MB-Lab
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animate1978
About skeleton and rigging systems
This is a post about thoughts I have since a while, in fact since I coded the tools needed to make compatible every model of humanoid.
Because many things are so hard-coded in the addon that it's impossible, for the moment, to create animals or fantasy creatures.
That said, many other things are not easy to adapt, as they are interconnected to each other. One of these things that is heavily hard-coded is the skeleton. It's not created from a json file, but exists in the blend file that is used when the user starts a session. But some names are written in the code of the addon, and many other things are attached to the skeleton, like vgroups (base and muscles) used for pose system and animation.
But the skeleton, and rig system, developed by Manuel, are already outdated. they can be useful if the user just needs a NPC for his game, but actually it's pretty useless for someone who wants to make animation or a very detailed character with a state of art in animation. Facial expressions are good enough if you want a pose with a happy face, but it's pretty much the best you can do. No offense here, Manuel started his addon in a time before Rigify, before Blenrig, and I think that his goal was only to make characters for games. But since rigging evolved a lot and fast.
In the same time, there are many types of skeletons. And new ones are coming every month (almost). As rigging systems. Especially rigging systems.
What do I want to say ? Well deciding today to have one skeleton and one rig system is a big no go. Because when one or the other will be ready, bing ! a new system will show up, making the one in the addon cheesy. We can see that it's already the case. And I don't talk about people who will complain/ask to have another system. Some user will make other addons to be able to handle new systems but compatibility problems could show up, and if MB-Lab is not reliable about this stuff, it won't have the success it deserves.
But the actual skeleton is not bad at all. Outdated, yes, but not useless. And if you have 3 skeletons and 3 rigs systems, that means that you can have 9 different combinations. And I think that's not a good idea to force the use a system, it's better to help integration of the system that wants the user.
So what I propose, and of course it's a suggestion, my post is just a base for discussion :
- There are 4 so called skeletons in M-Lab : The main skeleton, the skeleton for IK commands, the skeleton for muscles, and one for its ik commands. The extremities for muscle skeleton are the same for the main skeleton.
- Let's keep the main skeleton, and let's add a tool that creates the skeleton from scratch, with correct names for nodes, tails and heads. The muscle skeleton can be created automatically, as its heads and tails are in the same locations than the main skeleton. Adjustments must be done by the creator of the model.
- Now the rig systems (normal or muscle) would be let to the guy who want to add his rigging system. We would just add a special .py file that allows to automatically load the tool, like this :
Because adding a rigging system must be done after finalization of the character. But :
- Using the same skeleton as a base (before adding a new skeleton and rigging system) would facilitate the automation of adding a rigging system. It's already the case with Rigify.
- This way the step of adapting the rigging system would not be so hard or boring. Especially that rigging process takes time anyway. But with models with known vertices, when you finish the first, the others take minutes, not hours.
Yes I believe this is something we should work on.
I am very unfamiliar with rigging though so I would be the last person to accomplish such a task I think.
As a quick side note I think it was Noizirom who made a script that builds a rig for MB-Lab characters.
However it does cause some interesting results...
The above is a Python script, had to convert it to text to upload here.
Maybe this could be a starting point? I don't know, again I am very unskilled in terms of rigging
I like the rigify rig because you can add custom bones, like wings and extra limbs. I have to look more into configuring the rig_ui.py script that is generated with each rig.
On Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:09 AM animate1978 [email protected] wrote:
Yes I believe this is something we should work on.
I am very unfamiliar with rigging though so I would be the last person to accomplish such a task I think.
As a quick side note I think it was Noizirom who made a script that builds a rig for MB-Lab characters.
However it does cause some interesting results... [image: MBLab-rigify_stretching_01] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/479115/87674221-574ec780-c73b-11ea-8233-99fa4d79328f.png
MB_to_Rigify.txt https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/files/4931642/MB_to_Rigify.txt
The above is a Python script, had to convert it to text to upload here.
Maybe this could be a starting point? I don't know, again I am very unskilled in terms of rigging
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Manuel started his addon in a time before Rigify
Rigify appeared in 2010 and ManuelBastioniLab 1.0 was released at 2016 He worked 6 years before release?
I'm trying to make a rigify face rig for MB-Lab characters. Can somebody give a critics or advices about it? https://github.com/Upliner/CharMorph-rig/blob/master/rig.blend
@animate1978 that's how rigify rigs work in general, they allow for more cartoony animations however you can add constraints to better fit realistic animations/poses.
@animate1978 that's how rigify rigs work in general, they allow for more cartoony animations however you can add constraints to better fit realistic animations/poses.
Oh I see now. Makes sense I guess