hello. I'm learning houdini and 3d animation then I'm very very novice. My problem could be very easy to solve but now I'm locked.

I created a creature with an external aplication an saved an OBJ object.

I started with the Cuadruped Autorig Tutorial but my creature has wolf feets but human hands (like minotaur) then I had to create the rig parts and then use the tool “Create Autorig” to create a custom non human non cuadruped rig. i created spine, tail, head, left_arm, rigth_arm, left_hand, right_hand, left_leg, right_leg, left_toes and right_toes. of course I created the object rig positioner too with the simetric enabled.

the problem is that when I move a point in the left leg (for example), the right leg moves too, but aother rigth leg appears in the point it was before.
I have two right legs. the right_leg object and the mirror of the left_leg object. Is that correct?
should I make invisible the true right leg while I use the simetry?

Not only I have the simetry problem but also the proxy groups are not shown in the right way.
I think I'm making the rig in a wrong way.

Here is a screen capture of the rig elements I want to create an autorig.
I will use the Create Autorig Tool and select all the rig parts including the character placer




And its the result of the operation:

[img509.imageshack.us]

The red font color looks like something gone wrong but I dont know what. Pressing the mid buton It can be read “Not Synchronized with Definition”. Looks like a problem… but I can't fix it… What did I wrong?

Not Synchronized with Definition
simply means that the OTL/HDA you are making is ‘unlocked’ and can be edited by the user (you).

without looking at your file my first guess is that in making a custom rig the names of the internal rig_parts must be named correctly…
have you watched the video tutorials here:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=991&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]
I /think/ there is something about it in there…

I where following this tutorial when I realised that my model doesn't have a cuadruped form and I decided to try to create my autorig form manualy. And then I found these problem.

The only Autorig Elements name restriction was that if I have left and right elements, their name should start with left_ or right_ and these names are correct. I don't know another name restriction.

When I try to create the autorig, the name turns red. What does it mean? Is there anyway to see a LOG file or something similar to check if the autorig creation was succesfull or if it had problems?

Trying to find this problem solution I created a single rig made of a auto_rig_character_placer and a spine. If failed too…

I don't know what to do. I'm locked…
If you want I upload the file, but its a .hipnc

seeing the file would be good…

but when you say that the “name turns red” do you mean the name of the node…the letters?
if so this is NOT an error - it's to indicate that the HDA is unlocked
(red is unlocked, blue is locked)

I'd really recommend reading the documentation on HDAs
Houdini Help > Topics > Digital Assets

the autoRig is a very complex HDA, having an understanding of digital assets will help…

Ok, thanks for the info of HDAs. I didn't know red font wasn't a problem but the autorig must be wrong because when I use show proxy groups doesn't apear the proxy regions and usin an Cuadruped Autorig Tool works correctly.

I attached my hipnc file. You only have to select all autorig nodes and push the Create Autorig tool to see it doesn't work when creating proxy groups.

in the file rig parts 2 there are a tube geometry in the tail. After creating the custom autorig try to edit and view the proxy groups in the tail and you will see there aren't shown…

Thanks a lot lot lot for your attention!!

I've tried going through your scene and I really didn't have any problems,

When you have symmetry on, you don't need to create the right side pieces. That's what symmetry does. Any pieces with the ‘right’ flag on them are ignored when symmetry is on and creating animation rigs.

Parts also don't have to start with ‘left_’ or ‘right_’. The name is searched so it can occur elsewhere like ‘front_right_arm’. In Houdini9.1, there is an extra ability to modify the global values for left and right so you can change your side naming convention, in $HH/scripts/python/autorig/utils.py.

Proxy groups only works when you have supplied polygonal geometry. In the case of rig parts2, the tube you are trying to use is a primitive and since it cannot be properly cut up, it gives weird results.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for all your help, It will be useful for me but I cant agree with the fact that it is correct:

This is a screen capture of my custom autorig in rigparts2 with the tube primitive linked to it. I enabled showing the proxy groups but nothing is shown, everything is grey…



but, if I create a standard Cuadruped Autorig and link the tube to it. When I enable showing the proxy groups the tube turns blue, because it's catched by the proxy group.



This is the diference and I cant create the proxy groups because I can't see them, and I can't see if it is correct.

furthermore, when I create my custom autorig, Armature and Proxy Labels are empty under the labels arms, legs, tail and the rest

but in a custom cuadruped autorig, these labels has the translate, scale and rotate coordinates of each proxy group polygon.

I deleted the right parts and retried to create the autorig but when I get to the proxy groups part I cant see them

Nothing I could do…
If anyone can create a custom autorig, please, let me know how…

Buf for now, I will use the cuadruped autorig to continue my rig learning.

One question: The cuadruped autorig tool can be modified? could I unlock the locked parts of the node to, for example, attack aditional rig parts?
Other question: If I create a rig using autorig parts but don't use the “create autorig” tool, would it work? or it must be joined?

Anticipated Thanks

There was problem with the ability to use scene geometry when creating a custom autorig. When all the nodes were collapsed into the new asset, Houdini was not clearing the object path field on the Character Placer. This was causing the geometry to appear twice and look wrong. It has since been fixed. You can fix it yourself in an older build by just clearing the string on the placer.

As for the empty tabs,as described in the Quadruped tutorial video, you must go into the Operator Type Properties of the new asset and Refresh Imports to populate the parameter list.

You should be able to modify an existing rig and have it work with attaching extra parts but I can't say for certain. You might have to promote a couple parameters to the rig asset. I'll have to get back to you on that.

“There was problem with the ability to use scene geometry when creating a custom autorig. When all the nodes were collapsed into the new asset, Houdini was not clearing the object path field on the Character Placer. This was causing the geometry to appear twice and look wrong. It has since been fixed. You can fix it yourself in an older build by just clearing the string on the placer. ”

Oh yes!! that was the problem!!! the proxy groups were being shown but another copy of the source geometry was hiding the proxy groups!!! Thanks! thanks! A lot of thanks!! I were going crazy!!

BUT I cant find the Refresh Imports to populate the parameters list. I will see again the tutorial videos to find where it's sayd. I only seen the first two videos because I couldn't create the proxy groups and I was blocked but now I'm going to continue with the next one.

Thanks and thanks again!!