? (which engine version or was it dropbox). We’re working on just making it a plugin on the marketplace which will really help with stuff not being in sync.

[Efrye]

@;564839

I’ll take a look and report back. It may be that something is out of sync in the dropbox location, so I’ll set my tools path to that and see if I can reproduce.

Awesome, thank you!
Got a couple of animations in my head that I would love to get out.