New Health Manager added to ProPack!

Read More Here

ProPack just got more powerful with the addition of a crucial new system to check the status of assets before they hit production. We’ve been using this internally for a while now to check our rigs before we ship them out to clients and we thought we’d expand it to all ProPack users…

Red9 StudioPack - New Autodesk Exchange Build released!

http://red9consultancy.com/2017/03/31/red9-studiopack-build/

Great news for everybody running our Red9 StudioPack from the Autodesk Exchange website, this morning a fresh build went live which is Win, MacOS and Linux compatible. This is a big update for the Exchange Site codebase as the last version was nearly a year old.

Lots of bug fixes, a few new toys for you animators to play with and deeper integration for the ProPack, including full exposure in the API Docs so you can see just how far the ProPack codebase has grown.

 There’s also a new CodebaseTarcker.xml which will go through all the majors changes over the last 6 months or so.

For more details see our main website post at the top if this post:)

Red9 ProPack - First Sneak Peak - Animation ReDirector

We'll we thought it was about time that we started to show you what we've been up to with the Red9 ProPack. This first demo is the Animation ReDirector, a powerful tool for doing just that, taking a current animation and non-destructively and dynamically re-directing the animation. Hope you like it, plenty more to come over the next few months as we gear up to release the new tools pack, we just need to work out the licensing options and the back-end of the code!

 cheers

 Mark

More Audio goodness

I've just added extra functionality to the Audio handlers in Red9 that hopefully you'll all find useful. 

Firstly I've expanded on the conversion tools to handling timecode, we now have the full complement:

milliseconds_to_Timecode(milliseconds, smpte=True, framerate=None)
milliseconds_to_frame(milliseconds, framerate=None)
timecode_to_milliseconds(timecode, smpte=True, framerate=None)
timecode_to_frame(timecode, smpte=True, framerate=None)
frame_to_timecode(frame, smpte=True, framerate=None)
frame_to_milliseconds(frame, framerate=None)

We're using these internally to process timecode around our MoCap deliveries, converting time to the relevant units as and when required.

I've also added a new function to the Red9_Sound menu in the Trax Editor, 'Sync_BWavs' which is designed to automatically sync multiple BWav files to their internal timecode. BWav's are Braodcast Wav's used when recording audio with timecode as it embeds the data into the wav's header, very useful in production.

The new function processes either the selected audio nodes in Trax, or ALL wavs in the scene, depending on selection. It then inspects the internal BWav's timecode, and if found and valid it will shift the audio nodes in Maya to match their original timecode's, re-syncing them to the original shoots timelines. 

I've also done a few fixes to the AudioNode class, adding the setters that were missing in some of the properties.

cheers

Mark

New AnimUI functions....

So a few updates. I've been working on the back-end to the AnimUI a fair bit recently and have exposed a few new options that should be useful to you all.

First one is the matchMethod - this is the code that takes 2 hierarchies and matches them, node for node to them process correctly. This is used by all the anim code calls, copyAttrs/Keys, poseLoad etc so it's a really low level feature. Now this has been there for a while but it wasn't actually hooked up correctly...ooops! There's been a flag to control the matchMethod but it was missing an option, and that in turn has caused a few of you issues.

The new option is 'index' and that turns OFF all the matching code and just takes the 2 hierarchies that the filter found, and zips them together in the order they were found. Why? well this is what Maya native does on all hierarchies, absolutely no intelligence just one to one mapping. It will now allow things like this to match:

AlphaRig_WristCtrl == BetaRig_WristCtrl

previously this would never match as there's no naming match there, other than me allowing you to enter a search and replace to the UI. With the index option it will match, as that node was found as the 4th child of the hierarchy in both rigs. This also means that the Pose's stored for Alpha_Rig will load correctly to Beta_Rig ;)

So what else, well I've added sort logic to the poseUI. You can do a number of new things in there. Firstly the searchBox takes comma separated searches, so you can add "walk,run,idle' and it will show those as a filter. You'll also notice there's 2 new icons, sort by name, and sort by date. This has been getting on my nerves as my facial library at work is 80+ shapes and if I add a new one I have a lot of scrolling to do!! So sort by date is a godsend.

These are in the GitHub branch and will shortly go into another live release, after testing ;)

cheers

Mark

Red9 StudioPack v1.43 released

Well another month and another new build, as with the last one, and all future builds, I'll be taking release tags on GitHub that you can just browse to and download directly from there, far easier than Google Drive!

https://github.com/markj3d/Red9_StudioPack/releases/tag/1.43

This release is focused on stability in the animationUI. In 1.42 I started to integrate animLayer support but there were some bugs in the way the ui handled the calls so I've gone back to the drawing board and hopefully, come up with integration that guides you through the extar steps as and when you need to.

A few bits of logic to be aware of:

• CopyKeys has it's own 'mergeLayers' checkBox, this now controls ONLY the copyKeys call from the UI. The animLayer call here is non-destructive.
• SnapTransforms - over time this has a pre-copyKey's checkbox but I've removed the merge layer logic from it. Instead it now, by default, does an animation merge in the background before running the pre-copy of keys, prior to the snap itself. No animLayers are destroyed or effected, this is purely a backend function.
• MirrorAnimation - This now will prompt you if you have animLayers on any of the mirror objects, if so it will ask if you want to merge them first. Mirror is the only call that has to act on flattened animLayers and is destructive, you will loose the layers but gain a mirrored anim sequence.

There's many other fixes, PoseBlend now habndles the undoStack correctly, it was caching every iteration of the slider before, not good! Also the poseLib search box now takes comma separated text, so you can filter for multiple tags at the same time.

Main commits:

• Fix - Red9_Anim - fixes to the poseBlender code so it now handles the undoQueue correctly, as chunks and returns object selection correctly.
• New - Red9_Anim - Pose search now accepts multiple strings, comma separated ie 'walk,run,idle'
• Fix - Red9_Anim - fix's in the way that all the commands wrappers in the UI handle AnimLayers - more info and dialog's added to guide you through.
• New - Red9_Meta - added new call 'getNodeConnections' which will replace the 'getNodeConnectionAttr' in calls, designed to return all connections between a given node and the mNode, with filtering
• Mod - Red9_Core - added double3 handling to the lockChannels call, this was causing issues when passed double3 like 'translate' 
• Fix - Red9_Audio - added correct float conversion to all the timecode and framerate conversion functions

Any feedback as usual just ping me

thanks

Mark

Red9 Studio Pack v1.42 released

So it's been a while since the last release but now everything is on GitHub it should be a lot easier to manage releases, I'm just going to take tags so you get full access to everything. Also the main branch of code is the gitHub trunk so you see any changes as I commit them on a daily basis.

https://github.com/markj3d/Red9_StudioPack/releases

Download is a lot easier than on GoogleDrive, just click on the tag and there's a link to download as a zip.

cheers and keep the suggesttions and comments comming, they do help!

Mark


Highlights of the release are also commented up there but just in case:

v1.42: 

• New - Red9_Audio - added BWav support to the AudioNode. This allows you to inspect and retrieve Timecode data from any broadcast wav
• New - Red9_Audio - added a new 'inspect' item to the Red9 sound menu in the Trax for inspecting the internal properties of the selected sound node
• Mod - Red9_Anim - Stabilizer wasn't respecting the keyer groups when you set it to just track 'rots' or 'trans'
• New - Red9_Anim - CopyKeys now deals with animLayer by pre-merging the data to a temp cache before copying the merged data. The original layers are left in tact!
• New - Red9_Audio - added a function getMediaFileMetaData() which is capable of extracting metaData from most media file types via ffprobe.exe
• Mod - Red9_Pose - added a filterMap param to the poseCompare call. This can be used as a master core list, only nodes that appear on this will be checked against. Useful for checking core skeleton nodes whilst ingnoring others
• Mod - Red9_Pose - added an ignoreBlocks to the poseCompare call. This allows the code to ignore complete sections of the compare data, we mainly use this for ['missingKeys'] so that the compare skips them
• Mod - Red9_Anim - modified the AnimUI behaviour such that the 'CTRL' key modifier is now stored with the UI. If you laucnh the UI with ctrl held it'll toggle between launching as docked or not.
• Mod - Red9_Anim - exposed the snapTranslates and snapRotatesflags to the snap() call in AnimFunctions Mod - Red9_Core - Mods to the LockChannels class for better behaviour, set hierarchy flag to false by default.
• New - Red9_Meta - new flag exposed at class level '_forceAsMeta'. This forces the code to ALWAYS return instansiated MetaClass objects when dealing with nodes rather than dag paths.

Red9 Studio Pack v1.41 ;)

Well I think I'm finally happy with the build to release, another one packed with fixes and new features. The big one for this is the addition of an audio compiler, thanks to the guys at pydub and particularly James Robert for the additional methods in the pydub module. Open source rocks when you can tap the brains of others like that.

So for those who didn't read the previous post the AudioCompiler, found in the red9 sound menu in the Trax Editor, is designed to allow you to have multiple sound tracks in Maya and playblast the damn things!! All you do is run the compiler which will generate a brand new wav file and activate it, more over if you've already run it it will just continually update the currently compiled file.

There's also a lot of extra work done on the PoseSaver (as always!) this seems to be getting a lot of use around the community and I'm really keep to push it as far as possible. In this build you'll find a new option on the rmb menu, Pose Blender... yes does exactly that, allows you to mix in, interactively, a percentage of any pose. At the moment this is limited to non-relative poses as it's mixing the values and not doing any world-space calculation. Even so it's ideal for facial or finger poses. It'll also work with the hierarchy checkbox off so you can dial in percentages of a pose on selected nodes only.

I've also exposed the 'maintain parents' functionality to all, if you take a look in the Morpheus or Stewart presets you'll see a new block, [rig data] it's kind of self explanatory once you see it. It's just another entry that tells the code what attributes to hold during pose Loading.

More fixes to the Mirror setups too, as we batter the hell out of this stuff at work I keep catching issues, or rather Rob Howes does, always nice to sit next to somebody coding with your stuff on a day to day basis who'll quite happily slap me and get me to fix stuff there and then!

Anyway, as usual the release is on the Google drive, just follow the download link.

I'd love to hear from more people running this stuff, experiences of using it and suggestions, I also need to hear from more folk on MacOS or Linux. Big thanks to all those who send nice messages and suggestions, it's because of these that I do this and that many of the features get implemented, such as the poseMixer.

Enjoy

Mark

Red9 Studio Pack v1.40 Released

Well at long last I have a build I'm happy with so here it is, Red9 Studio Pack v1.40. This has been a long time coming and there's a number of posts already which go through the main updates.

If you've not already seen it pop onto Vimeo and watch the update v1.40 video. As usual the download link is off the Google Drive link below. Seems like Google have been playing with GDrive and as always it's totally un-obvious how to actually download a zip file! Open the link, when it pops up there's now a download arrow bottom right next to the open button.

http://red9-consultancy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Download

At some point I'll get round to doing a proper Red9 web site with download links. I also keep meaning to move to a GIT repository to give you all access to all the commits.

Anyway as always, any issues or feedback mail me. If you'd like to get involved or are using the pack in production I'd love to hear from you. There's a lot of stuff under the hood which can easily be exploited as I am at work.

cheers

Mark

Red9 StudioPack v1.40 - update video :)

Well it's nearly time for another release of the pack, this one will be a big one as there's been a hell of a lot of development behind the scenes to optimize and streamline the workflows. Thought I'd do an update video as it's far easier than trying to write it all down!

Highlights of v1.40:

• New - 'Use Priority as SnapList' in the hierarchy tab. This is THE biggest upgrade for a while, see the video as this is a massive optimization and gets over a ton of issues.
• New Presets in the hierarchy for Stewart, TSM and Andy rigs - these need testing.
• Object and CharacterSets are now handled like any other hierarchy in the filters.
• Red9 HUD integration in the channelBox has been upgraded and now supports both simple Hud elements and sliders.
• Pose Relative upgraded to support the new Snap methods
• SnapTransforms now upgraded to support the new Snap methods
• Track N Stabilize upgraded, now supports separated trans and rots in the tracker. 
• SnapTransforms plugin now takes tran and rot flags
• More functionality in the InteractiveCurve UI
• MirrorUI upgraded, now allows a pre-clear when loading mirrorMaps.

Hopefully I'll be pushing this pack out in the next week or so

cheers

Mark

Red9 Studio Pack v1.33 Released!

Well after a lot of  work I've finally got this release nailed down. This is a crucial release for anybody running Maya 2014 as it fixes some really nasty hard Maya crash issues that were happening with the PoseSaver UI. This build also includes a lot of updates to the interactive animCurve filter setup which seems to have gone down really well.

http://red9-consultancy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Download

As always, any bugs or feedback is most welcome

cheers

Mark

Red9 StudioPack v1.31 released!

Just a quick note on a sunny bank holiday to say I've just released the latest build, v1.31.

This is updated in all the usual places, my Google drive as linked in the download section, CreativeCrash and Autodesk Exchange (although that will take longer as it has to go via Autodesk to release the package).

This is the build with all the poseSaver updates and the new Sound menu in Trax to manage audio in a far more seamless manner inside Maya.

 As always all comments and feedback are welcomed

thanks

 Mark

Red9 StudioPack v1.30 Released!

As per the previous post really, I've just release StudioPack v1.30 with a ton of fixes and updates. Been working on the ChannelBox RMB HUD integration, this is still kind of work in progress but it's been so useful at work that I couldn't resist pushing it into the build. Thanks again Mark

Red9 Studio Pack Release 1.30

I'm gearing up for a new release v1.30 and thought I'd preempt it by pushing the latest change log out so you can see what to expect.
There's a ton of fixes and upgrades to a lot of the core code, if you're running metaData then I advice you take a look. There's also some neat new features gone in such as the RMB channelBox HUD integration for monitoring attrs in the Maya viewport. The PoseSaver has also had some core upgrades and now supports sub-folder poseHandler files for modifying the pose behaviour on a folder by folder basis.

This will probably go live in the next week

thanks for all the support

Mark

1.291:
------

• Fix - Red9_Meta - type 'unicode' value's weren't being supported correctly in the setAttr func
• Fix - Red9_Anim - MirrorSetup - loadMirror was failing to load custom Axis correctly.

1.292:
------

• Fix - Red9_Meta - isChildNode() wasn't dealing with longNames correctly
• Mod - Red9_PoseSaver - batchPatchPoses() modified to make it more flexible. added arg to stop it always resaving the pose after patchfunc has been run. also now passing poseFile back into patchfunc
• New - Red9_PoseSaver - poseHandler.py support added! - This is a BIG deal for TD's out there as it gives you access to all the internal node handling at a sub-folder level. Allows you to fully customize the pose behaviour on a folder basis!
• Fix - Red9_Anim - PoseUI wasn't remembering the last subFolderyou were in.

1.293:
------

• New - Red9_Anim - PoseUI now has a RMB Make Directory call
• New - Red9_Anim - PoseUI now has a 'Debug:Copy poseHandler.py to Folder'. This is an avanced option for by-passing the node handlers on a folder by folder basis!
• Mod - Red9_Anim - 'Ctrl' click when launching the AnimationUI will boot it non-docked
• Mod - Red9_Meta - Calls that previously only took an mType/mInstance as a [string] arg now also accept the class too... so r9Meta.getMetaNodes('MetaRig') and r9Meta.getMetaRig(r9Meta.MetaRig) both are accepted.
• Mod - Red9_Meta - getChildren now takes an additional arg 'cAttrs' which can be used to only return children connected via a given attr name (this uses wildcards and will take a list)

1.294:
------

• Fix - Red9_Anim - added full traceback to the error handling in the AnimUI
• Fix - Red9_Meta - added full traceback to the error handling in the nodeLockManager and thus the main class
• Fix - Red9_Meta - setAttr wasn't raising errors due to the decorator. Patched
• Mod - Red9_Meta - updated MetaHUD, simplified event handler, now connected to refresh by default
• New - Red9_Meta - Added HUD wrappers now being called by the ChannelBox RMB menu - gives you access to the MetaHud monitors and makes the setup more integrated

Red9 - StudioPack v1.29 released!

Just a quick note to say I've finally released StudioPack v1.29. Follow the Download link to the right to get to my Google docs folder or go to CreativeCrash to grab it.

The main changes are already discussed below in a previous thread, but here's a quick list:

• CameraTracker - new feature for tracking animated objects in the current view - see Vimeo demo
• PoseSaver updates - now supports SubFolders both in local and project - the sync allows poses to be synced and folder sub-structures generated if they're not found
• Most of the UI's now have a 'VimeoHelp' menu that takes you straight to the video demo. I'm trying to do one of these per tool so you have full interactive help on everything.

More detailed changeLog:

• - Red9_Anim - PoseLib now supports subfolders in the UI
• - Red9_Anim - CameraTracker now in the Red9 Menu - generates an auto tracked, or panned, camera focusing on the selected node - very usefuyl for visualising moCap
• - Red9_Meta - metaHUDNode gone in - designed as a debug tool to enable you to easily monitor attributes in a managed HUD in the Maya viewports. Any attrs added to the mNode is monitored and added to the drawHud call. This is work in progress
• - Red9_Anim - AnimtionFunctions now has a function for bindNodes, uses the same filtering and matching setups as all the rest of the code and allows you to bind full filtered hierarchies together, either direct connects or parentConstraints
• - Red9_Anim - All animFunctions now accept matchMethod as an arg, this allows you to either accept 'prefix stripping' in any node matches or use 'base' = name for name exact match.
• - Red9_Anim - PoseLib subfolders bug fixes so that you can sync subfolders to project libraries with the 'CopyLocal>>Project Pose' RMB call. This makes the missing subFolder if it's missing in the Project structure
• - Red9_General - Timer decorator now shows module/class and func in the report feedback
• - Red9_Meta - Added **KWS update support to the addAttr call, if the attr exists and you've passed in kws then these will get synced and updated if in the internal 'valid edit kws' list. Great for use in the __bindData__ call to sync properties.
• - Red9_Core - Added more logic to the main MatchedNodeInputs call. Now allows you to pass in 2 hierarchies directly for processing. This means you can by-pass the filter processing in all animation Functions and pass 2 hierarchies directly in for processing!

I've also added a build ID number in the Details UI so you can track the build version internally.

There's tons more coming, thanks for all the support

Mark