TheUsualAlex Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 just throwing ideas around. is it possible to develop any sort of automatic character rig and control system for Houdini...? Any one have any theory as to what may be possible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted February 6, 2003 Author Share Posted February 6, 2003 grrr... nevermind. what was I thinking... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 I don't see why not.... there's never a 'click once' solution, but you can get alot done automatically.... I was thinking of converting the rig system that we use at the studio to Houdini (we call it Gesture - so in keeping with Houdini - I was thinking of calling it 'Slight of Hand' so I'll TM that right now ) it's pretty slick....you import some sections of a skeleton, move them to the right areas of your model (a lo-res block version) and click-click-click-click you're done.... something like this shouldn't be too hard to do in Houdini... hmmm...maybe by summer.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted February 6, 2003 Author Share Posted February 6, 2003 You know, I guess there's a lot of techniques that probably need to be translated to Houdini. It'd be nice if we can find some slick technique that can be unique to Houdini. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thekenny Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 It's something I would like to do as well. I can see the speed increase with the XSI proportional setup and it would be great to have that kind of tool in Houdini. The hard part of doing this from a user point of view is the Character Tools are changing (for the better). You will have to repeat a lot of work to keep up with future versions. That being said. It would be nice if a developer or two had the opportunity to work on that kind of tool to be native to Houdini. It would be easier for them. Ah... still it would be nice. -k Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 this really suprises me.... I know that Houdini hasn't been used for character work nearly as much as say Soft or Maya, but there are studios who have/are using Houdini...R&H - Daredevil, Monster By Mistake is all Houdini AFAIK.....so why isn't there a reasonably automated rig around (I guess there could be - just haven't heard of one) given the kind of control that Hscript gives I'd expect one or two of the smarty pants around here to have done it already..... as I said above, this is something that I've thought about doing for quite a while now, just need to improve my Houdini skills before I tackle it (and get l-systems out of my system .......mmmmmmm....l-systems...... ) . yeah, changes in the character tools can really be a problem - I've seen that in Maya a few times...but I'm not sure I like the idea of something built into Houdini - XSI has something but I'm not at all familliar with it - I can't help but think that a built in solution will cause users to change their workflow to fit that solution rather than finding a setup that fits their workflow/pipeline..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted February 6, 2003 Author Share Posted February 6, 2003 Yeah... I guess changes of Character Tools can often be a bit of problem from version to version. I supposed that's understandable considering where Houdini is coming from. If you have seen Houdini version 3 up to now, it has been quite a change. I guess Houdini's Character Tools are still in the process of solidifying. Currently, the CHaracter Tools have been very flexible and very capable compared to any previous version of Houdini. I think that those animation curve and the way the keyframe handles are could use a slight bit more improvement in its handling -- from character animation standpoint, of course. Who knows. There could be Chaop (kay-op) next. edit: oh, I certainly love the idea that Houdini's bone aren't hard-coded -- the fact that the shapes are changable and all that. I hope SideFX will keep it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 I really don't see why you would have to change because of the character tool changes. You can always just do your script and then run boneconvert. Here's I'll even give an example on how to create a bone and position it to the world position defined by $x, $y, $z: opcf /obj set root = `execute("opadd -v null")` set child = `execute("opadd -v bone")` opwire $root -0 $child bonemoveend -f world -x $x -y $y -z $z $child opparm $child r( `ch("$child/Rx")` `ch("$child/Ry")` `ch("$child/Rz")` ) objcleantransform $child oplayout $root $child With a bit more work, you can make a reuseable script out of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thekenny Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Don't get me wrong, it can be done now. Someone just has to find the time, the drive, and a bit of rehab for their l-systems addiction. I know from experience after writing a Renamer tcl-tk for 4.1, which was made obsolete from developments in the 5.0 series of Houdini, what can happen with new versions. Sure it was a good learning experience, I'm not a trained coder just a dabbler, but it does have a level of frustration. http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v3/a...glance/#rigging Again, it's not the be all and end all of solutions but it will give some ideas on how to improve, and create a decent workflow. The character developments in 5.5 are fantastic and they (sesi) are doing a great job of getting Houdini where it should be. XSI has an advantage in the history of being a great animation tool, so it can't hurt to look, atleast from the user point of view. There are laws of course:) And just for the record....I can't think of a film with character or creature work C.O.R.E. has worked on that wasn't animated in Houdini (or Prisms, thank god that was before my time). -k Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted February 6, 2003 Author Share Posted February 6, 2003 Don't get me wrong, it can be done now. Someone just has to find the time, the drive, and a bit of rehab for their l-systems addiction. I'll race ya. jk ADD: Out of curiosity, tho, when packages out there are stating all these "features", how many of these features are equivalent to "pre-built" so that a no-brainer would just click-a-button-and-be-happy? It just seem to me that everytime when Brand Q software are claiming all these new "features" in their product brochures -- it's just look like they're pre-built stuff to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 ooooo...videos....me like videos.... it's funny...today I'm rigging an old character that was made here (it's the Fox on this page here ), using our scripted setup...with only a few changes to the model I'm almost done...the beauty of it is that the animators (a cantankerous bunch at the best of times) are well used to using our control rig so they rarely have to learn a new rig for every character...and we can swap the characters animation for interesting, and sometimes bizzar effects thanks for the eg code edward!...hscript and mel are fighting for top spot on my 'learn/learnmore' list....python sneaks in there sometimes yeah....damnit...I think I'm going to do this.... re C.O.R.E....I didn'tknow that....that's cool....I keep forgetting about C.O.R.E, even though they are just down the street (the 'street' being HWY #1...lol), is x-men 2 happening there now??.... weeeeeee!!!....Grand Master it is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted February 7, 2003 Author Share Posted February 7, 2003 Well, here's what I'd like to do when I find the time. I'd really like to see if I can figure out if I can get the HScript to look to the null point position for a typical human character and automatically generate the necessary bones thats properly rigged so that the length of the bones will match the distance between the nulls. Or better yet, learn tk to generate the GUI for it and automatically generate a chunk of HScript to do it. I think that'd be fun, but I just don't know if I have the technical knowledge to do it at the moment. Just gotta take a jibe at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 I was thinking along those lines.... a series of named nulls that the user places at the right positions for their characters joints > then a script would build bones between them - in the correct manner and with IK etc...FK/IK switching...other things there was something here (?) about FK/IK switching but I can't seem to find it...anyone remember? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betty Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 arctor, is this what you were thinking of, www.odforce.net/tips/ there is a sample hip file by edward here. have you tried this out with your rigging? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 ah yes...that's the one... thanks for the pointer betty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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