aniMeta - simple rigging tools

[Jan Berger]

Howdy, I created this auto-riggerfor my students that has features that I find vanilla maya lacks and published it on github as open-source. It is easy to install, it is just one py file that can be started via the plug-in manager. I thought it may be interesting to some of you, so here you go:
https://github.com/janberger/aniMeta

Here are some features:
- Biped template ( Unity and Unreal compatible )
- HumanIK inegration
- Skinning IO
- Very nice Smooth Weights Tool ; )
- Picker UI
- Rig, Pose, Animation IO
- Transform tools ( mirroring, matching et al )

Overall the rigging features may seem limited for the Biped, because they are ; ) but keep in mind it is for students, especially game design students. For more advanced stuff. there is a procedural build system for a data-cantric workflow integrated, but I guess I need to write some documentation before anybody but me can use it.  

Please let me know if you have any questions!
Jan Berger

[Marcus Ottosson]

Very exciting. :) I'm familiar with your work on Character Modular System, years ago from Suntoucher Labs. That stuff was next-gen. Keen to dive into this.

One question comes to mind from your feature summary above, what are your thoughts on HumanIK? Is it intended for use by animators, or is it an integration kind of thing? Like for motion capture, Motion Builder or Unreal/Unity?

Also what are your thoughts on other auto riggers out there, in terms of comparison. When should (or shouldn't) one choose to look at aniMeta over anything else? Of particular interest to me personally is a comparison with mGear.

[Jan Berger]

Hi Marcus, saw you ragdoll stuff, pure awesomeness! Regarding your questions, HumanIK is IMHO only good for retargeting animation(mocap) data in Maya. It is integrated in aniMeta by creating a hik character along with the actual rig and than there is an extra group with a pairBlend on each relevant control so one can dial in or out the hik effect ( "mocap" attribute on each control ). This allows one to animate/tweak the mocap data, ie for foot locking. I have not implemented a baking step, yet, I guess that depends if it gets becomes a priority for some reason, so far I had exported the animation then directly to game engines, mostly UE.

Your question regarding a comparison to other solutions is very interesting, as it touches the design choices made. There are already a few options for auto-rigging out there, why bother putting out another one? First, the key idea behind aniMeta is simplicity with having novice users in mind. In my experience it can be already a challenge for users to install a script/plug-in. My idea was to have everything needed in a compact format with no dependencies/build/platform/installation issues, that is way I made the choice that aniMeta needs to be a single text file that can be started from the plug-in manager.  Second, regarding features, the biped template would probably be considered basic when compared to other options out there, especially mGear. but that also makes it fast and has only what I consider the most important features to get some decent game animation loops. It is also vanilla Maya, so a rig created with aniMeta can be opened on another machine that does not have the plug-in installed. That is also a difference to mGear, which uses custom nodes. So IMHO mGear is definitely the choice if you need to customize stuff and want advanced features, aniMeta is more of a light-weight but fast solution, but offers some neat features that maya make it interesting for character TDs. For example. there is a tool to export/import hierarchies(json), there is skinning IO(json) and a procedural build system, which I used last year to build a couple of mGear characters with. So it complements Maya where I see some Maya`s rigging features lack and aniMeta can easily combined with other rigging tools and solutions out there. Some students told me that the smooth weights tool alone already makes it  worth having around.

I know there isn`t any info about usage of aniMeta yet. But I am in the process of putting info stuff together so people can get a more specific idea of what it is and how to use it.  But so far thanks for your interest! : )

[Marcus Ottosson]

In my experience it can be already a challenge for users to install a script/plug-in.

Indeed, this was the first thing I noticed. One file for the whole project, which is then also used as a plug-in. I like it a lot. :)

It is also vanilla Maya, so a rig created with aniMeta can be opened on another machine that does not have the plug-in installed.

Yes, this is my main gripe with mGear, so this is lovely to see.

Having a play with this tonight. :)

Ps. I’m unsure why, but your messages get caught by the group spam filter. I manually “accept” the messages, which appears to not send the message out via mail to members in the group. @justin have you seen this before?

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