First time user

[Sean Toomey]

Hi to all you clever Golaem people.

Firstly, can I say how impressed I am with the possibilities of Golaem….. It looks great.

Please bear with this post.  Get a cup of coffee ;)

I work for an architectural visualisation and marketing company in Wales, UK (http://www.icreate3d.com - just in case someone wants a house built :) ).

I've been given the interesting but also daunting task of being in charge of using Golaem with our work.  We've particularly turned to Golaem because of a new job that’s coming up.  We also hope to use it in many other projects too.

I’m currently using the evaluation period and don’t have as much time as I’d like before it runs out because it’s only in my spare time that I’m able to play with Golaem.  I don’t get much spare time .   For that reason I’m going to be bombarding this group with questions.

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I’ve done quite a bit of reading up on Golaem (there’s so much) and have familiarised myself with the basics, however, at the moment I’m only able to use the sample files and follow YouTube videos that are using older versions of the plug-in.

My primary concern at the moment is characters.

The only characters we have with animation are some AXYZ ones.  However, these have motion captured keyframes assigned to the joints and we aren’t sure how well they’d work with Golaem. 

For that reason, my company has bought the Rocketbox characters (not the HD ones) as these have been recommended in the Golaem documentation.  They aren’t as high quality as AXYZ but as long as they get the job done while we get to know Golaem more.

http://www.golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/using-rocketbox-characters

What I want to do is work with only one of the characters and get that one working correctly instead of working on all of them and getting it wrong.  Once I know what I’m doing I can write a step by step document of how to do it correctly so my colleagues can also set them up. 

I’ve found that the documentation for setting up Rocketbox characters is out of date and omits some information.

I’m writing the following as I go through the documentation and showing the steps I’m taking.

THE CHARACTER

When first loading the Rocketbox character, it imports with its normals the wrong way round.  In our company we make sure all normals are the correct way.

Q1:  Is there a reason for this?  Is it ok for me to reverse the normals? 

Q2:  When loading the characters, they load with 'meter' working units.  Is this correct or should it set it to 'centimeter' ?

Q3:  The character objects and rig group (Fbx_Root) aren't grouped.  Should they be?

Q4:  The imported models have phong materials.  We use mia's.  Can/should I alter the materials to be mia's before bringing the model into Golaem and exporting as an FBX?  I'm still not really sure when it comes to the materials of the characters because in the previous version, the characters loaded with materials.  Now the sample files only seem to load white characters with no materials.

In the Rocketbox page it says to select Bip01 and open the 'Skeleton Motion Converter'

I presume this has been replaced with the 'Golaem Character Maker'.

I've loaded this and pressed 'Load selected skeleton'.

For detection mode I've selected 'Current values'.  

The up axis is set to Y and front is set to Z.

It has created a plane on the grid (characterMakerLocator1).  The plane is positioned at the bottom of the feet.

This is where the documentation is out of date.   In the Rocketbox page it says to export the skeleton.

I presume what I need to do now is press the Auto Compute Skeleton Mapping button.

It has created planes in the character.

The below is taken from the skeleton mapping documentation page:

The below is mine.  As you can see, it has created everything in the right order.  However, some of the circles are filled in with my character whereas, the circles in the image from the documentation aren't.

Q6:  Can you tell me why?

I've now saved the skeleton file as casual01_f.gskm (the name of the model).

Q6_1:  Should the .gskm files be given unique names?  I don't know if loading .gskm files of the same for different characters would cause problems.

Q6_2:  As the structure of the rocketbox skeletons are mostly the same, do I need to create a .gskm file for each character or could I just use the same file?

In the Rocketbox page it says I need to export the skeleton (.gsk) then export the skeleton mapping (.gskm).

Q7:  With the new version, do I only have to export one (.gskm)?

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This, I'm afraid is where I've drawn a blank.  I'm not sure what to do next.  

The Rocketbox page moves onto the asset manager.  However, there are 2 more tabs in the Character Maker:  Motion & Motion Mapping.

The Rocketbox characters come with animation files (.anim).  However, when I turn on the animImportExport plugin and import a file, nothing happens.

Can anyone help me with this?

I really hope you can help !  Have another coffee to wake yourself up.

Many thanks,

Sean

[Alexandre Pillon]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for you (long) list of interesting questions, and sorry for missing the RocketBox page when updating the documentation.

I will update it today, and create a step by step tutorial on how to import a character (may take longer than a day).

In the meantime let's answer some of your questions:

Q1:  Is there a reason for this?  Is it ok for me to reverse the normals? 

I never ran into that problem. Are you opening a RocketBox Maya scene or exporting the character from 3dsMax? Maybe there is something to check in the export parameters?

Q2:  When loading the characters, they load with 'meter' working units.  Is this correct or should it set it to 'centimeter' ?

This is not a problem, you can scale them later by using the scale parameters in EntityTypes (http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/entity-type)
It is better to scale them that way instead of setting a 1/100 scale at the wrong place in your rig.

Q3:  The character objects and rig group (Fbx_Root) aren't grouped.  Should they be?

This is not a problem, but you can group them if you think it is cleaner to do so.

Q4: The imported models have phong materials.  We use mia's.  Can/should I alter the materials to be mia's before bringing the model into Golaem and exporting as an FBX?

 
The FBX file Golaem Crowd exports is used as a Geometry file. What is important in this file is the Geometry + the names of the shaders attached to this geometry.
So it is better to setup your shaders and give them their final name before exporting to FBX. But once names are all set, you can modify your shaders without reexporting the FBX.

You should keep you shaders in a separate scene, to be imported in your crowd scene (as we do for the samples, see quickstart steps 15 to 17: http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/quick-start ). 

Q6 (could not find Q5...) : The little circles which are filled means that you have bones from your rig mapped on the Golaem rig you created in the Character Maker. 

The image you referenced is one showing an empty template to be mapped to a characters. In your case, the automap already mapped everything for you.

For more details about bone mapping see:

• http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/character-main-concepts ( skeleton mapping nodes)
  
• http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/main-workspace (bone mapping)
  

Q6_1: Should the .gskm files be given unique names? 

There is no rule on that point. It's up to you.

Q6_2: As the structure of the rocketbox skeletons are mostly the same, do I need to create a .gskm file for each character or could I just use the same file?

If the structure is exactly the same you can use the same .gksm. 

Q7:  With the new version, do I only have to export one (.gskm)?

Yes we have merge both files for more clarity

Last Question: 

The Rocketbox page moves onto the asset manager.  However, there are 2 more tabs in the Character Maker:  Motion & Motion Mapping.

The Rocketbox characters come with animation files (.anim).  However, when I turn on the animImportExport plugin and import a file, nothing happens.

Can anyone help me with this?

I am not aware of .anim and animImportExport plugin. Could you clarify on what it is (and to which software it applies) ?

We usually load .bip on the rocketbox 3ds max characters and export to Maya, or use provided FBX files.

Anyway once you get the motion playing on top of your character in Maya, you can use the Motion tab to load this motion and export it to the Golaem Crowd format in order to be played later in your simulations

See http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/motions-gmo

The motion mapping file is only need if you want to play a motion imported from a character on another character with a different skeleton structure.

So right now, as you advised, I will get a cup of coffee, and then I will start working on updating the rocket box characters documentation page, as well as a character import tutorial which (i hope) will clarify everything.

Cheers,

Alex

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[Sean Toomey]

Hi Alex.

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply and sorry for the long post.... and not getting back to you sooner.  

I think this might be another long post.... sorry.

Firstly, thanks for saying you'll update a couple of pages.  That'd be great.

With the Rocketbox characters, as you may know, they come in both Max and Maya format.  They also come with animation files..... .bip for Max and .anim for Maya.

After some research, I've found that .anim is an obsolete animation format from the early days of Maya.  Great :(

I tried the Max method but have never used it so after staring at my screen not knowing what to do, I thought I'd look around for another way.

I then found a script written years ago that still loads the .anim files, so that's good.

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Going back to the normals question, I'm just opening the model's Maya scene.

The models have a few issues such as reversed normals, a couple of unneeded joints etc. I've written a script that fixes all the issues so all is well with the world.

I'm new to all this character stuff. I didn't know if the normals affect the binding of the joints/objects. My area of expertise is fluid simulations so this is WAY over my head at the moment. There's a thought..... mixing Golaem with Realflow. I wonder if that'd be possible :P

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Anyway, back to business. As I've previously said, I'm working on one model first and writing down the process step by step.

I'm still having an issue with getting the character in so I really apologise for taking up your time with something that I'm sure is actually quite easy.

I'm getting pretty frustrated with it because I'm stressed about the thought of being in charge of simulating over 80,000 people for a new stadium job we've received and extra characters walking around the scene.

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Here's what I have so far. I'm going to be showing you everything in case I'm doing something wrong:

I've named textures accordingly for each of the Rocketbox characters. This is the one I'm doing the tests with.

We have a collection of different categories. This one is female_flat heels. We have female_high heels, male_adult etc.

Here's the final / fixed model in Maya. I think everything is ok here.

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I've now opened the Character Maker and selected the root joint (bip01). The Skeleton Axis window popped up and I went with the defaults (Up = Y, Front = Z)

Detection Mode = Current Values

Ground Height = 0.00mu

What does 'mu' stand for?

The ground plane is under the foot (on the Maya grid)

I then pressed 'Auto Compute Skeleton Mapping'

And saved the file. The skeletons for each of the models in this category (female_adult_flatheels) have the exact same proportions and structure. So, based on what you told me I don't have to create a skeleton file for the other models in this category.

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I loaded the animation onto the object and set the timeline to the range of the animation.

I went to the Motion tab a pressed 'Load Motion from Skeleton'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaAhqKb3EIw&feature=youtu.be

I presume I don't have to do anything with the footprints option because this character isn't walking?

I then saved the motion file.

Again, because the skeletons are exactly the same, I presume I only need to create one motion per category.

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I'm going to leave it there for this post.

I'm going to work on the 'Asset Manager'. I haven't had much luck at all with this yet. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I'll play with it today.

I just the Asset Manager, selected the root joint and pressed the + to load it in and Maya crashed:

Thanks,

Sean 

 

[Sean Toomey]

Me again.

I forgot to say that I've loaded 2 animations into a crowd and they seem to work ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXs-BRRHLNE

As you can see.... The blue (sitting down) characters are floating....  I'll look into this.

Also, you may notice that the legs of the green character (cheering) seem to spin.  I'm not sure why that would be happening.

[Alexandre Pillon]

Hi Sean,

Sorry on my side for taking so much time to update documentation. A part of our team is at FMX this week so I cannot dedicate all the time I need to do this.

Would you be able to share the link about the .anim plugin? I think it is an interesting information to add in the documentation.

Concerning your questions about character and motion import:

• mu stands for Maya Unit (which is cm by defaut)
  
• if structure (included bone names) and proportions are the same, you need only one .gskm: true
• you need to import a motion only once for all characters: true (it would be true even if you had several gskm files)
• the general process seems ok (IK planes are correct, ground height also)
• however you NEED to compute the footprints even if the character isn't walking. Footprints is what helps Golaem Crowd to correctly adapt the character's height to the ground (which explains your next message about the seated characters flying)

The asset manager crash is really strange. Could you check in your TEMP directory (type %TEMP% in windows explorer address bar) if a .dmp file was produced? If not, could you send me your scene (out of the mailing list obviously)?

I'll answer next questions in a separate email.

Cheers,

Alex

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[Alexandre Pillon]

Hi again,

Flying characters: As you can see, Golaem Crowd try to adapt their feet to the height of the root. That' s because you did not defined any footprints when importing the motion. Give the autocompute a try.

Spining legs: Your general process for importing motions is correct (except footprints) however for this particular motion, because the leg is in full extension it may trigger an unwanted rotation. To fix this, you can try to import this particular motion with a conversion factor set to 0 ( see http://golaem.com/content/doc/golaem-crowd-documentation/motion-tab ).

Cheers,

Alex

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