I tried the first approach, but it did not really work, as the root joint mover is locked on the script. I also tried to rotate 90 degrees the root joint itself, once it has been created in the rig file. This also didnt work correctly (broke the mesh when exported)
I was writing a post script to add a layer to the root, rotate the character 90 degrees, export, and then remove the layer, but then we found the “Force Front X Axis” button, that, at least for now, works for us.
We are not happy that it adds values on rotation though, is there a way to remove the 90 and keep it to 0?
We were wondering if you guys are aware of the fact that in animation editor window, all the characters are facing +Y by default whereas the Unreal editor’s preference is +X. In addition to this, A.R.T builds the characters facing -Y. Could you somehow add the ability to select which axis the character should be constructed? We think that there are more people out there that will need this (as mentioned by )
The Force X Axis option also changes the bones orientation. So if your skeleton was using a +X as a forward axis, then it’ll use a -Y. As a consequence all the physical assets and code that were reading and using the bone orientation, with a specific criteria, will broke. Also the the final result is more or less the same of using a -90 rotation over the Z axis in the import process, but with more issues.
Aaron, could you please give us a better (aka “Internal”) explaination of that “Force X” option? Thank you for your time!!
You can download the latest version of the plugin following these instructions: https://www…com/watch?v=fBjmvs6180M&feature=youtu.be
Once installed you should be able to locate the files in a path similar to this: C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.15\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\ARTv1\MayaTools\
Inside, open General\Scripts\ to find all the .py (Python) files that you need.
Hey Guys, I just wanted to post a fix that came up when using Mixamo, since it’s come up a couple times.
First, you need to make sure you retarget your bones, if you don’t, ART won’t recognize the names you import and it won’t import correctly.
If you do retarget and you’re still having issues (like only some keys are transfering… etc) then it’s probably the FBX that Mixamo spit out; they seem to only key the attributes that have values and nothing else. But when you apply this onto a rig in ART, the controls need to have keys copied to them, but if there’s no keys to copy, they’re not going to move. To remedy this, open up the FBX (from Mixamo) in Maya, select all the joints, go to the key menu at the top, and select bake animation. This’ll bake all the attributes onto the joints. Save out the FBX and then try the import motion onto the character again (using the new FBX). If you’re still having issues after this, PM me.
I just wanted to say that who ever made these art tools did a great job! Pretty cool all the different tools built in. What a time a saver! Cant wait to see version 2. Good stuff!
Hey I’m having a bit of an odd problem. Everything has been working great until recently, a rig that i have iterated on a few times now runs really slowly whenever I attempt to position any of the controls. Otherwise I can rotate around model etc at normal speed, everything else in maya works fine. I have a beefy machine running a 1080 founders graphics card so I know it’s not my pc. This happens even with only 1 character in scene. Same speed whether textures are shown or not.
I’ve also tried deleting non-deformer history thinking maybe it was a history issue but no luck there. Anyone run into this?
Thanks
Update: It looks like when constraints are activated it causes major slow down in viewport. Discovered this by going to modify > evaluate nodes and turning each one off individually. Anyone know a fix for speeding them up?
I’m having the same or at least a similar issue. All animation files I created previously are impossible to work with since creating or moving keys causes Maya to freeze for several seconds. Everything is working fine when I add the same character in a new scene however, so I copied over the animations I need to work on into a new file. A lot of manual work, since Maya is horrible at copy&pasting keyframes, especially when anim layers are involved, but it’s the only workaround I could find.
I have an ART rig that I’ve been using for quite a while and I’m getting a lot of Maya errors and slowdowns lately. I think this might be due to the rig being too old for the current version of ART and I should probably rebuild it. The problem is, I made a lot of customizations to the rig (additional joints, controls, facial rig, constraints, et cetera) that would all be lost in the process. Is there any way to rebuild the ART rig without losing the additions I’ve made?
If there isn’t, what would be the recommended workflow for a character that needs custom joints and controls beyond the capabilities of ART?
Edit: I’m having davidhammertime’s same problem, and I’ve just download ArtV1 today from the marketplace, anyway to fix this?
Nvm seems like it fixed, anyway I have another problem, now I’ve been working on ArtV rigging and skinning a character, but as soon as I was done with it and ready to create control rig it said there were unknown nodes, following tutorials I’ve seen that you can just save all your infos (joints position, skin weights etc) and just reimport them in a new clean scene, and so I did. I opened a new scene, imported my mesh, imported my skeleton template, my joint position template, but as I got to deformation setup and imported my skin weights infos I got this weird bug… every joint and associated skin weights info is kind of broken, there are parts missing and parts that should’nt have influence on that joint, and the same is for every joint even tho I haven’t touched or moved anything, I don’t know what to do to fix this without having to redo the skinning. Thank you.
Hey, I’m having an issue with Import Motion. I have an fbx animation of a walk cycle, but when I try to import it to my ART character, Maya gives me an error (// Error: line 1: Error occurred loading template . // ), then opens the default Maya fbx import dialog box. If I import using that box, the fbx skeleton is imported separately into the scene rather than being applied to the ART rig. Using ARTv1 from the marketplace and Maya 2016. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I’m eagerly looking forward to Art V2, there’s a question I wanted to ask - Could Art v2 support something akin to Schleifer’s “Animator Friendly Rigging” hand rig? FK fingers are truly terrible to animate dialogue/cutscenes with.
Presumably it would generate a default pose for each of the shapes, but due to differences between characters, maybe it could let you set a pose to ‘1’ and then tweak it with the option to update that to the new pose.
Is there a release window for Art V2? I have several “Monster” meshes that I have failed to rig properly, but I believe Art V2 could help out with… anyway as a hobby modeler Art V1 has helped me out tremendously.
Question 1:
Im using ART (downloaded as a plugin from epic games launcher) with maya 2016. Whenever I try to open any of my animation with art it says “reference file not found mannequin_export.mb” than im browsing to “C:\ARTv1\MayaTools\General\ART\Projects\Sample\ExportFiles”
I guess i need to change some path location but I couldn’t find it.
Any ideas?
Question 2:
when I save a pose on ART and than use it with “Load Mirrored Pose” everything working well but SHOULDERS. they are keeping their old position. tried “auto shoulders” option but didn’t worked. anyone have a solution for this issue?
