GEAR: Scaling a guide

Issues concerning rigging & Face Robot...
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Jho
Posts: 49
Joined: 12 Feb 2013, 07:57

GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by Jho » 11 Jun 2013, 13:30

Hi all.

I'm rigging a pretty large character with GEAR and started with the man_guide. It seems to scale fine, but when I generate the rig, all the control objects are tiny and some are misplaced. Now I know there are a couple of ways I can go around trying to fix this, but I was just wondering if there is a super simple solution out there.
The character is going to a game engine, so I can't scale it. Also the scene scale has to stay as it is.

SpookyMunky
Posts: 102
Joined: 14 Jun 2012, 02:30

Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by SpookyMunky » 30 Jun 2013, 03:51

Hiya, If you are using the man guide to create the rig I'm not sure how you replace the control objects, sorry!.. Generally after any auto rigging I quickly go through a procedure of making the rig nice and functional for a certain character (in my mind I call it finalizing, though with any rig it is usually far from final, lol), then I copy everything I have done after the point at which the rig was created in script editor and paste it as a new script. For just something simple like controller shaping for gear you shouldn't have to edit much in the raw data xsi has logged, the only thing to watch out for I guess is places where you have hit undo.. scripts don't really like that :). Usually I will check script editor each time I notice I have done an undo to try and imprint the context sine it isn't always just a case of deleting the undo and the line above it (actually might just be the undos that have no command above needing deleted that cause script errors, I forget hehe). I made a quick recording to show what I mean....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgiGh_hsbj8

That is me trying to not use undo hehe, mistakes happen tho :p,

After that I just save the script in the project folder with the characters name, like charactername-gear-post1.vbs .. or something, you get the idea :). hope this helps !

Jho
Posts: 49
Joined: 12 Feb 2013, 07:57

Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by Jho » 01 Jul 2013, 07:49

Thanks for the advice SpookyMunky, especially the video was really nice. I have done something similar for constraints I have to apply after generating etc.
When changing the controllers though I usually just copy the modified versions to the guide's controllers_org group. Then I don't have to modify them again. The problem is that I do have to modify them the first time.

I just noticed for my additional annoyment that even scaling the guide wasn't ok. Most controllers generate with a scale of 1, but some of the main controllers will have the scaled amount (~12). So when I for instance lift the body and a foot controllers up at the same time, they will have a completely different Y translate value. This will make animating in graph editor hard, because I can't just select a bunch of controllers and lift them all 1 meter up, I have to lift them one by one.
Hidden content: [ Show ]
http://karetar.net/salaa/scalething01.gif
So I guess my only option is to scale the guide back to 1 and just arrange everything with translation tool.

SpookyMunky
Posts: 102
Joined: 14 Jun 2012, 02:30

Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by SpookyMunky » 01 Jul 2013, 18:59

Interesting, I have never noticed that before.. I guess mostly I tend to scale the mesh to around the guides size first.. still I probably scale it a little hehe, will have to stop :), cheers for pointing this out, this and the controllers_org group too :)

How about scaling the rig after it is made ?. Like say create a null and leave it at 0,0,0 then parent the character's mesh to it, scale the null down so the character is about the right size for gear's guide. Adjust the guide and build the rig, then parent the rig to the null used for scaling the character down.. take a note of the scale number incase you want to go back to later (could just duplicate the null I guess), then reset the null's scale to 1,1,1.. cut the mesh and rig from the null..... could work ok?

Jho
Posts: 49
Joined: 12 Feb 2013, 07:57

Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by Jho » 03 Jul 2013, 11:38

SpookyMunky wrote: How about scaling the rig after it is made ?. Like say create a null and leave it at 0,0,0 then parent the character's mesh to it, scale the null down so the character is about the right size for gear's guide. Adjust the guide and build the rig, then parent the rig to the null used for scaling the character down.. take a note of the scale number incase you want to go back to later (could just duplicate the null I guess), then reset the null's scale to 1,1,1.. cut the mesh and rig from the null..... could work ok?
That's probably how it's supposed to be used, but as my rig is going to a game engine I can't change the scale. I asked our TD if it would be ok to do pretty much what you described, but he said that might cause problems in the game engine. There is also the "Global Scale" option in the anim_prop option set under global controller. That might cause similar problems though.
All in all, I have to have all the scales set to 1 with the rig and the model, guide doesn't export so that can be scaled. At least, it could be if it didn't affect the rig itself.

Anyways, what I did was I duplicated the guide, scaled one of them back to 1 and moved all the nulls of the little one to where the big guides nulls were with the translate tool. It wasn't that bad, and now I can save this guide as a template and probably won't have to go through all of this again :)

Still, a global scale slider for the guide would be nice.

SpookyMunky
Posts: 102
Joined: 14 Jun 2012, 02:30

Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by SpookyMunky » 03 Jul 2013, 12:41

Jho wrote:Still, a global scale slider for the guide would be nice.
or just a note in the instructions on how its supposed to be scaled :).. I'm not sure how scaling up the rig would hurt a game export.. depends really... technically all a game engine should be reading is joint rotation values no ?, but if it was scale of the joins / shadows.. they will all be 1, the only thing that is scaled is the model container.. you could leave that at 1 scale aswell by not cutting it from the null...... hmmm.. sorry I know so little about the game side of 3d, should prolly just keep quiet and try not to embarrass myself any more :D

I do know the pain slightly from one game character I did for skyrim for a laugh, that was huge in xsi hehe... everything is huge apart from xsi, makes no sense.. they got so caught up in an enviroment dream where modeller shouldn't have to worry about cm / inches etc etc... I swear someone along the line just put a decimal point in the wrong place and no-one noticed hehe, like around 10times the size seems normal scale in every other app :)

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sirdavid32
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Re: GEAR: Scaling a guide

Post by sirdavid32 » 12 Oct 2015, 08:52

So lemme recap_:
1. Scale the model rig
2. Adapt every joint/ctrl
3. Generate the rig.
4. Parent the created rig under a null
5. Scale the null (decrease size on the entire rig)
6. Weight
7. Animate.

Is it so?

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