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Rigging the spine with APEX (using curves)

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Vivis
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I am currently studying APEX to rig the human body.
Currently, I want to take a set of spines, put joints on each spine, and control these joints with spline-based controls.

I tried to use the "APEX Autorig Component" to use spines for this, but the curve deformation is too much and I think I need to find another way.

I'm thinking of using the APEX Edit Graph, but the barrier to entry is a bit high.
I would like to get some hints on rigging human vertebrae in APEX.
I want to control the Base.skel with controllers from the Guide.skel, as shown in the image below.

I used autorig's spine and the parameters are as follows.

Edited by Vivis - June 17, 2024 09:58:51

Attachments:
spine_rig_by_apex.png (229.0 KB)
wrong_shape.png (174.3 KB)
spine_rig_I_want.png (352.1 KB)
parm1.png (12.9 KB)
parm2.png (29.0 KB)

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Max Rose
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You definitely have the right idea on how to do this. The trick is to make sure the orientations of the Guide skel and the Base skel match, or your bones will be tossed all over the place.

I've attached a file with a working solution. Hope it helps

Attachments:
APEX_spine_vertebre_rig.hiplc (256.5 KB)

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Vivis
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Thank you, Rose.
The samples you posted are very helpful. Your YouTube tutorials have been very helpful to me, and here you are again, I really appreciate it.

I resampled the curve of the procedure spine I'm trying to create and made it 4 points and used the controls to get it somewhat close to what I wanted. It works fine. Great!

However, I don't seem to be able to control the curve as smoothly as I was able to in Maya before.



I initially utilized a bezier curve to create this spine, and this was done with a curve order of 4.


So when I changed the curve order to 4 for this Autorig's spine, I'm getting unwanted results.


I've looked at the apex network through the unpack folder, but I'm not sure how to control rig::SplineInterpolateTransforms.

I thought I could get the order of the curves by entering the tangent values of the bezier curves, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted.

Is there any other way to make it smoother?
How can I get the shape to come out right when using a curve order of 4?
Edited by Vivis - June 19, 2024 09:07:20

Attachments:
APEX_SplineInterpolateTransforms.png (356.5 KB)
curveorder.png (5.6 KB)
wrongShape.png (267.8 KB)

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Max Rose
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Your YouTube tutorials have been very helpful to me, and here you are again, I really appreciate it.
Awesome! I'm glad they're helping.

I've looked at the apex network through the unpack folder, but I'm not sure how to control rig::SplineInterpolateTransforms
You shouldn't have to jump into the rig graph to make any changes to the rig, everything you need to worry about is in the autorig sop node.

I thought I could get the order of the curves by entering the tangent values of the bezier curves, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted.

Is there any other way to make it smoother?
How can I get the shape to come out right when using a curve order of 4?

I went into the same spine setup that I made for you, and when I put the curve order to 4 the curve smooths out with no issues. Just put down your curve and resample it without making any drastic changes, and make sure that all of your naming conventions line up.

If you keep running into issues, post your project and I'll see if I can help out.
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chovasie
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Wholesome thread!
Max Rose save the day as usual!
With your help guys i am finally managing to finx my way thorugh kineFX and Apex. Must admit it was much more confusing than i expected.
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Vivis
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Hello Max Rose. Thank you very much for your kind reply.

I'm going to learn more about APEX and develop the rigging for human bones further. Thank you so much for your help.

I've also uploaded the relevant files you mentioned in your last comment. If you have a chance, I'd really appreciate it if you could check what's wrong.

Edited by Vivis - July 1, 2024 20:35:58

Attachments:
spine_test.hiplc (492.4 KB)
T_spine_curveorder.png (19.4 KB)

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william_harley
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Hi Vivis, the curve order can be a little confusing at times. to put it simply, for curve order 2 the spline gets evaluated like this where X is the start and end of the each segment. X-X-X-X for curve order 4 it will evaluate like this X--X--X--X. so you need a certain amount of joints in your chain for the curve to evaluate.

In your example I set it to curveorder 4 and simply added the L1 in the transform list. T1--T4--T7--T10-- , the last section is missing a point causing the spline to fail as it needs one more point. So when adding L1 to the end it will work. T1--T4--T7--T10--L1.

Also it looks like your order for the controls "CTL" where in reverse, start with the root end with the tip from top to bottom.

hope this helps

PS There are some improvements made to the spline in 20.5.

Attachments:
spine_test_fix.hiplc (496.6 KB)

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Vivis
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Oh William. This was just the answer really I wanted, thank you so much!!!
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