Is any one interested in a Maya LT based auto rigger?
Obviously Maya LT does have limitations, but they can be mostly worked around.
I’ve created a video clip on what I have done…
Written in MEL, they can provide a good base for creating your own as well.
My goal would be to produce something as close as possible to unreal’s ART.
I’m not sure how far I would get, or even if people/unreal have tried and failed. Failure is my risk of course.
Even the question of whether I could even sell it via the market place would be a question as well.
The biggest reason for a market place version is support. I’ve worked on other “plugins” for different organisations and I spend a lot of time doing support and it makes a big difference if you know you are getting paid for it.
Any feedback would be great.
The most requested feature on maya lt forum is for python support and the ART plugin. http://mayafeedback.autodesk.com/forums/281072-ideas-for-maya-lt-forum/filters/top
So my guess is there is a market for it. Assuming AutoDesk never allows python in LT.
What are the main benefits over HumanIk? I have been using humanik and retargeting in engine and it seems to work good, but I am not an expert when it comes to animation.
Hi Janan, thanks for replying.
I admit I’m pretty new to this as well.
My main rational is productivity.
I find that I create a model, go through the pipeline of rigging and animation and then find I need to modify something slightly and then I need to go through the whole cycle again or even worse just stick to a bad mesh. Then I go into unreal and find the bones names don’t match and then spend sometime re-targeting. Things like the root bone is not part of human IK and the joints don’t exactly model unreal’s model. I kind of use the same rig for my bipeds and by doing this I can copy the control key frames between models (I made a script that does that)
The benefits over Human IK would be a rig specific to unreal’s standard model and be able to easily customise it. Probably why the ART got created in the first place. Also don’t forget the quick rig tool does not support fingers.
Even if Maya LT supported Python, that would not be the end of it. There are heaps of things that are not supported both from an API and functionality. Things like scale constraints are not supported. Most file API calls like are not really supported.
I kind of feel there is a market for it, but frankly without community support, feedback and encouragement, it could just be a waste of time trying to take this idea to market.
I would probably buy something like that. I hate the whole animation pipeline. it’s just HumanIk with Maya LT seems to be the cheapest less painful way to get something that works with marketplace anims into the engine. I gave up on blender.
If you could make it compatible with the whole HumanIk system for retargeting support in maya LT, even better. I know some marketplace animators such as kubold rig with humanik and provide the source files. I’m not sure how he gets those animations on the epic skeleton if its just a simple bone rename or he retargets or what.
Thanks Jaran. I think I’m going to work on this privately and do a decent amount of testing and tweeking.
I would be really interested in this 
I re-posted this to the Animation-and-Rigging-Tools-FAQ-Known-Issues-and-Feature-Roadmap thread. here
It seems that they are in the process of releasing ART through the market place.
It is a very interesting question because:
a) In this point in space and time, EPIC have not announced any pending support for a MAYA LT version.
b) People out there would be interested.
c) They also own the copyright to the tool and I certainly would not go forward with a MAYA LT clone without their blessing.
d) Having a Maya LT version that is compatible (as much as possible) would be very good since it would provide a natural upgrade path to the full ART. (ie say you save a skeleton template - you would want to use that once you make your millions and can afford MAYA and hence full ART. Also there is the documentation side, general design that works, etc
e) Will they generally allow tools that target 3rd party apps (like ART) to be sold on the market place.
I guess that’s the main questions here. Why don’t you just email marketplace support?
I don’t think there is enough demand.
This would definetely be useful to me. I use Maya LT and currently it is not a breeze to work with all the rigging/retargeting pipeline.
ok I’ve done this …
https://youtube.com/watch?v=nad00SkY1kE
I’ve orientated the joints similar to ART and what unreal wants.
The controls are pretty different as I without actually owning MAYA, it is kind of difficult to follow exactly what is going on.
I’ve based it on what I have learnt from Jason Baskin you tube videos.
You get a kind of IK leg controls, spline back control, IK/FK arm controls with matching.
My plan to be compatible with ART is simply to implement mocap matching. Mocap data in (baked fbx animation files) and using least squares techniques (or some other solver technique), convert into controller keys (kind of like reverse baking). However, this might be done not in MEL, but it will still support Maya LT.
Here is the resulting rig.
Very cool! Just FYI, I see that in Maya 2017 there is something called Quick Rig, which behaves quite similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c538zkwxgTQ
The quick rig is great. Except for a few issues. Y is up in Human IK (which only seems to effect root motion), limited skeleton (no hands, root), having joint orientations that match Epic’s model and from a pipeline point of view, it would be great to have full control.
An example would be to be able to customise your rig to include a tail, save and restore weights and joint locations, simplify the rig. Pretty much why epic has their own auto rigger rather than the standard one.
I really started it out of frustrations with maya’s quick rig and wanting to do root motion and have hands.
I also think there is no such thing as a perfect rig even just for humanoids. So the next best thing is having a cookbook.
The other thing is that obviously it is horses for courses so to speak, I’m not trying to create a better auto rigger, but rather something different that some people (or maybe just me) might find more suitable.
Now that ART has been published in the market place, can we publish our own?
Here is my latest auto rigged creation:
Sorry for Push this one year old thread.
Any News about ART and support of ART in Maya LT? I have “googled” but found no better answer as this thread till now.