CD Character Bundle Pro or MOCCA 3?

[Horganovski]

I'm sure this question has been asked before, if you search around you should be able to find some more opinions.

Mine would be that anyone I know (including myself) who uses Dans' plugins finds them to be very powerful, cost effective and flexible, the customer service you get from Dan is fantastic and his rigging tutorials have become a bible on rigging in Cinema for a lot of people.
When I started with Cinema I just bought the Core and MoGraph and then Dans' plugins instead of Mocca so that I could start character rigging and animation. I have never regretted this decision and have produced quite a few very usable and stable character rigs this way. Now I am in the process of also buying Mocca as there are some new features (particilarly in 10.5) that are very useful and will improve my workflow. I know that I will continue to use Dans' plugins along with Mocca as a lot of the features in CD tools work better/are faster to setup than the Mocca equivalent.

So, to sum up.. in an ideal world get both, but you can get very far with 'just' CD Plugins.

HTH,
Cheers,
Brian

[fluffouille]

If price is an issue, definitely go for Dan's tools.
Both would be best, of course, since each plugin/module offer some unique stuff on its own.

[LucentDreams]

Well to be brutally honest mocca and cactus dan's tools have very little overlap since mocca is really all about cloth, muscles (morphs (the one overlap) point caching etc.

The tools that really overlap (ik joints weights etc) are all in core so really if you own core you should already be good to go for the most part.

Cheapest overall solution imo is cinema core, and Dan's morph plugin. People keep forgetting all the essential ca tools come in core not in mocca.

[Horganovski]

Granted a lot of the basics are in the core now, especially since they added squash and stretch IK in R10.5, but CDIK is still a lot easier to setup and get stable rigs with than the native Cinema IK IMO, I still haven't figured out how you cure the rotation problems you get when using IK on a foot in R10 (when you rotate the foot controller in H so the toe points out, the foot also banks). In CDIK you can get all this working cleanly with a couple of mouse clicks.

Cheers,
Brian

[benytone]

I still haven't figured out how you cure the rotation problems you get when using IK on a foot in R10 (when you rotate the foot controller in H so the toe points out, the foot also banks...
Brian

This issue is solved with the new version 10.5

[Horganovski]

This issue is solved with the new version 10.5

Thank you,that's good to know, I guess I haven't gone back to check it out as CDIK always works fine but I may have to use it in the future when sharing rigs.

Appreciate the info,
Cheers,
Brian

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,
Thank you,that's good to know, I guess I haven't gone back to check it out as CDIK always works fine but I may have to use it in the future when sharing rigs.
Actually, the next update to the plugins will have a built in runtime feature that will allow anyone, who has downloaded but not registered the plugins, to load a character rigged with the plugins. They won't be able to alter the rig or create a new one, but they will be able to load the character rig file, make an animation with it, and re-save the file with the animation. ;)

Adios,
Cactus Dan

[Horganovski]

That's great news Dan, especially as I've just been trying out R10.5IK and am still having problems:curious:

I was curious to see how the R10.5IK was behaving regarding Bennytones' comment that the IK bug has been fixed so I made a little test scene and as far as I can see it's still behaving the way it did when I tried it in R10.

Have a look at this mov to see what I mean, I also tried adding a pole vector to the foot IK on the R10 rig but it made no difference.
http://www.graphite9.com/IK_Issues.mov


You can download my file and take a look if you're interested, it contains both rigs for comparison.
http://www.graphite9.com/FootBanking.c4d
I'll be happy to be proved wrong on this, maybe I'm leaving out a step, but the CDIK rig works like a charm and didn't require any head-scratching..

EDIT- Still looking into this and I've been checking out some of the rigs that come with R10, the 'IK-Guy' and 'Whimpy' rigs both have the same problem, the 'Devil' rig gets around it by using target constraints instead of IK on the foot.. so it seems I'm not alone on this..

Cheers,
Brian

[LucentDreams]

Howdy,

Actually, the next update to the plugins will have a built in runtime feature that will allow anyone, who has downloaded but not registered the plugins, to load a character rigged with the plugins. They won't be able to alter the rig or create a new one, but they will be able to load the character rig file, make an animation with it, and re-save the file with the animation. ;)

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Wow, that is mighty gracious of you, I've had a few situations now where someone has asked about a project and said their not sure to use mocca or your plugins because they have freelance animators etc who might not own your plugin.

[Horganovski]

I don't want to labor the point and I have a lot of respect for the programmers at Maxon, but I sometimes feel they come to Mocca from too much of a programmers angle and not enough from an animators or riggers' point of view. It seems like sometimes they tick the box and say 'yes, that feature is part of the code now' without really seeing how it is used in a day to day situation.

I've seen professional animators advise that someone who wants to learn to animate in 3D should stay well away from modeling and rigging and focus entirely on animating, for many this is simply not practical and they have to pick up more generalist skills, but being able to rig a character should not require you to pick up a TDs' level of knowledge.

This is possibly the real strength of Dans' plugins.. they are easy to setup, fast in the viewport, very stable, and if you run into something not working the way it should you usually get a solution faster than you can say 'Draw'..

My 2 cents..

Cheers,
Brian

[fluffouille]

I don't want to labor the point and I have a lot of respect for the programmers at Maxon, but I sometimes feel they come to Mocca from too much of a programmers angle and not enough from an animators or riggers' point of view. It seems like sometimes they tick the box and say 'yes, that feature is part of the code now' without really seeing how it is used in a day to day situation.

Now I don't agree with this statement at all.
Testers are the ones who help define, along with the developpers, how a tool should work and have a good workflow.
Incidentally, the same testers helped develop Dan's tools and make it such a workflow beast.

They are animators and riggers, not developpers, so they tend to know what is being used and how (or at least how they would like to have it). They also take into consideration what people would like to see, and workflow suggestions.
Just have a look at how rigging is done in other applications, and maybe you'll change your mind on the ease of use of C4D's rigging tools.

While I do agree that Dan's tools are the easiest to use, C4D's aren't that hard either.

Take your foot example, how can you expect avoiding banking if you do not set up an Up Vector? (since the 2nd IK can't use a solver currently).
It is possible to rig that foot with Dan's tools the same way as Mocca's, and it would still be the logical way of doing so (or at least, as much as applying an IK to 2 joints, and have the solver plane define the banking).

[Horganovski]

I take your points, and thank you for taking the time to illustrate the fix for the file.
I had tried adding a pole to the IK on the foot and assumed it should work in the same way that the up vector is working in your example, when it didn't I gave up on that idea and deleted it. I guess the CDIK Foot IK expression must act like a combination of the IK tag and the Aim constraint.

I guess I should keep a more open mind about Cinemas' IK system, but I really can't see myself using it that much when I find CDIK so fast and easy to use. Having said that, I've paid for the Mocca module today and am really looking forward to getting my serial, the point cache tag is what sealed the deal for me, fantastic to be able to 'bake' characters and strip their rigs out for better response while working on another character.

Cheers,
Brian

EDIT - I looked a bit more at your file and found a problem, if you lift the hips up to pull the foot away from the controller you get a flip with the foot, this can be fixed by moving the upvector down below the foot and changing the UpVector constraint to -Y.

[fluffouille]

EDIT - I looked a bit more at your file and found a problem, if you lift the hips up to pull the foot away from the controller you get a flip with the foot, this can be fixed by moving the upvector down below the foot and changing the UpVector constraint to -Y.
Actually, Up Vectors should be set on the side of the feet to avoid this sort of problem.
So, X+ or X- in this case.
And don't forget to place the constraint tag after the IK tag (on the right side), so it's calculated after the IK.

[Horganovski]

I've tried that.. and now I see the banking is still there..it's slight but that damn foot will not stay flat on the ground :banghead:
The other problem is that now the foot will flip if you lift the hips too high.

I really appreciate your advice with this but this seems to be only confirming my original opinion..looking at the time I've spent fiddling with this and it's still not right, with CDIK I'd have practically built the whole rig by now..
I'd be more inclined to persist with it if I had an example of a good rig where this works, but I'm sure I've read posts from other users about IK and Constraints fighting each other, and that seems to be the case here, I've tried upping the priority of the UpVector constraint but it hasn't made a difference.

Cheers,
Brian

[fluffouille]

If the only thing you want is to have the exact same behavior as Dan's, then leave the Up Vector on Y+, but drag it in front of the foot, or place it on Y- as you suggested before (that's where Dan's solver is).
Why you would want to lift the hip so high, I don't know, but that way it will be stable.

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,
Wow, that is mighty gracious of you, I've had a few situations now where someone has asked about a project and said their not sure to use mocca or your plugins because they have freelance animators etc who might not own your plugin.
Well, it's basically a "Demo" version with most of the features disabled. Only the basic features that would be necessary to animate a character rigged with the plugins will be available to the unregistered user, like AM sliders and such.

The kind of situation you mention is one of the reasons for developing the new "Runtime" feature. ;)

Adios,
Cactus Dan

[lomvuho]

Thanks to everybody who has taken part in this very interestig discussion which has given me a lot of useful information.

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