Future of forward/inverse kinematics?

#81

a question for jason
you said it this method would have been great for animating certain scenes for gollum. so why not use mirai since you guys have it and then export the animation to a tool where you can assign shaders and spit out a rib file?
mirai is probably the easiest tool to learn so that wouldn’t take too much of your time and you don’t have to wait for development of this, it’s right there!
i’m also guessing the version of mirai hanging out at weta is not v1.1, or if it is, it’s at least enhanced somewhat so some minor problems should be overcome.

#82

There were a number of reasons why we didn’t go with mirai… but mainly the rest of the workflow was much easier to control in Maya. We could script it to do most anything we needed, and it could interface easily with the rest of the pipeline.

That being said, I’d still love to see some of the mirai tools integrated into maya. :slight_smile:

#83

You can also do Pose and pin(locked) operations with the character tools in Houdini 5.5 and/or 6? You can lock and unlock any joints using the Pose Operation among other things. The Pose Op is used to pose characters by manipulating the Bones object whether you are using IK, FK or No K solvers. When a joint is locked modifications made higher up the chain doesn’t affect the position of the locked joint. Check out www.sidefx.com and you can download the Appentice version as well.

Regards,

#84

I’ve read all 6 pages of this now :slight_smile:

Anyhow. IK/FK is a nice issue to discuss. Even though Character Studio has a hybrid system of this it doesn’t really work for the animators advantage.

As far as I know animators wants to tweak their F-Curves. And if you (like Character Studio does it) get keframes on all chains you are in for a real mess when trying to refine the animation.

I mainly use Softimage|XSI but I’m also learning Maya (in order to get more freelance jobs). And in both packages I’ve found the “3d bone” system to work the best. It’s a pain in the butt to setup, but it works. XSI is getting closer than Maya in this department, but it’s like comparing US cents and Euro cents (pretty close).
But I would rather work with that system than not having any F-Curves to deal with. If you don’t have any F-Curves to work with you need to key every ease-in and ease-out (and still you may not get the result you want).
Mirai has a nice way of dealing with it (better than CS in my opinion), but I would still like to see some F-Curves.

In a perfect world we get everything :slight_smile: First lets break in the door at Pixar and tap their resources for Marionette, perhaps then are further ahead… or not…

just my $0.02 ranting words :slight_smile:

best regards

.stefan andersson

#85

The newest version of Character Studio actually does display curves although they don’t seem to be the best to work with.

#86

Originally posted by StefanA
But I would rather work with that system than not having any F-Curves to deal with. If you don’t have any F-Curves to work with you need to key every ease-in and ease-out (and still you may not get the result you want).
Mirai has a nice way of dealing with it (better than CS in my opinion), but I would still like to see some F-Curves.

If you read all 6 pages then you should have seen Ambient Whisper’s posts. Mirai does have f-curves. When you need to refine your animation you decompose the animation and you can edit your f-curves.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to do this in other similar animation systems. I’ve been meaning to check out Motion Builder, it has a similar way of pinning joints and it has f-curves.

#87

Is this discussion still active?

This has been something I’ve wanted in maya for ages. heheh I remember filling out the feature request form on A|W’s site every version since its been there. Maybe now they’ll listen?

Anyway on to the meat…
I’m doing some experiments now with a simple skeleton with an RP IK solver going from joint to joint. Initial results of course is a skeleton thats as functional as an FK skel but every joint is “pinned”
This of course is as much a pain (moreso really) as thinkng about switching from IK to FK. So I’m thinking of maybe weighted IK solvers and funky IK chains inside of IK chains. I may even ditch the normal joints entirely and play with aim constraints and simple geometry.

Anyone else working on this still?

#88

yes, this discussion is still active… I was hoping (as, I’m sure, others do) that it would start a project to implement it =P if not a|w itself.

I wish I could spearhead such a thing, but I am no way qualified… but very inspired to help as much as I can.

Little has been said on exactly how this animation system would work… I got a few ideas, but whew… “math sucks” -Jason Schleifer

Here’s what i got (mostly problems)
[ul][li]all nodes would be a brother/sister relation to each other. If any hierarchy is used, it would change based on what is selected (ending at what is locked
[/li][li]issue: how to restrict for elbows (like traditional RP)
[/li][li]issue: what happens where joints branch? (like hips/shoulders)
[/li][/ul]
I know others have asked before (possibly me), but some paper (like a siggraph paper) would be a very good start. Though it seems that most of this technology was originally developed overseas.

-Paul

#89

Ckerr812 sent me a script that I think has pointed me in the right direction as far as pinable IK. I just now need to figure out how to make it so we don’t have to think about forwards and backwards stuff. I’ll post a rig when I get some time to put it together.

#90

who knows bout izware ?
someone tells me that its the nichimen dev team that have a new name.
mirai junior is coming soon?

hmm i edit this post, ive talk too fast, ive checked www.izware.com and its the home site of mirai , nendo etc

but i still wonder what means their “were coming soon” page ^^

#91

Wowza! they’ve changed since the last time I’ve been there
there used to be a webpage thats been there since 99 haha
good to see that something might be in store for us.

#92

i belive someone mentioned motion builder, it has from what i remember seeing in it a dope sheet cause people like having that, it has curves, it animates just like segas animation program. i didnt get to mess around with it i just saw some videos. but you grab a guys arm drag it down , the whole body moves according to your movement its amazing i think its really cheap too. kaydara is always impressing me.

oh yah its all real time, i remember them saying that. buzz had this alien animated in maya it was really slow, in motion builder it moves on the fly . thats pretty impressive as is.

#93

I was just digging back through these pages…

Originally posted by keithlango
Back when Big Idea used to be an animation studio, I was heading up some character rigging R&D for a future film (which won’t be made) and Michael Comet and I kinda figured a simpler arm IK/FK system that didn’t require switching…It’s hard to explain in text, but it’s really pretty butt-simple to set up and use. And best of all, it requires no switching keyframes to manage. I can do a short description/tutorial and throw it up on my website if folks are interested.
-k

I was wondering Keith, do you have time to outline your method a little further?

I’m sure many people here would benefit from your an approach…

:slight_smile:

#94

Very interesting thread. I actually saw the Animanium demo videos before I came here, and I must say I was blown away by the relative simplicity and power balled in one. I have always kinda shyed away from animating, simply because it looked like such a daunting task, to keep track of everything. But after watching animanium, it looks like there is hope after all. You worry less about the little things, and get right to the fun part. I am sure animanium has it’s quirks that require working around, too, but it looks like it would be more fun to work with. I hope A|W truly tackles this type of technique, as it would catapult them into a new level. Too bad Mirai(which I still use to model, thanks to Ambient Whisper :beer:) got left behind, and never really got the recognition and user-base that it truly deserves, cause if it did, we’d have one hell of an app today: Mirai 5.0 The king of 3D apps. :applause:

#95

Originally posted by keithlango
Back when Big Idea used to be an animation studio, I was heading up some character rigging R&D for a future film (which won’t be made) and Michael Comet and I kinda figured a simpler arm IK/FK system that didn’t require switching…It’s hard to explain in text, but it’s really pretty butt-simple to set up and use. And best of all, it requires no switching keyframes to manage. I can do a short description/tutorial and throw it up on my website if folks are interested.
-k

What! did I really miss this post! Yeah, Keith, please do! Can’t wait!
:bounce:

#96

I missed this thread till today when someone ICQ’d me the link and I really think this should have a pointer in GD or something cos it’s evolved quite rightly into something other than an app specific thread… it affects anyone with any ambition to animate regardless of app used and is perhaps one of the two most pertinant topics at the moment… the other also referring back to Mirai which I’m lead to believe has the ability to allow mesh editing almost at any stage unlike most others that very obviously don’t. :slight_smile:

#97

keith , im sure everyone would like to see what your doing. post ,would be great.

#98

just stumbled across this thread.

these other tools look neat, but i would much prefer to have it in maya, like J.S. is saying. let the world come to me, dammit

i would love to see an example of the dual/simultaneous arm controls keith lango mentioned. does anyone have an example rig they’d like to send me, or have a link to something that uses the same concept? i don’t necc. need a step-by-step tutorial, but i don’t quite understand how to build it from the description.

#99

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. :wink:

You guys seriously need to check out MotionBuilder. I does exactly what you’ve all been talking about. Animanium and MotionBuilder basically work the same way. Joints can either be rotated or moved. IK can extend throughout the whole body. you can “Pin” down joint and freely move the rest whenever you want. You don’t have to think about what mode you’re in. The IK is smart enough to figure out what you want.

That’s really the issue here if you ask me. Most IK systems are just to litaral. There not smart enough to figure out that when you grab the elbow, your really just doing a combination of rotating the chain (twist control) and changing the pole vector or moving other joints around. IK needs to just be more on top of things. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Smart IK systems are just now coming out. Kaydara have one. Maira seems to be out of the picture for now but the new Sega system is something to look forward to if (for some unknown reason) you don’t like MotionBuilder. Anyway, another great thing about MotionBuilder is that it’s really inexpensive. I got a one year license for $100. And the main version is like $600-700. There’s also a great plugin for Max

-=GB=-

#100

motion builder is amazing, i have tried it out for about a week. it has so many great options, real time animation… oi, layers, the pinning is so nice. i cant wait to try animanium, it would be nice if it was better than MB, but MB i think is already really fantastic.