I’m a postgraduate student with great passion for technical arts, currently studying professional practice in game development. In one of my projects I’m researching character rigging and animation pipeline tools. I’m also developing set of tools to speed up my rigging workflow.
A friend asked me the other day: Why do I not just use existing tools like A.R.T which comes free with UE4, or Advanced Skeleton? Does the world really need another auto-rigging tool?
My reason for developing my own tools, instead of using one that’s already out there, is the fact that I enjoy doing it in the first place It helps me understand how Maya works and improve my scripting skills. I also like to build rigs in certain way and use specific naming conventions. So if I use my own tools, it is much easier for me to edit the rig or add more functionality after, since I know how the rig was built. These are however my personal reasons and since I don’t have any industry experience I may be wrong.
I would really like to hear from people working in the industry. How do professionals in game development or animation studios approach rigging and pipeline tool development? Do you use existing auto-rigging tools or do you create your own tools? Do you use auto-rigging tools at all?
Well in my case with my current employer, it was a few things. First off, while ART is great for bipedal humanoids, it was important to be able to do more non-standard rigs than available to do with it. Second, in general when possible, it’s always better to have something custom, so it’s very easy to adapt to your own needs. Third, I also just kinda wanted to do it
[QUOTE=nalzay;27072] …in general when possible, it’s always better to have something custom, so it’s very easy to adapt to your own needs. [/QUOTE]
Thanks a lot, that’s something I was not sure about So when you are developing pipeline tools in studio, would you try to have them combined into one script that crates the rig and can be accessed through custom UI? Or have them as group of separate scripts that help speed up the process and can be edited individually, but require more manual input?
The world probably doesn’t “need” another auto rigging tool, but why should that stop you? You will gain experience and learn a lot from it. Remember that when you are on a studio you might not get that time to test new things and develop new tools, so do all of that now when you are in school!
I have never heard of an studio that are using an complete already done auto rigging tool. Even if they are using Human IK or something else I’m sure most studios still incorporate their own scripts to suite the pipeline. Like you said yourself, you need to know how your rig was made when troubles come.
Personal I script all the boring and important stuff. This means I never do a “regular” bi-ped rig by hand. What I might do by hand is if that character have some special attributes. I also automatically name everything correctly since a lot of things in Maya is dependent on names. This includes all the stuff that is needed in the rig to work with my export scripts.
Also, depending on how big (game) studio you end up on, you might be the only tech artist there. Smaller studio might not have a set rig-animation-export pipeline or they might have an very old one. If you come in with a good rig pipeline to work from, this will save you some time instead of doing all of the things from scratch.
Lastly, tip when doing and auto rig: start small and keep it simple. I know is tempting to do super cool UI and automatically drive everything, but I would say don’t. I think it’s easier to have smaller parts you can mix and match. Not all characters are made the same, and if you are over complicating things you will basically only have a script that can make a really advanced rig, but for only one type of character.
the question you should ask is: do I need an auto rigging tool?
all the auto rigging tools already available are nice and such but if it doesn’t act the way you think it should or when it breaks you cant really debug it unless you know everything there is in the rig (harder when custom nodes are involved). allthough this is also a good way to test your knowledge and how to solve problems that might occur with the auto tools of a big company.
most companies i have spoken to use their own toolset develloped inhouse (expanded or sometimes even redevelloped per project) or they don’t use an auto tool at all, it all depends on the needs of the project.
and as Ella says, start small, design a core for your rigging tool and keep this core idea working while expanding on it.
It helps me understand how Maya works and improve my scripting skills. I also like to build rigs in certain way and use specific naming conventions. So if I use my own tools, it is much easier for me to edit the rig or add more functionality after, since I know how the rig was built. These are however my personal reasons and since I don’t have any industry experience I may be wrong.
So when you are developing pipeline tools in studio, would you try to have them combined into one script that crates the rig and can be accessed through custom UI? Or have them as group of separate scripts that help speed up the process and can be edited individually, but require more manual input?