Damn!
I've been looking at my early scripts I've written for my own use and my job. I now see a lot of ways to make those scripts a lot more efficient, or at least shorter.
It seems I've written 14,000 lines in scripts in the last year or so. Jeebus but that's a lot of updating I'll need to do. Most likely, when I leave my current job.
Some interesting tools I've written lately:
Transfer shapes and connections from an outsourced facial rigs to the most recent company models and rigs, then delete the outsourced character model.
Face control and face camera windows that don't allow the other characters to interfere. Each has a pull down menu with the names of all the referenced characters n the scene. There's also a checkbox on the face camera to turn off orthographic front view so the face can be rotated around, and an adjustable clipping plane in the non-orthographic view to clip out interfering body parts.
A more specialized user interface for loading and saving the outsourced work so it'll more easily transfer to referenced characters.
A floating tool window with the tools likely to be used by other people.
A new, simpler FBX2Maya tool that expects the FBX rigs to actually be updated to the current rigs.
A multi-proxy tool that puts all the lores proxies in one group, and all the hires proxies in another. It's stupid how by default Maya makes a wordily named group for each object, making it more difficult to access them as a group in their lores and hires manifestations.
I made a tool for eye movement. It can simulate small eye movements to get rid of that cg "dead eye" look, with presets for camera angle and character emotional state. Sliders allow more fine tuning of eye movement magnitude and timing. Keyframing tools that allow an eye direction to be set on any selected character in the scene, but doesn't use a wired target that hangs in space (meaning multiple retargets and keys need to be used when the head is moving, but it eliminates that creepy "sliding eye" thing) with adjustable range for working on smaller segments of the overall scene, and sliders to adjust the eyes, buttons for adding keys or deleting them. I might make a version someday that also does eyelids with similar timing controls.
Nice thing about the tool is you can always edit the channels for more individualized control, but it gives a nice leg up for a quick and usable sub-eye movement when time is short. Sometimes there just isn't time to hand key everything that needs it.
While I was testing my face control tools, I needed to mock up a face controller real quick, so I created a face control maker tool. This makes two dimensional geometry boxes with moveable geometry in the middle limited to the interior of the boxes, text to identify them, and a slider to make it all in scale to the character. I might add a control interface to hook the controls up to channels later.
Updated crapBeGone to a scorched earth version that leaves the skinning intact with a separate button. crapBeGone eliminates unused nodes (for real) as well as other cruft, which the built in Maya tools just don't seem to do.
Been working on final skinning strategies now that models seem to be stabilizing and things might actually be moving into the Maya side of the pipe. Up to now, rigs have had to stay pretty simple so they'd be compatible with Motion Builder. I'm now working on rigs that can employ wrap deformers and other Maya-only trickery. Because of the large number of characters, we'll probably eschew dynamics and just leave the secondary stuff to hand keying, which seems to go really fast with a knowledgable animator at the stick. You'd think it would be faster to do the stuff with dynamics, but setting up dynamics for expected results takes a lot longer than the hand keying would on any given character. I've also been working with one of the animators to develop topological control of various aspects of the characters.
Well, that's the update. I kinda wanted to take my blog off the "non-updated blog" list ;)
It seems I've written 14,000 lines in scripts in the last year or so. Jeebus but that's a lot of updating I'll need to do. Most likely, when I leave my current job.
Some interesting tools I've written lately:
Transfer shapes and connections from an outsourced facial rigs to the most recent company models and rigs, then delete the outsourced character model.
Face control and face camera windows that don't allow the other characters to interfere. Each has a pull down menu with the names of all the referenced characters n the scene. There's also a checkbox on the face camera to turn off orthographic front view so the face can be rotated around, and an adjustable clipping plane in the non-orthographic view to clip out interfering body parts.
A more specialized user interface for loading and saving the outsourced work so it'll more easily transfer to referenced characters.
A floating tool window with the tools likely to be used by other people.
A new, simpler FBX2Maya tool that expects the FBX rigs to actually be updated to the current rigs.
A multi-proxy tool that puts all the lores proxies in one group, and all the hires proxies in another. It's stupid how by default Maya makes a wordily named group for each object, making it more difficult to access them as a group in their lores and hires manifestations.
I made a tool for eye movement. It can simulate small eye movements to get rid of that cg "dead eye" look, with presets for camera angle and character emotional state. Sliders allow more fine tuning of eye movement magnitude and timing. Keyframing tools that allow an eye direction to be set on any selected character in the scene, but doesn't use a wired target that hangs in space (meaning multiple retargets and keys need to be used when the head is moving, but it eliminates that creepy "sliding eye" thing) with adjustable range for working on smaller segments of the overall scene, and sliders to adjust the eyes, buttons for adding keys or deleting them. I might make a version someday that also does eyelids with similar timing controls.
Nice thing about the tool is you can always edit the channels for more individualized control, but it gives a nice leg up for a quick and usable sub-eye movement when time is short. Sometimes there just isn't time to hand key everything that needs it.
While I was testing my face control tools, I needed to mock up a face controller real quick, so I created a face control maker tool. This makes two dimensional geometry boxes with moveable geometry in the middle limited to the interior of the boxes, text to identify them, and a slider to make it all in scale to the character. I might add a control interface to hook the controls up to channels later.
Updated crapBeGone to a scorched earth version that leaves the skinning intact with a separate button. crapBeGone eliminates unused nodes (for real) as well as other cruft, which the built in Maya tools just don't seem to do.
Been working on final skinning strategies now that models seem to be stabilizing and things might actually be moving into the Maya side of the pipe. Up to now, rigs have had to stay pretty simple so they'd be compatible with Motion Builder. I'm now working on rigs that can employ wrap deformers and other Maya-only trickery. Because of the large number of characters, we'll probably eschew dynamics and just leave the secondary stuff to hand keying, which seems to go really fast with a knowledgable animator at the stick. You'd think it would be faster to do the stuff with dynamics, but setting up dynamics for expected results takes a lot longer than the hand keying would on any given character. I've also been working with one of the animators to develop topological control of various aspects of the characters.
Well, that's the update. I kinda wanted to take my blog off the "non-updated blog" list ;)
posted by Stephen Greenberg at 2:41 PM
1 comments
