PLUG: Kraken Rigging Framework v1.1.0 released!

[Eric Thivierge]

Hello everyone,

I'm excited to announce that we have released version 1.1.0 of the Kraken Rigging Framework. This is our second release which mainly focused on UI / UX work and also updating the system to work with Fabric Engine 2.0 and higher.

Kraken is a cross-platform Rigging Framework that provides a flexible, customizable and extendable framework. Kraken leverages Fabric Engine’s Splice / Canvas API to maintain consistent evaluation of solvers and deformers. Kraken’s abstracted Python graph provides a layer where complex rigs are defined, with which DCC plug-ins translate into DCC specific build instructions then scene elements are output.

Download here:

http://fabric-engine.github.io/Kraken/#download

Installation Tutorial:

https://vimeo.com/151921771

Release notes here:

http://kraken-rigging-framework.readthedocs.org/en/1.1.0/release_notes.html#version-1-1-0

With the update to use Fabric 2.0, users are now able to construct solvers using the Canvas interface. Users who are familiar with Softimage's ICE interface should feel at home using Canvas for creating solvers using a nodal interface. Those solvers can then be exported as presets and be added to Kraken's Python based rig components. We still support solvers written in Fabric Engine's scripting language KL, too. You now get the best of both worlds.

We're eager to expand the community and encourage people do give it a spin and provide feedback. We've gotten some great feedback recently and the great folks over at Oculus Story Studio have had significant interest and have already contributed back to the project. Looking forward to others joining the community.

You can also read a bit more about what we've been working on and where we are heading in the preview blog post we wrote up last week here:

http://fabricengine.com/kraken-1-1-update/

Visit the Kraken web site and forum at the following links:

http://fabric-engine.github.io/Kraken

http://forums.fabricengine.com/categories/kraken


Thanks!

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Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Marcus Ottosson]

I wish there was some way to see what this thing can actually do.

I get that it's awesome, it looks like a lot of solid good work and I now know how to install it and connect things together in the GUI thanks to the videos, but I haven't seen an example of what it actually *does*. Is there a video somewhere I'm simply not seeing?

A final product would do, a rig of any kind, so I know in which ballpark I would end up if I were to actually invest time in learning Fabric and then learning Kraken and if that is a ballpack I'm interested in getting to.

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Marcus Ottosson
konstr...@gmail.com

[Eric Thivierge]

Hey Marcus,

Yes those videos will be coming. I know this has been something many people have been waiting for. Examples and more tutorial videos are on my plate for the weekend / next week.Stay tuned and I'll post updates of the videos to this thread.

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Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

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[Marcus Ottosson]

Thanks Eric, looking forward to it!

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Marcus Ottosson
konstr...@gmail.com

[Eric Thivierge]

Here are a few more basic videos. Only 1 more until I dive into deeper concepts and show what's possible for components.

Installing for Softimage

https://vimeo.com/152163192

Installing for Maya

https://vimeo.com/152163190

Creating Nodes & Connections

https://vimeo.com/152163193

Building Guides & Rigs

https://vimeo.com/152163191

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Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Marcus Ottosson]

If I may suggest, what I was trying to suggest in my previously post was not more in-depth material, but rather the 10,000 feet view.

Maybe there are others whose need you cater to first (and rightly so, I'm not a user), but eventually it would be great seeing something simple like a walk cycle where you highlight certain features of the rig provided by Kraken and how simple it was to set up.

At the moment, for all I know, Kraken is only capable of rigging NURBS spheres. I need something tangible to become a user.

[Eric Thivierge]

Yes that is what I'm getting to as well. :) Thanks for the feedback.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

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[Chris Tedin]

I'm so excited to see how this develops! I saw a good bit of it at Siggraph (spent the day at Fabric Engine) and it looked pretty incredible.

[Paul Molodowitch]

I think the promise here (or, at least, what I'm excited about) isn't so much a feature set as it is portability.  ie, I'm sure most companies rigging departments now have scripts / toolsets that do much the same stuff that kraken aims to... BUT what kraken will potentially allow is to have a standardized way to rig things, that will work across different software (or whatever has a fabric engine plugin).  So, ie, you could animate in maya, then bring the exact same rig into houdini, using only lightweight anim curve data, without having to do time consuming + disk hogging alembic exports.

That, and speed, I'd imagine... please correct me if I'm wrong!

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[Eric Thivierge]

Hey Paul,

The intent for Kraken is to provide a rigging framework that is consistent across DCCs. You write a component once, and define a rig in a .krg file (using the UI or code) and it can be imported to Maya, Softimage, etc. and built and it will behave the same way. The thing left from there is to port animation from one to the other if needed.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't use Alembic to cache out for rendering or even from dept. to dept. But what it does mean is that if for any reason your FX guys want a live rig in Houdini or Max, they can rebuild the rig in that DCC and apply the animation. 

Big note here: We are waiting for Fabric to have implementations for other DCCs in order to build out the Kraken plugins for them. 3ds Max and Modo are in beta right now. Also, we don't have any tools currently to get anim data from one DCC to the next. This is something we'll have to look into at some point unless some new format comes along that we can use.

Best,
Eric T.

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Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

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[Roy Nieterau]

Couldn't Atom be a good animation format? Don't use it much myself, but it was meant for exactly this right? Or is it Maya only?

Also I'd have to say that Kraken is definitely lacking the "show-off" that raises people's confidence that this is the tool for their job. Example given, I have no clue how much production ready it is and to what extent it's already being used or even relied on by animation/rigging teams.

I'm also very interested in seein/knowing what particular benefits those productions gained from it. Maybe even those benefits over other scripted rig builders that were in use. (E.g. speed of rigs?)

Anyway, I'm welcoming this a lot and I'll definitely start using this in production once I have a good biped/character rig testec with components that I feel I can rely on.