AutoRig very bad bug

[ofer]

Hi,

I just had a bad accident with autorig. It happened in the past also. I just finished rigging a character - painting all the weights and checking the deformation. I then saved the skinned mesh to disk, posed the character and did a test render. I noticed the eyes are a bit too big (I decided to use the rig's eyes, instead of my own), so I scaled them down a bit in the AutoRig node, and then pushed the modify scene rig button. Then everything got completely corrupted, the mesh got twisted, the muscles jumped to all over the place, even though I tried to use the Set Animation Defaults button. I exited Houdini without saving, and did not save the rig's digital asset, but somehow it did not work, and problem was still there when I reopened Houdini.

So I tried to disable the use of the skinned mesh file, and use it straight from the network, but it didn't really help, because the muscles were still off. So I tried to create new nodes from the same rig asset - didn't help. I tried to create the rig from scratch and then load the skinned mesh file - didn't work. So as it seems now, I need to re-paint all the weights. Which is a lengthy process

Don't know if there is any solution, but Im downloading a newer version. Maybe this bug was solved. Anyway, to finish with a better note, here is my test render. I think it is quite nice.

[ofer]

OK, now I'm pissed...

I repainted the weights, it even came out better this time. I posed the character and was very happy. Then I decided to save and lock the asset. I saved it - OK, and then when clicking Match Current Definition - The deformation disappeared even tough the muscles remained in pose. Then I made another mistake and clicked the Set Animation Defaults, and the model got twisted. Thats it, I need to start painting the weights again.

I guess I should never save/match or something like that, when the character is in pose.

Still, its a bug, no?

[michael]

it's hard to say just what is happening without seeng the file and your workflow...

but...

when you paint weights the most important thing is the position of the bones (and therefore the capture and deform regions)

I can't remember the order of operations but when you try to modify the rig and use the modify scene rig button I think this will save the new bone positions - which will now NOT match the position of the bones when you painted...

best thing to do is rig > then do VERY rough weighting > test the rig to get the kind of movement you want > adjust the rig > etc...then do final weighting when the rig is in the right position.

HTH

[ofer]

OK, thanks.

Ill to figure some simple steps that causes the problem. I understand what you say, but it still seems to me like an unwanted behavior.

[graham]

I'm guessing this is a problem that was caused by attempting to modify the animation rig when it was not in the default position, thus causing the capture regions/pose to get screwed up. I actually think it is supposed to take that into account but I can't remember. Modifying the rig will do the modifications and then save/match definitions on the asset so that is why you cannot put down a new asset and have it work. Without looking at the scene I would think you could force recapture once the character is back in the default pose. An example scene would be most useful in tracking it down. You can send your example or broken scene to me directly at graham@sidefx.com and I can take a look at it and try and help you out.

[ofer]

OK, I managed to solve the problem.

I reset the pose, then clicked the Force Recapture button. It didn't work, and then I noticed that the Capture node still 'thinks' the muscles are posed, so I changed the Capture Frame parameter from 0 to 1 and back to 0, forced recapture again, and the rig is working again. Thanks for the tip graham.

But, I managed to encounter another two problems

A. I created another Animation Rig node. It came out with an empty interface, so clicked the Refresh Imports, and then Apply. This resulted in many errors, all of the node's parameters became linked to non-existing parameters, and the rig does not work. So I can only use one animation rig.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or my files are not placed in the correct directories?

B. I want to add my material and render nodes inside the deform rig, so I tried to add some parameters to it. The parameter refused to appear in the right place. It always showed up in the bottom of the parameters pane.

thanks

[graham]

The problem now is that when you Refreshed your imports, you did it through the Edit Parameter Interface, rather than the asset's Type Properties window. This is why when you drop down a new instance, all the parameters are missing. When attempting to refresh again, the parameters you are trying to import are already saved in the asset definition as being linked and thus come up referencing non-existent parameters. The problem with attempting to add rendering parameters is also caused by this. Thanks for sending me your file. I've corrected these problems and I'll send you a fixed version back.

[ofer]

I understand, Thank you.

But I think I did like in the quadruped tutorial, so if its a mistake, it might be a good idea to put a note on that video page.