Render bones?

[hanskloss]

I was looking for a solution to this for the longest time. Not sure why they decided not to make bones a renderable object. Pretty lame if you ask me. :rolleyes:

[zoharl]

The situation is that bad, ah?
Well wait a minute, I'm looking at the bones in the view port, and what's the problem to draw them one-to-one with all the colors and stuff (bit by bit, I'll rewrite maya ... ;) )?
How about making it even better, such as putting real bones (not real-real, real - graphics real...) exactly on top of them? It should be a blast. But surely someone must have done such a thing already?

[thematt]

would viewport 2.0 render them? it render camera for exemple from what I saw.

[Clappy3D]

I think your plugin Maya business will be a smashing success. Now get to work.

[hanskloss]

It's been done before in Mirai. Bones in Mirai were built off of polygonal primitives thus were renderable. It amazes me how many people are asking for features/tools that have been around for years, but...not in Maya. I truly wish ADSK would have taken the time to do a real in depth analysis of this application.

[zoharl]

This is getting ridicules!
Well here is my create_bones.py

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4PDrM6_sr2UOWFjYzAwNWQtMTQ3OC00OWNkLWE0NGItYjU0YTAzMDY1OGVi

Put the bone.ma

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4PDrM6_sr2UYWVlMjIxNTAtM2QwNy00Nzk4LTk0NGQtNWY0ZDU3ODNjZDI0

in the script dir, or create your own model named bone inside the scene. Select a joint and run:

import create_bones
reload(create_bones)
create_bones.do()

It would create bones for the joints and bind them:

http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx77/zoharl/anim/joints.jpg
http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx77/zoharl/anim/bones.jpg

I'm opened to suggestions (hierarchy colors?), or better bone.ma.

[cgbeast14]

whipped this up for you to try out.

http://cgbeast.net/img/BeastlyBones.jpg
http://cgbeast.net/img/SkelGeo.jpeg

current working code [MEL]

/*usage select root joint and run script*/

//select all children of parent
string $rootJoint[] = `ls -sl -fl`;
select -hi;
string $sel[] = `ls -sl -fl`;
string $cpm = `createNode closestPointOnMesh`;
select -cl;
group -em -n "skelGeo";
for ($i=0; $i<size($sel); $i++){
//Evaluate for joints only
if (`nodeType $sel[$i]` == "joint"){
//create sphere at each joint
vector $pos = `xform -q -ws -t $sel[$i]`;
vector $rot = `xform -q -ro $sel[$i]`;
polySphere -sx 10 -sy 10 -n ($sel[$i]+"_geo");
float $jointScale = `jointDisplayScale -q`;
float $radius = `getAttr ($sel[$i]+".radius")`;
$radius = ($radius/2)*$jointScale;
xform -ws -t ($pos.x) ($pos.y) ($pos.z) -ro ($rot.x) ($rot.y) ($rot.z) -scale $radius $radius $radius ($sel[$i]+"_geo");
makeIdentity -apply true -t 1 -r 1 -s 1 -n 0 ($sel[$i]+"_geo");

if ($sel[$i] != $rootJoint[0]){
//create lengths to connect child nodes
string $fParent = firstParentOf($sel[$i]);
float $jointScale = `jointDisplayScale -q`;
float $radius = `getAttr ($fParent+".radius")`;
$radius = ($radius/2)*$jointScale;
$cone = `polyCone -sx 4 -h 2 -n ($fParent+"_geo_length")`;
move -r -y (2);
makeIdentity -apply true -t 1 -r 1 -s 1 -n 0 $cone;
ResetTransformations;

//get Position of Parent
vector $pos = `xform -q -ws -t $fParent`;
float $radius = `getAttr ($fParent+".radius")`;
xform -ws -t ($pos.x) ($pos.y) ($pos.z) -scale $radius $radius $radius ($cone);
select -r $sel[$i];
select -add $cone;
aimConstraint -offset 0 0 0 -weight 1 -aimVector 0 1 0 -upVector 0 1 0 -worldUpType "scene";
select -r ($sel[$i]+"_geo");
string $shapeNode[] = `ls -sl -dag -lf`;

connectAttr -f ($shapeNode[0]+".outMesh") ($cpm+".inMesh");
vector $pos = `xform -q -ws -t ($cone[0]+".vtx[4]")`;
setAttr ($cpm+".inPositionX")($pos.x);
setAttr ($cpm+".inPositionY")($pos.y);
setAttr ($cpm+".inPositionZ")($pos.z);
vector $pt = getAttr ($cpm+".position");
xform -ws -t ($pt.x) ($pt.y) ($pt.z) ($cone[0]+".vtx[4]");
select -r -hi $cone;
DeleteConstraints;
parent $cone (shortNameOf($fParent)+"_geo");
}
}
}
//clean up nodes
delete $cpm;


for ($i=0; $i<size($sel);$i++){
parent ($sel[$i]+"_geo") "skelGeo";
select -r $sel[$i];
select -add ($sel[$i]+"_geo");
ParentConstraint;

}




I wasn't sure how you'd want the geometry to be organized so that's pretty flexible for changes. Did you need it actually skinned? it seems like parenting would give a better result in this particular case but I dont know what the particular needs are. Anyway I'm gonna revise some of the code and I'll be posting it to Creative Crash as "Beastly Bones" for anyone whos interested

[edit] I decided to update it to set up a parent constraint from the bone to geometry so you can try it out and see if that works for your needs. Also I corrected a parenting issue for the 'length' geometry. All geo should be dumped into a group called skelGeo. Let me know how it works for you!

[zoharl]

If you can, please show a rendered image of your skeleton, and put your code under code tags, and make indented, so it would be more readable.

[cgbeast14]

Ok I reformatted the code and posted a render image based off a maya generated skeleton.

I caught a little oversight in there about the 'joint size' value and I've updated it in the code. Admittedly there's still a small bug in there which is adjusting the cones pivot point to replicate the exact position I'll mess with it a little later when I get some time.

[hanskloss]

How about making the bones gray, white, blue or green? Something that would stand out even when not rendering them.

http://software.intel.com/file/3788

or watch some of these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eAV3M3fQ7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmil8IdXO4

[cgbeast14]

Well in the case that its not rendered, bones do have a drawing override that allows you to change the color to make them more visible. or alternatively you could also place them in a layer and apply a color to that which would change the drawing color (joints, curves, etc)

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