I am working with an fbx in which I have multiple rig pose nodes in sequence, for example FK and IK and preset poses. Trying to do an animation with this seems to be a struggle as I have to keyframe all the different rig pose nodes. Also if a rig pose node has a lot of bone groups it runs slow.

What is the proper way to animate this kind of character I have heard talk of making your own object level controls but surely I am missing an easier way to do it at sop level?

Thanks.

You are likely going to need to wrap what you are doing in an hda, promote rigpose parms to the toplevel of the hda and specify the Default State on the hda as kinefx__rigpose so all the contained rigpose parms can be activated. Not a lot of example kinefx rigs out there... lots of obj level rigs but these don't help much. This is probably the most complete reference I've seen:

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/kinefx-rigging-fur-dude/ [www.sidefx.com]

I've seen the idea of extracting the sop level parms into obj level controls to fake an obj level rig, but have been able to avoid it thus far. Unless that magically improves performance somehow you will have the same access to any keyed channels in the Animation Editor. Animation is done at sop level above as well.

sdugaro
You are likely going to need to wrap what you are doing in an hda, promote rigpose parms to the toplevel of the hda and specify the Default State on the hda as kinefx__rigpose so all the contained rigpose parms can be activated.

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I have come across a tutorial series ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_NRGjq7RsU&list=PLXNFA1EysfYn0XZtZ6TqI4Xwi3_mgdUc2&index=1 [www.youtube.com] ) that runs through the process quite well.

For now though I have just add IK controls to the rig and plan on doing as much of the animation as possible with just the IK stuff. This will save on how many nodes there is to keyframe and make it less confusing.

SB26
I am working with an fbx in which I have multiple rig pose nodes in sequence, for example FK and IK and preset poses. Trying to do an animation with this seems to be a struggle as I have to keyframe all the different rig pose nodes. Also if a rig pose node has a lot of bone groups it runs slow.

What is the proper way to animate this kind of character I have heard talk of making your own object level controls but surely I am missing an easier way to do it at sop level?

Thanks.

Set up Channel Groups in your Animation Editor. You can bundle channels from multiple SOP this way, and have them accessible, even with no SOPs selected.

The Animation Editor is crammed with organisational features and hotkeys to make working with disparate sets of keys quite easy.

eikonoklastes

SB26
I am working with an fbx in which I have multiple rig pose nodes in sequence, for example FK and IK and preset poses. Trying to do an animation with this seems to be a struggle as I have to keyframe all the different rig pose nodes. Also if a rig pose node has a lot of bone groups it runs slow.

What is the proper way to animate this kind of character I have heard talk of making your own object level controls but surely I am missing an easier way to do it at sop level?

Thanks.

Set up Channel Groups in your Animation Editor. You can bundle channels from multiple SOP this way, and have them accessible, even with no SOPs selected.

The Animation Editor is crammed with organisational features and hotkeys to make working with disparate sets of keys quite easy.

This is a useful feature that I have found since making this post. It definitely has made animating more tolerable!

sdugaro
You are likely going to need to wrap what you are doing in an hda, promote rigpose parms to the toplevel of the hda and specify the Default State on the hda as kinefx__rigpose so all the contained rigpose parms can be activated.

I don't have experience with kinefx but have done a fair amount of rigging with different 3D apps that use either bone based or joint based systems, as well as some face morph/posing. You will drive yourself crazy trying to animate the joints or bones directly even after setting up fk and ik chains. As mentioned above, the key is good naming, good parenting and constraints, use of nulls with proper display and most of all, promotion of parameters in an HDA. You animate the parameters rather than the joints or bones directly, as they can prevent impossible twists or values that are out of range for a joint and they are much more interpretable in an animation editor. Organization is the key to sanity.

Attached is a screen shot of a hand rig (admittedly old style, but the principles still apply). The colored dots are separate from the hand rig and used to control the suture curves.

Island

sdugaro
You are likely going to need to wrap what you are doing in an hda, promote rigpose parms to the toplevel of the hda and specify the Default State on the hda as kinefx__rigpose so all the contained rigpose parms can be activated.

I don't have experience with kinefx but have done a fair amount of rigging with different 3D apps that use either bone based or joint based systems, as well as some face morph/posing. You will drive yourself crazy trying to animate the joints or bones directly even after setting up fk and ik chains. As mentioned above, the key is good naming, good parenting and constraints, use of nulls with proper display and most of all, promotion of parameters in an HDA. You animate the parameters rather than the joints or bones directly, as they can prevent impossible twists or values that are out of range for a joint and they are much more interpretable in an animation editor. Organization is the key to sanity.

I try to avoid HDAs as I find them confusing but I may just have to learn them anyway. Thanks for the tip!