I’ve been working for about a week to ‘script out’ a rig that I made that I believe is the perfect biped and produce an ‘autorigger’. I’ve gotten somewhat far, with a two stage set up where I first position locators and then turn them into bones.
The rig has
[ul]
[li]squash/stretch arms/legs/spine
[/li][li]rubber arms/legs
[/li][li]ik/fk snap
[/li][li]space switching,
[/li][li]localized scaling
[/li][li]reverse foot
[/li][li]pyqt popups for selecting things
[/li][li]organized well
[/li][li]etc
[/li][/ul]
I was thinking of scripting it so I can add more things in the future. However, Im not sure if this project warrants continuing.
On the one hand, scripting out the rig has significant benefits in organization and future extensibility.On the other hand I can just save the rig I have now as a .ma file and then load it into future projects. If I had unlimited time I would script it out. I’ve looked at source for other autoriggers, both in mel and py - I couldnt agree with their style of coding or the choices they made so I basically started from scratch.
I’m open to opinions on whether I should continue the project or not.
Once by hand, after-that-by-script is the way to go. Using a file means you’re stuck with the proportions, local coordinates, bone counts and names you have now, and TA life being what it is it’s a sure bet you’ll have to change some of those things.
The smartest way to approach it is to do individual components in their own scripts rather than trying to make a rig in a single script call. That way you’ll be able to reuse pieces for future jobs without constraining yourself to today’s design choices for everything.
Concentrate on reliable, survivable scripts for building components; don’t obsess over UI unless you plan on distributing to lots of people. Even if you’re the only customer, a good solid toolkit you can always go back to is a huge boon to personal productivity.
I couldn’t agree more with Theodox. I’ve got a huge selection of seperate functions I use across a wide range of different tools which I can build up new rigging tools from, be they high end facial rigs, animal rigs, bipedal rigs etc etc. Keep it modular and in future you can reuse huge chunks.
This was also something I’ve been struggling with. Thanks for the posts, and Bergj the thread! The one I built is cut into different files reliant upon the other, but that should make things easy to convert to what you are suggesting.
