Siggraph here I come!

Just booked my flights out, Vancouver here we come!

Quick patch v1.03

Done some some patching to support HumanIK under Maya2012, also enabled regex filtering in the FilterPriority list which controls how the internal order of the hierarchies that get processed. This links into an update on the presets to better support it all. Hopefully I'll get some videos up next week and add to the rig templates that are there.

Any suggestions as to what generic rigs I should add templates for?

Another Roll-Out v1.02 - testing new interface and presets

This is a test version with a big upgrade to the way the Animation UI deals with hierarchies. We now have a separate Tab to generically setup how all the hierarchy checkboxes are going to deal with complex animation rigs. I've even added a few presets in there which carefully tweak how the internal code deals with each rig system. The HumanIK preset is work in progress, under 2012 there's some big limitations of how the HIK callbacks are managed which I'm trying to code around!

Also added the Copy Attributes as a function which is very useful for rig to rig transfers of poses.

Videos are on the way, honest!

Download =  follow the DL Tag on the right to the generic download post.

New release version now up Red9_Release1.01

Red9_Release1.01 - just follow the Download link to the main download folder

Lots changed and not much time to go through it at the moment. The main thing is that all the hierarchy processing for handling rigs etc is now on a separate tab. This makes things a lot easier on the main animation tab. Basically any time you have a hierarchy checkBox, its the settings on the second tab that are being run. There's a Test button so you can see what this means on your animation rig.

Added: Copy Attributes as a function, very useful for copying all channelbox attributes for rig parts across to other characters, works kind of like a temp pose.

Added: Snap Transform now wraps the copyAttrs and copyKeys as functions to allow it to fully sync entire animations including all secondary channels settings.

Coming: Presets for standard rigs you may have downloaded. These will setup the hierarchy filters for you.

I'll explain more once I've got time

Red

StudioPack - Release v1

At last I think it's time to get this out to everybody. It's just gone up on CreativeCrash although the Download link here will always be the latest version as it's linked directly to my gmail docs.

Thanks to those who help on BetaTesting this stuff.

Creative Crash link

thanks

Red

Updated version Beta2

I've been doing a little house work on the code and thought I'd drop a new version up, also working on some video tutorials to show you what this setup can do.

ChangeLog: 31st March 11
SnapTransforms:  Added an iterator to the SnapTransforms code. This is an important extra which should now allow you to deal with complex hierarchy structures that don't follow a standard pattern. Previously if your Rig wasn't structured so that the feet were the children of the hips, which was the child of the Root etc, then the snap order may have got the data wrong. The iterator allows you to have the code run back through the snap results over X number of passes to get a better result.

Install updates:  By default the setup is designed to be installed via the Maya module system following the install instructions in the pack, but I've added support so that if you didn't want to do that, you could just launch the whole thing via a standard Python import call. So from the Script editor in Maya (Python Tab)

import sys

sys.path.append('path to the Red9/scripts folder')

import Red9_Setup

Red9_Setup.Start(Menu=True)

That should get the whole setup running, including adding the Plugin path etc. Still not sure which is the better approach, would people want to use the module file? Personally I find it better as you can have a simple module folder outside the Maya versions in the myPref/maya folder and that will run the setup for all your Maya versions in one go.

Just follow the Download tag to grab the latest version..

Red

Red9 Studio Pack Beta2

Hi all, Ive just updated the Download links with Version Beta 2. Much of the code behind the setups has been redesigned to extend the api for future use. Hopefully I've caught all the bugs!

So whats new:

The big one is that the Tracker in the AnimToolkit now works at a component level (in 2011 anyway). So if you use the Multi select tool (Control+RMB marking menu ) and select a Poly, then a transform node, the Tracker will pin the transform to the poly's normal (or vert/edge) - maintaining the offset. Obviously using the point on poly constraint under the hood. Useful... well lets imagine 2 characters interacting and you need to pin the wrist of one to the other characters chest... you can now pin at the poly level.

The Offset tool now deals hopefully with everything, audio, clips, transforms and timelines, this is at Scene level or selected level. If selected then it'll offset based on each selected node type. For animated transforms it goes through the nodes history to find any animCurves and offsets based on those. Seems to work really well and it's nice to be able to multi-offset audio, clips and nodes all at the same time and nudge their key times.

LockChannels - new UI for managing the visibility and lock status of nodes or hierarchy, very easy and fast for locking up a rig before passing to animators.

The Filtercode: major code redesign and all the calls now work on 3 levels: given nodes, hierarchy of given roots or at a scene level.

All suggestions and requests welcomed

cheers

Red