Setup Machine for Maya (Rigging Plugin)

[jschleifer]

I think it's great that there's a tool like this for people.. it really speeds up teh whole process! Unfortunately, I played with two of the sample rigs and found that the animation controls didn't have the rotation orders I'd like.. for example, take the biped's feet and rotate them 90 degrees in y. You loose one of the rotations, so you can no longer bank the feet.

Also, with the quad, I was getting odd results when trying to manipulate the head.. got odd rotations.. and, if you grab the body controls and translate them really far away, you get some double translations in the back.

That being said, there are a few things which are nice about the rigs.. I like the idea of having the elbow control for the ik being easy to grab. And I also really like the idea that you can add tails and fingers and such like that. Very cool ideas.. looking forward to seeing this develope further!

-jason

[LFGabel]

Hey Jason, are you talking about the tubeguysetup.mb file from their website? I just downloaded it and could not replicate the rotation problems in the feet.

I didn't try the quadruped, but with with the tube guy, you will get double transformations if you select all the controls and just move them.

If you select just the spine1_Upper_Body control and the two feet and move them together, you don't get any double transformations at all.

I tried turning the body using spine1_upper_Body all sorts of directions on Y, X and Z and adjusted the feet to follow, and it all worked rather well.

The rig looks pretty solid, as far as what I'd like to see in a useable rig (and I have been through the fires of rigging hell several times now).

My 2 cents..

[jschleifer]

I haven't checked out the latest rig, so there might be some fixes, which would be great! overall I think it's a fine rig.. were you rotating with euler on or just global rotations?

cheers!
-jason

[LFGabel]

Well, I'm pretty new to Maya, but not to rigging. I'm not sure where you set the euler on or off, but in my rotation settings, both local and global work, but gimbal does not. You get what you first described.

[steveblake]

...on the subject of automatic setups: Mark's Autorig looks like a contender - with splendid Jason-esque shoulder/back/hip controls
http://www.markbehm.com/tools.html

The final rig seems a little more 'user friendly' (than TSM), from what I've seen...

oh. and it's free:thumbsup:

[Firas]

i need to setup 3 character .. but which is better : TSM or AutoRig ?

bye the way .. TSM demo version do not save, but , we can "export all" :bounce: and works 100%

i did find the moving CVs on AutoRig friendly .. what do u say steveblake ?

[Mandrake]

Based on my very limited experience with them:

Auto rig: Stretching for cartoonic (and other) characters, very
good, great spine setup, FK IK swithcing has some problems
(read help), its free but you'll need a bits of work afterwards,
like making layers and organizing it for keying (not a big deal)
Leg setup ok, arms setup could be better

TSM: Overpriced, got layers and keayble things organised,
easy for animating (less controls), for some "reason" there
is no toe rotate ( w/ pivot in tip) so you might have to make
that one (fairly easy to do) and it does quadripeds, but there
is a limitation you'll had to have in mind when modeling.

I'm not a rigger, just played a bit with them, so I might be
wrong for some things.

[Firas]

thankx Mandrake ,

i'll test autoRig today on my character :)

i have a ?, is there one of the two (tsm & autoRig) better skining or they r same ?

[jnglemeat]

the only problem with marks autorig that i foud was that it dosent work for maya 4.5 , its only good in 4.0. other than that i would prefer to use AutoRig over Tsm, i think Tsm has a few things to improve on

[Firas]

another thing on autoRig,

no documentation on skining, so one need to select the bones manually to skin. while in TSM u dont have much joints to select.

i also think now that autoRig is much better for my characters, they have small legs, so i need stretching in the body for animators freedom.

[Phearielord]

Hey

Have you guys tried out Advanced Skeleton yet?
I have only used it a few times, and from what I found, it wasn't bad.
It is not a majorly advanced rig, but it has all the neccessary things you want (except maybe for shoulder movement).

It's all free, so give it a try.

[Firas]

i made a look on AdvancedSkeleton ->
http://www.animationstudios.com.au/

but didnt find any new features .. and the most important thing for cartooni character is the ability to stritching the spin,arms & legs.. of course with full controll on IK/FK arms.

am working to add small utils for autoRig to help in keyframing soon.

[ManuelM]

i just wanted to try autoRig, but the following error-message appeared:

...maya/4.5/scripts/arUtilities.mel line 787: More than one object matches name: ARArmCurve //

cu manuel

[ManuelM]

i guess, it will have something to do with "assign unique names to child nodes is ON", which is recommended in the autoRig help. but i do not find this option in the maya4.5 preferences

[Mandrake]

Originally posted by Manuel M
i guess, it will have something to do with "assign unique names to child nodes is ON", which is recommended in the autoRig help. but i do not find this option in the maya4.5 preferences

find the line:
string $mirror[] = `duplicate "ARSYMETRY"`;

and change it to:
string $mirror[] = `duplicate -rr -renameChildren "ARSYMETRY"`;

and it should work in 4.5..

[ManuelM]

thanks mandrake
now it is working and it seems to be good. unfortunately, it seems to have some bugs (at least in maya 4.5):

-the wrist control does not work properly. i guess adjusting the local rotation axis, will help. this also causes, that you cannot properly use the "maxstretch" control of the arms.

-animating the headCTRL`s independent channel causes the head joint to rotate 90 deg. in y.

[Rudity]

I like autoRig.

Me and a friend are putting together a similar script and rig using the Nurbs CV idea from auto rig.
We are trying to make it so you have options for a tail, quadrig, and a centaur rig. :)

It'll be tough.
Im using a Jason style rig with a bit of my own ideas and stuff.

Hey maybe when we are done it i could have you look at it Jason. And critique it.
One day ill be a maya master. :) one day....

heheh

Later
Rudity

[lricho]

i guess, it will have something to do with "assign unique names to child nodes is ON", which is recommended in the autoRig help. but i do not find this option in the maya4.5 preferences
You'll find that it has been moved to the duplicate dialogue box. Not that it helped with trying to get autoRig to work in 4.5
That little fix that mandrake suggested works like a charm though.

[jnglemeat]

Originally posted by Manuel M
thanks mandrake
now it is working and it seems to be good. unfortunately, it seems to have some bugs (at least in maya 4.5):

-the wrist control does not work properly. i guess adjusting the local rotation axis, will help. this also causes, that you cannot properly use the "maxstretch" control of the arms.

-animating the headCTRL`s independent channel causes the head joint to rotate 90 deg. in y.

thanks to mandrake i fixed the 4.5 glitch as well, but any luck figuring out that wrist bending, mine just breaks exactly like in the pic you posted

[ManuelM]

do you also have this problem with the head joints, when switching between broken hierarchy?

[jschleifer]

Heya!

whew.. now that I"m back from vacation, I may actaully have time to catch up with cgtalk! :)

I'd be happy to take a look at it.. just lemme know where and when!

cheers!!
happy holidays everyone!
-jason

Originally posted by Rudity
I like autoRig.

Me and a friend are putting together a similar script and rig using the Nurbs CV idea from auto rig.
We are trying to make it so you have options for a tail, quadrig, and a centaur rig. :)

It'll be tough.
Im using a Jason style rig with a bit of my own ideas and stuff.

Hey maybe when we are done it i could have you look at it Jason. And critique it.
One day ill be a maya master. :) one day....

heheh

Later
Rudity

[tropistic]

I'm interested in your opinion on autoRig Jason, and any ideas you have for improvements/modifications.

Would like to see your script too Rudity when you feel it's ready for prime time :D

Jay

[joie]

I got an error using the "autoRig.mel", when I try to rigafter modify the reference curves I get this message:

Can´t find procedure "jointsAlongCurves3D", anyone knows about this?, or any advises?

Thank´s in advance

I´ve found very impressive the CVs curve idea

[tropistic]

Using autoRig 2.0? Check out this thread:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36881

Jay

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.