Hello!
When I try to make a geometry capture on bones exported from Unreal Engine I get such an effect https://dl.dropbox.com/s/q0h4thm5n8c6lcb/Capture_Unreal.mp4?dl=0 [dl.dropbox.com]
Has anyone dealt with this? What's my mistake?

Please explain what the video shows. I watched it twice and have no clue what you imported, what you added manually, what you expected to work automatically and what was supposed to happen magically.
If you don't want to voice-over the video, at least do a structured walk-through “this is what I start with, this is what I do first, second, third, this is what I want to see, this is what happens”.

Else the time others would be willing to spend on helping you they have to spend on deciphering your video.

Marc Albrecht

malbrecht
Please explain what the video shows. I watched it twice and have no clue what you imported, what you added manually, what you expected to work automatically and what was supposed to happen magically.
If you don't want to voice-over the video, at least do a structured walk-through “this is what I start with, this is what I do first, second, third, this is what I want to see, this is what happens”.

Else the time others would be willing to spend on helping you they have to spend on deciphering your video.
Marc Albrecht

Maybe I'm not explaining it clearly enough in English. I imported bones from Unreal Engine to Houdini to create Capture Geometry for these bones for my model. And then I wanted to export this model, along with the bones, back to Unreal Engine. But when I try to apply Capture Geometry I get an artifact https://dl.dropbox.com/s/3bw4co9ofqgeqet/Screencast%202019-11-23.mp4?dl=0 [dl.dropbox.com] I attached scene file just in case

Hi,

sorry, from the video I can't tell what's going on. I assume that you mean the horizontal bone that's heading for the figure's left hand, right? Based on the naming, it looks like you either created or imported some IK bone chain - the horizontal bone seems to have something to do with a gun. There're also two foot-IK bones.

You might have to look at what you are actually exporting from your game engine, I assume there's something integrated that you don't want copied over.

As for the Houdini side, I am pretty sure that simply deleting the “ik_” trees in the “SK_Mannequin_FBX” network wouldn't do any harm.


Marc

malbrecht
Hi,

sorry, from the video I can't tell what's going on. I assume that you mean the horizontal bone that's heading for the figure's left hand, right? Based on the naming, it looks like you either created or imported some IK bone chain - the horizontal bone seems to have something to do with a gun. There're also two foot-IK bones.

You might have to look at what you are actually exporting from your game engine, I assume there's something integrated that you don't want copied over.

As for the Houdini side, I am pretty sure that simply deleting the “ik_” trees in the “SK_Mannequin_FBX” network wouldn't do any harm.


Marc

I mean the shifting of the geometry after applying the Capture Geometry https://dl.dropbox.com/s/m0gwz7nk9v8uumm/shot_191123_205336.png?dl=0 [dl.dropbox.com] That's how much geometry shifts with weight https://dl.dropbox.com/s/vr6gh8hhakcnzo9/shot_191123_205633.png?dl=0 [dl.dropbox.com] I’m trying to understand what this shift can be related to

Hmm … to me that rig looks … censored. Let's try it diplomatically: Not quite correct.

There are bones ending in mid-air (pelvis) and secondary strands … have you tried re-creating the rig in a “normal fashion”?

I did a quick test by removing the parent geometry node (and deleted all the unneeded additional nodes), rotated the root null to upright and pushed that transform into pre. When I then do a capture, I do not get an offset - but it's still not a “functional rig”, really.
What I would do (and I have done that for DAZ-characters) is write a quick script that recreates a “Houdini bones rig” based on the nodes imported and then use that. One advantage is that with this approach you can easily add IK within Houdini and don't have to manually tweak everything. But that's my “developer's approach”, it may not be what you want to do.

So in short: I suggest you clean up the imported rig and make it structurally “sane” (e.g. push transforms into pre so that you start with 0-values), I'd also suggest getting rid of in-between-nulls and really use a bone-hierarchy.


Marc

malbrecht
Hmm … to me that rig looks … censored. Let's try it diplomatically: Not quite correct.

There are bones ending in mid-air (pelvis) and secondary strands … have you tried re-creating the rig in a “normal fashion”?

I did a quick test by removing the parent geometry node (and deleted all the unneeded additional nodes), rotated the root null to upright and pushed that transform into pre. When I then do a capture, I do not get an offset - but it's still not a “functional rig”, really.
What I would do (and I have done that for DAZ-characters) is write a quick script that recreates a “Houdini bones rig” based on the nodes imported and then use that. One advantage is that with this approach you can easily add IK within Houdini and don't have to manually tweak everything. But that's my “developer's approach”, it may not be what you want to do.

So in short: I suggest you clean up the imported rig and make it structurally “sane” (e.g. push transforms into pre so that you start with 0-values), I'd also suggest getting rid of in-between-nulls and really use a bone-hierarchy.


Marc

The thing is that for export to Unreal Engine this hierarchy cannot be changed, otherwise it will not be possible to use the built-in animation Unreal Engine. These bones are exported from there only for weight application. But I did clean for transform, rotatates and scale for all bones and nulls https://dl.dropbox.com/s/0odco3iz5c55s6q/shot_191123_222030.png [dl.dropbox.com] and now it seems like geometry capture is working fine. Although I do not understand how this had an effect on weight. Thanks for answers, Marc!