Just a heads up.. Orbolt now has a simple toon rig that has been created with the goal of maximizing performance with multiple characters in scene. Be sure to check out the TIPS sticky note inside the asset for more info with regards to optimizing rigs.

http://www.orbolt.com/asset/SideFX::toonsimple [orbolt.com]

Getting an error - see attached.

when do you get the error? opening from the website automatically in Houdini or trying to place the node down from the Asset Browser?

It looks like the asset is installed, can you create it from TAB->Digital Assets->Toon Simple in your session? If all else fails you should be able to download the otl file directly and just install it through the File->Install Digital Assets. The asset is free and not copy protected so it can be moved/installed and it doesn't require a license.

I just tried it on my macbook and can't seem to reproduce. Can you give us more info? (from the screen shot, I'm assuming you're on a mac)

- OS
- Internet Browser
- Houdini version
- custom Python version (if any installed)

thanks
Adam

AdamJ
when do you get the error? opening from the website automatically in Houdini or trying to place the node down from the Asset Browser?

Thanks Adam,

The error appears when dragging from the Asset Browser tab to the viewport. Re-launching Houdini and a different error appears when dragging to the viewport:

“Cannot find the tool SideFX::toonsimple”

It looks like the asset is installed, can you create it from TAB->Digital Assets->Toon Simple in your session? If all else fails you should be able to download the otl file directly and just install it through the File->Install Digital Assets. The asset is free and not copy protected so it can be moved/installed and it doesn't require a license.

Yes - using the TAB->Digital Assets->Toon Simple works! Very cool.

I just tried it on my macbook and can't seem to reproduce. Can you give us more info? (from the screen shot, I'm assuming you're on a mac)

- OS
- Internet Browser
- Houdini version
- custom Python version (if any installed)

OsX 10.9.2
Safari
H13.0.350
Python 2.7.5 (default, Aug 25 2013, 00:04:04)


EDIT:

FWIW It appears that when the browser said something like “returning you to Houdini now..” Houdini was launching in the background and loading in the asset - it never ‘returned’ to the session I was in. The error still happens when drag and dropping upon launching

First of all thanks for rig!

I haven't touched any animation in H yet but
Im a bit puzzled
I can tumble camera around 6 million particles or 400k objects with FPS>80

But in this scene fps is around 30 and goes down with each copy of rig
And this is with few nulls/curves to draw
When I switch to GL 1 it's a bit better +10 fps

Is H a no-no for character animation,
Or my video card sucks (radeon 290x)

The viewport has been optimized for heavy geometry/particle counts. Ironically the trivial stuff like nulls/curves is not in the current release. The good news is that it has been addressed in the next version and is no longer causing a slowdown.

I've been doing character animation using the auto rig for the past week and I'm finding it to be pretty slow going as well. Animating low poly (<800) characters. With just the deform rigs showing, <30fps with 1 character, <15fps with 2, and around 10fps with 3 characters.

This is the first time I'm trying Character Animation in Houdini myself so I don't know the direct cause, it probably is the built in Auto Rig setup I used.

Would like to hear some feedback from a seasoned Houdini Animator.

Edit: System Specs:
Houdini 13.0.356
Windows 7 SP1
Xeon E5-2680 @ 2.7GHz
32 GB Ram
Quadro 5000

The Performance Monitor pane can help isolate hotspots in rigs & such. It works just like a profiler - click Record, playback/model/etc, click Stop. Since Adam's already optimized the rig, it's not really applicable here, but is very useful when building your own rigs (and sims, and other heavy networks).

Gyroscope.. can you try the simple toonrig and see what kind of performance you get? with your specs 4 characters should be real time.

The autorig shows a good modular approach to building assets, though some of that flexibility comes at a performance cost. There are things that can be done to optimize the setups on the user side (there's some tips in the simple toonrig asset) but we're also actively looking at improving performance so your feedback is welcome as well.

As twod mentioned, use the performance monitor to see where your bottlenecks are (note recording adds some overhead and make sure to turn off Samples->Live Updates for more accurate numbers).

Just tried it as my main production is completely halted due to buggy channel editor.

You're right, 4 characters with the Simple Toon Rig maintains around 30fps with mesh much heavier than what I was using. 5 brought it down to 19ish.

Auto-Rig Shelf tools was used more as a time saver. Your Simple Toon Rig is enlightening. I definitely will use the Performance Monitor much more.

Curious, how Character Animation fares in Softimage? What kind of performance is expected?

AdamJ
The viewport has been optimized for heavy geometry/particle counts. Ironically the trivial stuff like nulls/curves is not in the current release. The good news is that it has been addressed in the next version and is no longer causing a slowdown.

Thanks. I must add that viewport speed with high particle/object count is insane

AdamJ
The viewport has been optimized for heavy geometry/particle counts. Ironically the trivial stuff like nulls/curves is not in the current release. The good news is that it has been addressed in the next version and is no longer causing a slowdown.

Yee-hah - next release is sounding killer.

Hey guys another Soft user and thanks for the Rig

I Downloaded the rig and like expected im completely lost in Houdini hahaha.

I just have a couple of questions not only about the Rig but also about some workflows Im used from Softimage and Maya as a Character Animator, maybe this is not exactly the right place to ask but here it goes:

- Does the rig come with any kind of Picker or Synoptic to help select the controls or does it even have a Select/Key ALL?

-Channels Groups behave like a Character Key Set right? I haven't dived into them just asking

-How can I drag select the values on the channel box and Ctrl+MMB to reset them all to 0? I tried to do it like in Soft and Maya but of course its not the same. I can do it in the Graph, so I assume I have to have the Graph open all the time if I want to mark the same value on more than one channel.

I know this are very basic and stupid questions but…

- no XSI synoptic view I'm afraid (though you can setup something with a proxy rig/image plane/camera parented together and some selection scripts but nothing out of the box)
- switch to Windows->Desktop->Animate, RMB on the node (or click on the icon next to Toon Simple in the parameter pane) and select ‘Created Nested Channel Groups’; this will populate your Channel List with different set of channels (initially they're grouped based on asset tabs but you can rearrange them)
- hitting ‘k’ will key any scoped channels (in the channel editor)
- to reset to zero.. either ctrl+MMB on parameter name or shift+LMB on names to add them to scoped channels in graph editor and drag select all there (also if you need to link some channels together RMB->Copy Paramter and then RMB->Paste Copied Relative Ref to link )

mpexuz
- Does the rig come with any kind of Picker or Synoptic to help select the controls or does it even have a Select/Key ALL?

-Channels Groups behave like a Character Key Set right? I haven't dived into them just asking

-How can I drag select the values on the channel box and Ctrl+MMB to reset them all to 0? I tried to do it like in Soft and Maya but of course its not the same. I can do it in the Graph, so I assume I have to have the Graph open all the time if I want to mark the same value on more than one channel.

I know this are very basic and stupid questions but…

AdamJ
- no XSI synoptic view I'm afraid (though you can setup something with a proxy rig/image plane/camera parented together and some selection scripts but nothing out of the box)

mpexuz
- Does the rig come with any kind of Picker or Synoptic to help select the controls or does it even have a Select/Key ALL?

there is a Character Picker, that gives you some of the synoptic functionality
Right-Click on any Null Object node -> Character Picker…

quite simple, probably deprecated, but can be useful

Another tip is to use the Pose tool (from the Animation shelf) to easily pick control objects in the viewport, key them, etc.

Thanks guys, much apreciated

Fantastic news, thanks

Thanks for this! Certainly a good way to get into rigging in Houdini