Export rigs from Softimage to Maya

[Nicolas Esposito]

Hi guys,

Since I'm not a Maya user I would like to ask you a couple of things regarding exporting a rigged character from Softimage to Maya.

I'm using Species and there is already a video on how to export the rig to Maya, but, even using Gear rig or a custom one, it is possible to export the shadow rig as well?

My few attempts on send a rig to Maya, or send a rig from Maya to Softimage resolved always into Softimage crashing ( 2013 x64 no SP ), so I was force to delete everything on the rig, except just the skeletal rig and the meshes, without any shadow rig/controllers

So, anyone succesfully ported a rig from Softimage to Maya, or if in Maya, in order to have the shadow rig, you just have to built it from scratch, or use one of Maya tools in order to generate the shadow rig ( similar to Softimage? )

Cheers

Nicolas

[Emilio Hernandez]

The only thing that actually has worked for me exporting rigs from Softimage to Maya is the skeleton, envelope (don't expect all the weighting to be accurate), and constrains, and expressions.  Everything else in my experiencie like shapes needs to be redone in Maya.

And believe me is hell.  The best you can do is rig the full thing in Maya...  And it is not quite a great experience..  Specially with the shapes.

If you have any issues in your adventure, I will gladly tell you where are the pitfalls.  But be prepared to spend 4-6 more time to get the job done.

 

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Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Nicolas Esposito]

Damn it, I thought about being complicated, but doing everything inside Maya right now would be counterproductive, since Species saved me lot of time.

So...doing thing in Maya would be 4-6 more time consuming....that is just great...I know that there are rigging tools for Maya as welll....but DAMN!

Thanks for the answer Emilio ;)

[Emilio Hernandez]

Exactly...  Damn!

I thought I saw Eric posting about they are porting Species to Maya.  But don't know if portability from rigs in Softimage will be available to open in Maya.

Perhpas Eric can enlighten us in this subject.

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Matt Morris]

I'd love to see it ported to fabric, and available for soft or maya :)

--
www.matinai.com

[Nicolas Esposito]

Based on the Species mailinglist they're discussion about porting Species to other platforms, Fabric Engine included.

I won't be done tomorrow, but Eric and Chris are very talented guys, so I trust that they'll come up with a solution that would suit everyone :-)

[Eric Thivierge]

Hey all,

In terms of exporting a rig from Softimage to Maya using Species, the only thing you can do right now is export an FBX of the skin and deformers. Simple constraints will go over with curve object controllers to an extent but I doubt anything useful will go over. Unfortunately.

As for where Species is heading from here, we've been looking into the Maya port for a while and we've found someone to assist us with that (Chris Lesage). We don't have a timeframe as we're still trying to sync up schedules and see how we're going to do it. Fabric is the obvious choice here to make it even more portable even outside the Softimage and Maya realm. This has to be discussed in a more thorough manner.

Regarding further Softimage dev, I'm afraid that the Softimage dev on this plug-in will not be continuing as it makes little sense at this point. The current feature set is pretty stable overall and our very limited resources as it is would be better suited looking for a longer term solution for the overall system.

This can be discussed at further length if you need on our mailing list.

Cheers,
Eric T.

[Marco Peixoto]

Im testing Advanced Skeleton ( http://www.animationstudios.com.au/advancedskeleton ) and im really liking all the streamline workflow of building it, they even have a NICE feature of auto weights on simple boxes than can later be transferred into the main geometry for fine tuning, at first look it seems to do a really nice head start job, a lot better than XSi default weights trust me.

Its seems to be free for independents and very small shops (Indie like) but its expensive for "serious" shops, check that out.

Of course then comes the part of Corrective Shapes and.. man.. Maya is so behind what we are used to it :(

[Emilio Hernandez]

My advice is if you are thinking to migrate to Maya for rigging is the following:

1. Take a deeeeeeeeeeep  breath.

2. Make sure you have plenty of time to deliver.

3. Buy some Pepto Bismol or some heartburn relief.

4. Wear a hat.  (This last one will avoid that you will become bald).

If you can hold in Maya for more than 20min the first time you have to use for your work.  You are my hero.

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Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Nicolas Esposito]

Reading the "Maya features request from Softimage users" and based on what you're saying, especially regarding rigging, I'm kinda scared...

For f*** sake, I'm not a TD and I don't know how to write python/JS code, I'm a freelance mostly working in game development and Architectural visualization, and in less than a month ( considering that the freelance activity is a second job, so the time that I'm using Soft is 2-3 hours a day not every day ) I was able to create my own pipeline for both Archivz and game development using all the tools available within Softimage ( except for Species, which I've started to use in the last year or so ), doing stuff so quickly that I was completely blown away by the results.

And thats what I love about Softimage, that you can achieve the same results in many many different ways, but you can always upgrade what you've done in a more efficient way in a non destructive way, so you're always free to modify what you've done....

I can still work for another 3-4 years using Softimage, but thinking about all of you guys working on a daily base using this marvelous software makes me so pissed off about the entire situation :(

[David Gallagher]

I've done a lot of exporting. I use slightly earlier versions of Maya
and Softimage for maximum animator compatibility, so maybe this is
easier with later versions of Softimage/Maya. It takes me DAYS to
transfer everything perfectly for our AnimSchool rigs. And it sort of
works -- for the important parts. The envelope and shapes. They come
over exactly matching. But you have to do it in bits and pieces. Don't
expect the control rig to carry over effortlessly. You have to recreate
IK chains.

Jack Kao has done some of this too for AnimSchool and might have better
workflows.

I purposely use things in Softimage I know I can transfer/recreate
easily in Maya.

My workflow is to use .xsi for the heirarchy. You'll need to recreate
the control rig using those parts.

For the envelope, sometimes it only works by isolating the envelope and
exporting JUST the object and the deformers ONLY in a flattened
heirarchy. I'm not sure why that is. Select the envelope/s, then select
all the deformers (Select Deformer from Envelope). Unparent all those.
Group them all under a new transform group. So they are all flattened.
Export that via .xsi
CrossWalk>Export to Maya.
Use .xsi 5.0 binary. Everyting else seems to crash.
Import into a fresh Maya scene.
Save the weights using Comet's Save Weights.
Get a list of the deformers
Open up your main Maya rig file and import the weights.

For the shapes, the .xsi will include shapes, but I delete them because
they are not connected to objects.
So I use this tool for exporting all the shapes as separate objects.
(attached)
Turn off/down your undo before using this tool. It will eat all the
memory otherwise.
Select the shapes in the explorer you want to export, then
Shape>CopySelectedShapeKeyInNewModel
It creates a ton of objects. Export them to Maya and make them all
blendshapes to the object.

Once everything is up and working in Maya, I can make edits in
Softimage, and just export positions for matching or new shapes/envelope
weights.

I use a script for making the maya scene (all selected objects) match
all the positions from the exported Softimage heirarchy (via fbx or .xsi):
(in worldspace)

string $selected[]=`ls -sl`;

for($x=0; $x<size($selected); ++$x){

string $fbxVersion = ("yourNamespace:" + $selected[$x]);

print $fbxVersion;

float $translate[3]=`xform -q -rp -ws $fbxVersion`;

move -a -ws -rpr $translate[0] $translate[1] $translate[2] $selected[$x];

float $rotation[3]=`xform -q -rotation -ws $fbxVersion`;

rotate -a -ws $rotation[0] $rotation[1] $rotation[2] $selected[$x];

};


or sometimes the local space works better.

string $selected[]=`ls -sl`;

for($x=0; $x<size($selected); ++$x){

string $fbxVersion = ("yourNamespace:" + $selected[$x]);

print $fbxVersion;

float $translate[3]=`xform -q -t $fbxVersion`;

move -a -ls $translate[0] $translate[1] $translate[2] $selected[$x];

float $rotation[3]=`xform -q -rotation -os $fbxVersion`;

rotate -a -os $rotation[0] $rotation[1] $rotation[2] $selected[$x];

};



I use some scripts for listing all the constraints and expressions in
Softimage. Then I reformat them to be like mel commands.
I think Eric Thivierge wrote those for me. Thanks Eric!

[Nicolas Esposito]

Nice!

Thanks for sharing your workflow David!

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I'm far from a Maya fanboi, in fact some of the shit I've given Maya was strongly worded enough to peel paint off walls, but with that said I think it's important to not exceed either.

Maya has shortcomings when it comes to the user experience, no doubt about it, it will undoubtedly have you in tears particularly when it comes to deformers and skinning, BUT it's not an absolute crock of crap either, at least not for the animation control part of rigs.

While a healthy dose of patience will be necessary there's good training material for the unintiated out there, lots of it for free as well, and it's not an insurmountable obstacle even if you can't write code fluently (or at all).

There's a stretch of insulting Maya which is all fun and games, and a lot of criticism is well deserved, but there is such a thing as pushing it too hard, and intimidating people who, despite whether they might or might not like or want to do it have to look at it, isn't going to help them.

You'll be fine Nicolas, it doesn't require you to be a programmer to deal with it, and it has all the tools you might need, it's just not as nicely and uninterruptedly flow-y like Soft. You will have to rewire your brain a bit here and there, and you will have to punch through some walls (and some monitors when you'll get to skinning :p), but it's perfectly possible to translate your rigging skills across in a handful of weeks if you have to.

[John Richard Sanchez]

I highly recommend the Jason Schliefer Rigging Bundle as well as the books The art of Rigging Volume 1 and 2 if you can find them.

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com