KineFx error

Forums Technical Discussion KineFx error

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Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 23, 2022 7:40 p.m.

I have no trouble rigging with the old Houdini bone system. However, following the tutorial on KineFx with fur_dude, I get an error with capture: "invalid hierarchy". How can this be resolved?

Attachments:
KineFxError.jpg (128.6 KB)


tamte: Member; 8554 posts; Joined: July 2007; Offline

Dec. 23, 2022 8:04 p.m.

you have selected bonecapturebiharmonic1, which is outputting a polygonal mesh, not a valid skeleton, so there is nothing to view in Rig Tree

try selecting skeleton1, or skeletonmirror1 nodes

Edited by tamte - Dec. 23, 2022 20:04:43

Tomas Slancik
FX Supervisor
Method Studios, NY


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 23, 2022 8:36 p.m.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the same setup as in the pdf and in the vimeo tutorial, so it is how SideFX suggests setting up the rig. I tried tetconform and got the same problem and changed the settings. I think the downloaded bgeo.sc file must be bad. I downloaded again and tried the daily build and got the same problem. The rig is present (see attachment)

Edited by Island - Dec. 23, 2022 20:51:43

Attachments:
KineFx2.jpg (344.4 KB)


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 1:05 p.m.

I am struggling with KineFx. The old bone system was quite reliable. Here is a hand model with skeleton and bone capture biharmonic doesn't assign any weights. I have double checked by adding a visualizer for weights and it is all black. Here are the steps that work fine until the bone capture biharmonic is added. I've tried tetconform as well and played with the settings of all of the nodes without success. Any suggestions?

Edited by Island - Dec. 24, 2022 13:08:39

Attachments:
BiharmonicFailure.jpg (177.3 KB)
CaptureFailure.jpg (469.6 KB)
SkeletonHand.jpg (396.1 KB)


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 2:12 p.m.

Hi,
since I’m not at a machine I can not look into your exact case. Also I do not want to guess.

However, some years ago I followed the entire Fur dude tutorial carefully. It was probably with Houdini 18.5. This greatly helped me to learn more about using Houdini in general.

With Houdini 19 and 19.5 strictly following the same turorials will not work. (unless it has been updated for newer versions)

However, I more or less reverse enginered most things to have them work with H19.5 (and to develop my own workflow).

After that I realized that to go beyond function to performance much has to be rewired.

My advice is to start with the model. Then complete the capture. After that go for the rig (controls). This is my current setup and it work great. Don’t follow the tutorial strictly just do things problem oriented in steps.

That said, I still enjoyed the original workflow with 18.5. Things has been updated since then.

I just hope my advice helps.

Edit: You could follow the tutorial for capture weights using Houdini 18.5. It should work, then try to redo it with a recent version. You should be able to run multiple versions simultaneously.

Edited by SWest - Dec. 24, 2022 14:30:13

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 2:37 p.m.

Thank you. I think something is broken in Houdini 19.5 with KineFX. The biharmonic weighting seems to be the issue. I have sent the file to support. The fur dude is a bit unstable but sometimes captures. Obviously without capture, I can't proceed with controls and creating an hda.


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 2:51 p.m.

Ok, however I think the author mentioned that the Fur Dude tutorial showed the current state of KineFx back in Houdini 18.5.

KineFx was supposed to be changed since then. It is not really broken, but improved.

However, I’m not sure what your objective and time budget is.

If all you want to do is a quick (and dirty) rig of a character I suggest you check around in the tutorials section.

If you want to qualify as a TD rigger with KineFx you can expect quite a journey. The current state of the tutorials I’ve managed to see (I’ve not seen all) is somewhat in an bit experimental state.

I’ve done a little rigging with Maya and Blender beforecso I know what to look for.

However, today with Houdini and KineFX it is possible to do biharmonic capure, transfer captures and it works fine.

If you really want to learn the depths of rigging make sure you give it a lot of time and patience.

Can’t you download the finished Fur dude asset to Houdini 18.5, and check it out?

My KineFX RnD project for H19.5 is here. [www.sidefx.com]

Edited by SWest - Dec. 24, 2022 14:58:29

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 4:16 p.m.

I've rigged in Houdini with bones, softimage, Modo, and C4D without problems. Either I am missing something with KineFX or it is buggy.

This is not a parenting, controller issue, hda, weighting, promoting parameters, etc. it is a failure of capture.

Edit: it looks like this is a visualization issue. I set the visualizer to single bone capture and the capture seems to have worked.

Edited by Island - Dec. 24, 2022 18:32:43


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 5:15 p.m.

Now I just destroyed my capture to redo a biharmonic. It worked on first attempt. This is Houdini 19.5.403.

Make sure your inputs are valid. For example the tetembed must wrap the entire source mesh. Check Enlarge Offset.

The other DCC:s you mentioned have a more predictable workflow than Houdini. Since Houdini show you all parms it is easier to break things.

Edited by SWest - Dec. 24, 2022 17:24:14

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 24, 2022 7:01 p.m.

Thank you. It was purely a display issue of weighting. That still seems a bug, but a minor one. I added the rest pose with all the skeletal parameters and a bone deformed and it is working. Tech support logged this as a bug after receiving the file.

Edited by Island - Dec. 24, 2022 20:18:32

Attachments:
RightHandRigged.jpg (135.8 KB)


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 25, 2022 2:12 a.m.

To try to force a display redraw I tend to press arrow icon and then the tool specific arrow below (do not know the name, maybe ”manipulator” something). This will ususually give a view update. I’m aware that users complain about a generic display thing and believe that sidefx already do RnD on updates. I’m so used to this now that it is a habit.

However, somehow I expected that you checked the geo spreadsheet thing for attributes. It should show the weights also without a view redraw, no?

Edited by SWest - Dec. 25, 2022 02:15:34

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 25, 2022 12:54 p.m.

The issue is the instability of capture. Here is the fur dude and if you set the visualization to color: capture regions or capture single bone, it shows failure to capture.

Attachments:
fur_dude_start.hiplc (280.2 KB)


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 25, 2022 3:28 p.m.

I'm checking your scene. For a start. In your skeleton mirror node change L_ to l_ and R_ to r_ otherwise your mirrored joint (bone) inputs are corrupted. Then if you add a capturelayerpaint node after bonecapturebiharmonic1 you can not select and see your Capture Regions to paint them.

That said, there might be something more to this.

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Dec. 25, 2022 4:08 p.m.

SWest
there might be something more to this.

Nah, if you change the L_ to l_ etc thing it seem to work as expected on my end.

However, I just discovered that my Houdini embedded screen record tool will destroy the capturelayerpaint node. Gah! So I can not record any weight painting unless I figure out what is wrong. It has nothing to do with your file.

Edit: Now you should be able to visualize also, because you can select your regions, no?

Edited by SWest - Dec. 25, 2022 16:15:17

Attachments:
visualize.png (492.7 KB)

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


Island: Member; 340 posts; Joined: June 2017; Offline

Dec. 25, 2022 7:52 p.m.

Thank you very much! It appears there are two separate issues. The inability to capture was user error due to my capitalization. But there is a separate display issue. If I set visualization to bone capture, it only works if I have single bone visualization selected. The biharmonic capture node itself is supposed to show the visualization. I think this is the bug that SideFx has logged.

Fortunately I was able to do weight painting, add a delta mush and set up a rig for the hand model, so all is good.

Edited by Island - Dec. 26, 2022 15:11:30


randymills: Member; 3 posts; Joined: Oct. 2018; Offline

Feb. 5, 2023 12:10 p.m.

I was having the same issue. However, I added a visualizer for Capture Weights and then when I switched the "Capture Pose Input" to 0 and refreshed the viewport using Labs > Reset Viewport it seemed to work.

Attachments:
Screenshot 2023-02-05 090818.png (412.9 KB)

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