Auto-rig Pro [3.69]

HokusPokus · September 10, 2019, 12:08am

HI again. I have come across an odd behaviour i’m not sure what to make out of… When i do a simple walkcycle, trying to copy and paste and make a “flipped x-pose” the bones doesn’t cooperate but end up pretty twisted… Now… it is a bit logical Auto-rig behaves this way as it has separated controls for the ball and Heel rolls… the downside i found out is that i need to copy not used bones from 1st contact-pose to act as placeholders for the second contact-pose when the bones are flipped to end up in the correct pose…but then another problem showed up… Now the passing pose ends up hoovering above the ground slightly… sort of there’s some reference bones it is tied to that prevent correct functionality

I rigged the same model with Blenders Meta-rig and the steps are working flawlessly there, and requires fewer steps…

I hope i have missed something in the finprint…

Here are the six steps i needed to do ( to clarify: step 1 - 6 is copied from first contact… pasted into the second, this works but is little tedious, and the feet is still hoovering in the passing…)

And doing only 4 steps ( as with the Meta-rig) this is what’s happening… feet both hoovers… and in the second contact-pose… it’s disco-time ( to clarify step 1 - 4 is copied, the same as above… Doing those 4 steps in Meta-Rig doesn’t end up twisted and not hoovering)

A second and third question while i’m at it:

Is it possible to edit controller shapes before using the add-on so they are already customized when the rig is created?.. to prevent having to do this every time i create a new rig
Is there any way to make the controllers thicker, so it’s easier to grab them? I edited the controlles and bevelled them heavily which made it super easy to grab… but it looked… fugly

It would be really cool if controllers could be filled and made semi-transparent so they wouldn’t be too obtrusive, visually… but very easy to grab

Heavy shoes

Cheers

mortas · September 10, 2019, 11:04pm

WOW! looking forward to your new jiggle addon, if its as good as you auto rig addon - and the one in the video, its gonna be grand!

The_Chris_Hatfield · September 12, 2019, 8:13am

curious, Is there away to skip markers in setup. Lets say for a character that has no legs.

lucky · September 12, 2019, 9:54am

Hello @HokusPokus , thanks for this detailed feedback!

When i do a simple walkcycle, trying to copy and paste and make a “flipped x-pose” the bones doesn’t cooperate but end up pretty twisted

I’ve just tried to here reproduce the issue but fortunately it worked as it should (tried with a walkcycle as well). I use Auto-Rig Pro for my own animation projects, and also for clients, studios, and never encountered this so far then this is a bit surprising
The rig is meant to work with all mirror options (mirror poses, mirror keyframes) of Blender, so this should not be an issue. I’d recommend you to check that the reference bones are properly mirrored by enabling the mirror option, select bones from one side and press G key without moving the mouse then Enter key to confirm. Then Match to Rig to regenerate the final rig.

Now the passing pose ends up hoovering above the ground slightly… sort of there’s some reference bones it is tied to that prevent correct functionality

This is possibly due to missing keyframes, if you animate multiple controller such as the c_foot_ik" rotation + “c_foot_roll_cursor” bone to lift up the heel, or “c_foot_01”, logically it will interpolate linearly between the two keyframes resulting in the foot being above the ground in the middle.

Is it possible to edit controller shapes before using the add-on so they are already customized when the rig is created?.. to prevent having to do this every time i create a new rig

There’s unfortunately no dedicated function for this yet, but you can however edit the custom shapes from the template blend files located in the addons folder.

Is there any way to make the controllers thicker, so it’s easier to grab them? I edited the controlles and bevelled them heavily which made it super easy to grab… but it looked… fugly

You can of course edit the shapes, by default they are made of a single edge line for now. The reason for trying to keeping them as low-key as possible is to not hide the character behind controller shapes. The character mesh should remain as visible as possible when using a lot of controllers over the character, otherwise it could be very frustrating. This is why it’s also interesting to turn off the “overlays” from the viewport to only see the character mesh, and use the picker panel to select bones (or the Skin Selection addon).

lucky · September 12, 2019, 10:16am

Thanks for being supportive
Well, currently it’s in a very early state but i’ve decided to release it on Github since this may be useful to other users anyway. However I won’t be able to provide support obviously considering the very early state of development it may be prone to bugs, but may be still fun to play with:

lucky · September 12, 2019, 10:17am

Hello @The_Chris_Hatfield,
Not yet possible to skip markers sorry. However you can skip the whole Smart detection and markers to place bones manually.

vinnyvicious · September 12, 2019, 3:51pm

Hi @lucky! I have some questions about certain use cases and I would like to know if Auto-rig Pro can help me with it.

I have an existing skeleton and character rigged to it, and the game engine is hard-coded to that skeleton. There’s also 100+ anims already dependent on that skeleton. Therefore, I can’t really use auto-rig with my new mesh, and I would have to rig the existing skeleton to my mesh. What are the options in this scenario? Can I tell auto-rig to use an existing skeleton structure? Or maybe I can use auto-rig normally, but when exporting, can I tell auto-rig to try and migrate to the old skeleton architecture?

lucky · September 12, 2019, 4:08pm

There’s no tools in Auto-Rig Pro meant to create controllers from external bones, i’m afraid this is not possible for now.

HokusPokus · September 13, 2019, 8:32am

Thanks for the reply Artell. I “re-rigged” this model in the pictures several times and re-did the whole walk cycle several times and i ended up with one issue or the other all the time… Doing the same with the meta-rig worked ever time so i really wanted to be sure it wasn’t the idiot behind the computer beeing the issue

If you watch closely in the pictures there are no keys missing in the passing pose… but If you can’t replicate this error maybe its Blender screwing it up… WIll dig deeper to see what’s happening

New question: Is it possible to tie the heal and toe-roll into the same controller? It would be nice as an option to have a switch to turn it on / off…

Thanks for the suggestion about editing the controllers in the blendfile… this is perfectly good enough for me…
About controller thickness: Yes i agree about the “obtrusiveness” thicker lines give you… I just get a headache trying to grab those thin lines as i can’t grab them easy or fast enough. it always feels so fiddly with a mouse which causes a slight headache… But i will edit the shapes… it will be a good enough compromise i’ll take make do with

Yes, i purchased skin selection tool some year ago but never understood how to work with it properly… It felt a little fiddly having to make the setup, turn recording on / off e.t.c…maybe i missed something… will have a go again and see if it will make my life easier

Cheers

Thanks again

lucky · September 13, 2019, 8:46am

Please send the blend file (you can remove the character mesh) via PM, I will investigate.

HokusPokus · September 13, 2019, 10:32am

Thanks. I’ll do that as a last resort if i can’t find on what end it fails or what the issue is.

Editing the controllers separately will be perfect… though i must ask if i can make a filled object visible, not just the wireframe? I edited the controllers through AutoRig and a filled object reverted into wire when saving and exiting object edit.

Edit: Found how to set objects transparency in posemode

mortas · September 13, 2019, 7:08pm

nice one mate! i’ll give this a whirl over the weekend

Loptec · September 15, 2019, 8:53am

Hi, I’m very new to Blender and I’m still learning.
I found Auto-Rig Pro on the Blender Market a few days ago and purchased it since it seemed like a really nice tool to have when rigging.

I have the latest available 2.81-test version of Blender installed and after installing Auto-Rig Pro in this version, I can’t find it anywhere in the software afterwards. I’ve watched all the youtube tutorials and it’s just not appearing for me where it should.

Is this a known problem with the 2.81 (since the latest version officially just supports v2.8 for now) or should it be possible to get it to work in the latest 2.81 version?

Thanks in advance

The_Chris_Hatfield · September 15, 2019, 10:40pm

@Loptec, make sure you have the addon enabled then look for the addon on the right hand side. Accessing the toolbar press “N” then you should see “ARP” on the tabs Screenshot_2

lucky · September 16, 2019, 8:02am

though i must ask if i can make a filled object visible, not just the wireframe?

I’m not sure it works that well, it seems to draw solid+wire weirdly, but unchecking the “Wireframe” option of the custom object (“viewport display” tab of the bone) may do the trick.

lucky · September 16, 2019, 8:03am

Make sure to install the addons located in the “addons” folder, a common mistake is to install the whole downloaded zip as an addon which won’t work:
http://lucky3d.fr/auto-rig-pro/doc/install.html

Loptec · September 16, 2019, 8:18am

Ah, thanks!
I’m sure this is it, because I tried installing just with the downloaded zip-file, since that’s how you do it with most addons for Blender.

Thanks for the link to the user manual too! I’m sure that one will be handy going forward, even though this particular issue probably is solved now

6eye · September 16, 2019, 8:38am

Will auto rig pro face rigged model works with faceshift studio? Can I do motion capture with the rigged model?

HokusPokus · September 16, 2019, 2:58pm

Thanks for replying. Well, i tried that but it didn’t do anything to keep the object filled… that’s why i asked… i thought it was some trickery made in code when it didn’t do anything… I remember i have done this in 2.7* successfully.

I’ll just try to work around it so no big deal.

The_Chris_Hatfield · September 17, 2019, 12:12am

@6eye While I can’t answer for lucky about auto rig pro face rig having built in retargeting. There is a plugin on the market called Re-face, which does just that. The 2.8 versions should hit the blendermarket soon. Both Addons should work well with each other.

I’m currently using Brekel Pro face for capturing data. As for Faceshift you can import your “shapekeys” in and use to drive motion with faceshift. You can also export the FBX data from faceshift and use that for retargeting. Thats about as much intergration as you are going to get with Blender, interms of Faceshift. Though, the only ease of use tool on the market right now for facial retargeting in Blender is Re-Face, to my knowledge.

P.S. I’d stay away form Faceshift for any projects. Big Brother Apple may come knocking at your door,lol. https://tinyurl.com/y3gu4y5a