"Rapid Rig: Advanced" - Auto Rig 2.3.9 for Maya (maya script)

This is a tool that will set up a customizable rig for a bipedal character

Bugs

Inconsistent Results

Status	closed
Priority	medium
Date	02/18/2011
Submitted by	Forester
Modify this bug	edit

I bought it early this week. It is potentially a great tool - would allow one to focus on complex skinning issues, and save vast amounts of time in rigging.

For some reason, the program/script fails to consistantly make fingers and thumb. I've tried this over and over and over again for about two days straight. Then spent four hours this evening trying to determine if it is me, or it is the program. Essentially, sometimes, after re-booting my machine, I get fingers. Often, I don't.

Also, I don't understand the "Forearm" thing. It is just "out there", not attached to the wrist, etc. This could be me - unfamiliar with this kind of a "forearm setup."

And, finally, in skinning, I ran into a regular issue - some of the weights are locked by "external influences" due to the rig, and I cannot change them, even having suspended the skeleton node. Bummer - cost me hours of work.

Anyhow, as I have a production job, I'll be rigging by hand tomorrow - having given up on this tool, as least for now.

Comments on this bug:

Forester said over 15 years ago:

Oh yes, also the auto mesh works sometimes, and sometimes not.

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Dustin Nelson said over 15 years ago:

Hi Pamela, This sounds like all kinds of bad. I am really sorry to hear that you are having trouble, I have never heard of, or experienced the problems you are having. I would really like to figure this out, without costing you more time. Can you answer a few questions for me? What version of Maya are you running? Would the script not create dummies for fingers and thumb? Or were you able to get the finger dummies, but then the "Generate Rig" phase did not create the controls? When you are creating dummies or generating the rig, are you getting any errors? The forearm joint should be half way between the wrist and elbow, so it sounds like the rig is created properly (at least for this part). The forearm joint takes on rotation from the wrist, but the wrist is not parented to the forearm joint, mainly to keep things from breaking in IK mode on the arm. The wrist is attached to the elbow, and skips over the forearm joint. I am not totally clear on the skinning issue. Are you saying that there is something in the rig that is locking the skin weights of certain influences on your skinned model? If this is actually the case, can you tell me what the "external influences" are, and any other details of the skinning issues? Hopefully with your help we can resolve these issues so that this tool will be valuable to you.... If not for this go-around, at least for future use. Thanks, Dustin

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Forester said over 15 years ago:

I must say, Dustin, you are very prompt! Five minutes after posting my complaint, you responded to me, personally. This promises to be a good experience, after all. I am running Maya 2010, on a homebuilt AMD computer (6 cores), using 64-bit Win7. The script does create dummies for the fingers and thumbs, and allows me to place them correctly. The first time, after booting up the computer and executing Maya for the first time, everything works well, and as promised. I cannot "see" the thumb and finger joints in the Rig Group list in the Outliner, but each is displayed in the Workspace, and each thumb and finger shows up in the Paint Weights Tool list in the Channel Box. However, if I determine, after skinning, that I need to alter my basic mesh, and having done so, enter Rapid Rig for a second (or third or fourth or whatever) time, I can create the dummies for the fingers and thumbs, but the Generate Rig process will not actually produce any thumbs and fingers. Again, no thumb or finger joints are listed in the Outliner, they do show in the Workspace (some times) as being unconnected to anything, and they are not present in the Paint Weights tool list of joints. But, my most important problems did not lie with the missing fingers and toes. Instead, my worst problem was with some kind of interference with the mesh and skeleton controls, and the inconsistant results there, as I repeatedly struggled to get a well-skinned and rigged mesh. As of today, in order to meet my production deadline, I altered my basic mesh, rigged and skinned it by hand using standard Maya methods, and did not experience the "locked vertices/weights" issue while skinning. Because I altered my basic mesh, I probably cannot re-create the problem with the rig interference with my ability to paint weights as needed. Unfortunately. And this was actually my worst problem with the Rapid Rig script set. Another problem, I also experienced, but did not report last night is that I cannot successfully create a good Collada export file for the rigged/skinned mesh. That is, I had been able to do so successfully earlier in the week, but never could get one with any integrity yesterday and last night. Since my mesh has developed further, and I'd made the earlier Collada files just to test all stages of my workflow, it may be that the Collada exporting process works well on a simple mesh, rigged with Rapid Rig script, but will not work on a more complex mesh. I'll be testing out this issue and trying to learn more about it over the weekend. Meanwhile, Dustin suspicions that the Rapid Rig Advanced script is not completely executing after the first time, and he has me looking for error messages, and clearing away unused nodes from any earlier failed processes. I will keep this thread informed, as I learn anything further.

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Dustin Nelson said over 15 years ago:

Thanks for all the extra info! Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this when you have a bit more time, as I know you are under timeline pressure. Dustin

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Dave Challenger said over 15 years ago:

Hi, Also coming from a production perspetive I can't say I've ever come across these issues with the Advanced version of RapidRig it's always consistently created finger joints/mesh's and I've never had any issues skinning after over 4 months of consistent tests of a professional level. Does you're version of Maya have any special custom 'production' settings or locked features? Are you using the Single Hierarchy feature? Insure you are selecting only joints when skinning so not to accidently skin to 'locked' objects which shouldnt really be skinned, are you adding anything specific to the rig prior to skinning that could be breaking things? Use Maya's optimized Scene feature to clean up you're workspace incase duplicated history is causing the script to run incorrectly. Sorry I can't give any more advice but I do highly recommend this rig as I persoanlly use this script professionally within the games industry with flawless results, it could also be an issue with Maya itself needing to be reinstalled as you mentioned rebooting actual changed results which is very strange. Dustin is an absolute legend so I have every faith he can help you out. I'll let you both know if I have any similar issues with the latest builds. Dave

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jova said over 15 years ago:

Hi, I am using Maya 2011 on mac and on the second attempt of making the rig, because I wanted to adjust the shoulder, I had the same problem and dint have any fingers or hand controls..for now I think I can use the first rig I created but a fix to this problem will be nice.. thanks Giovanni

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Dustin Nelson said over 15 years ago:

Hi Giovanni, If you delete a rig, there are nodes left behind, and that could be causing the problem for you. When you deleted your rig, did you try deleting unused nodes from the hypershade? If these are not deleted, the script will run into issues. I am going to add a "delete rig" button, and some error checking for this, and hopefully that will resolve part of this issue. If that doesn't work, I will keep digging to see what else I can find that might be causing it. Dustin

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jova said over 15 years ago:

Thanks Dustin..I deleted the nodes and now it is working fine.. the rig it great.. Giovanni

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Dustin Nelson said over 15 years ago:

OK, good to hear! I will try to have something more user friendly in the next update! Dustin

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Dustin Nelson said about 14 years ago:

There is now a delete rig option which will get rid of all the extra nodes. Use this when you want to delete a rig.

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