I thought I'd start a thread for the action install for the squetch rig. This is just for bone placement in your model. You will have to still assign cps and weight your model and recompensate poses (hopefully not for long, thanks to rickh). I'm going to do a test install and have David do a test run as well. I should have it posted sometime this weekend (hopefully today).

This is exciting.

I cannot believe that Mark took on something as complicated as the Squetch rig for his first attempt at this - it is a pretty incredible feat.

Now about the auto-offset idea that Mark referred to - basically it is possible with a new feature to totally eliminate the need for any Compensate Mode offsets - either in the rig design or the rig installation process. You would never have to touch that Compensate Mode button again!

I am working on writing a plugin to do this, but it is a bit slow since I have to learn how to use the SDK.

I think this should be a built in feature in A:M and if anyone else agrees, please add it as a feature request in Reports. Hash need to know if animators want this feature or not.

Richard Harrowell.

The Auto Offset Concept for Constraints

In most rigs for any purpose, you do not want any bones to move when the rig is first dropped in a Choreography or Action.

This means that there is no need for manual setting of any Constraint Offsets. All that is needed is for something to set an automatic offset in an action window that compensates for the bone's positions in the modelling window. In other words, it automatically sets a fixed offset for each constraint that ensures no bone will be moved from it modelled position due to a constraint unless you start animating bone positions.

Since this is exactly what how you want a constraint to work 99.9% of the time and since it is so easy for A:M to calculate these values exactly for a massive rig in a fraction of a second, it is an obvious feature to have.

Noel's refinement of the idea is that the Compensate mode button along with the Offset properties would remain. The offset properties would act as an additional effect to the auto-compensate - it would allow you to deliberately nudge a bone a bit. The Auto-Offset function would actually completely ignore the numbers in the Offset property when it calculates the offset. So you end up with two offsets that get added together.

The Compensate Mode button would still generate offsets based on the bone positon in an action rather then the modelled positions, so it is still there when you need to set the offset for a constraint to a target bone that has been moved from its modelled position.

In summary, if constraints had this Auto-Offset tick box available, it would mean that in most cases, A:M could pre-calculate all the offsets live and it would cease to be an issue you even have to think about much.

In my idea for a test plugin, I intend to use the simple logic that if a constraint currently has an Offset property, then I will assume it will need the Offset recalculated. Any constraint that does not have any Offset property currently set will be ignored. I might have a second option that will calculate offsets for every constraint.

Richard Harrowell.

WOW! I have been waiting loooooong for this!

Sorry, but you'll have to wait longer. I found a problem on export that I have to send in to A:M reports.

The problem is rotational values do not export with the model. X and Y rotation of a bone in an action get exported as bone end position, Z rotation does not effect the position of a bone, so no Z rotation on export, bone default back to orginal rotation on the Z axis. I only have a couple of poses that use Z rotation (which work fine in the action) and I didn't notice the problem until I did a test install and exported it.

That is very frustrating.

Is it simply a matter of getting the Z rotation in the exported model that same as in the action, or does this problem cause errors all the way down the bone tree?

Why I ask is that in a week or two, I can probably look at a simple plugin that will capture the bone rotations in the action to an external text file, and then use that to correct the bone rotations in the exported model.

Would that work?

The thing is that even if this big is fixed, it may only be fixed in V14, and will not be fixed in V12. A plugin can be made to work for all versions. I have the source code for the InstallRig plugin, so perhaps I can add this functionality to it somehow.

I think this work is too important to have it stall.

It would even be possible to write plugin that would take all the bones and positions in an action and write them directly into a destination model (the one with all the final constraints, etc), but it sounds a bit beyond my plugin writing ability at the moment.

Richard Harrowell.

Status of the AutoOffset plugin

In spite of the silence, I am making real progress.

I have managed to get a working dialog box, and I have worked out how to navigate the SDK to locate the constraints. Work has been frustratingly slow since this is my first A:M plugin, but now that I am finally talking with A:M via the SDK, things are starting to work. This image of the plugin dialog gives an idea of what am trying to achieve:



An alpha version of the plugin for PC's is not far away. I do not have the ability to compile Mac versions.


Richard Harrowell.

Your stock is rising Mr.Harrowell!!!!

Will this work for any rig or just the squetch rig?

Mike Fitz
www.3dartz.com

It basically works for any situation where:

1. No bone moves when a model first opens in an Action (ie - you wan all offsets set so that all bones are aleady in exactly the position the constraints intend them to be in), and

2. You are not animating the offsets.

Once I have the plugin working, there are probably refinements I can do, but for the moment I am designing it for models that fit these requirements.

And yes, it would be kind of handy for a rig with cogs.


Richard Harrowell.

Richard, thanks! Can't wait!

Any new developments?

It would be nice to have action install rig model to play with together with some info what is to be changed manually...

just a thought... ;o)

It would take too much fixing. all the bones in the legs and thumbs would have to be manually adjusted.