Can you tell me about character setup.

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Special nodes es locomotion locator I don't know if I got what it is needed for, and I didn't get able to l use it in any way(as it doesn't seem to make any difference)

Documentation doesn't tell so much about character details so it is really a try and miss.

Is there a way to override motion extracted from root?(as root isn't really the best node to capture movement from as it generally traslate the entire rig.

where do I have to place things in hierarchy es why to put bip bone in the hierarchy if it does just add complexity?

Is there any kind of source files for max , maya and fbx with properly set up character to see how specific things can be implemented(lods , collision and ragdoll shapes, root motion, all kind of runtime ik?

Some documentation looks criptic or just obsolete.

What's the best pratices for rigging it would be very appreciated specific best pratices for common rigs es Biped, CAT , humanIK etc...

It looks you refer to biped , but I found very uncomfortable using biped as the root of the biped isn't a great bone to capture motion.(It also goes up and down while walking) and you also need to move it on ground from the pelvis or character get absorbed in the floor.

Geppetto also crash a lot especially when you create a new character.

It also looks like fbx in far behind max exporter (compression makes feet slide a lot)proxies seems to be disabled,also had problem with skeleton scale different from animation one and so traslation get scaled differently than the rest of motion.

asked 7 years ago158 views
3 Answers
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Great question! I've created a ticket to get some answers.

answered 7 years ago
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Hi @REDACTEDUSER

The legacy CryAnimation locomotion locator node was used for varying the speed of root motion of a character for particular animations - you wouldn't use it for animations where the speed of the character is constant. There is some more information about it here:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/anim-char-locator.html

If you are using the Biped rig in 3D Max, you might actually need to add an extra joint and name it Locomotion Locator, since the root node of the Biped rig is at the pelvis, and not at the ground. In this case, it will need to be keyframed at the start and end frames of each animation in the position you desire for the speed of the character. Regarding root motion, in general most character rigs for video games separate the control of the entire rig with the control of root joint, so that root motion of the character can be controlled independantly of the entire rest of the character. This is how many games key the root motion relative to the character speed to prevent foot sliding, by tuning this in the animation. But if you actually want to override root motion, just disable root motion entirely and drive the speed of the character with your game code.

Apologies that some of the documentation may need updating, it is constantly being worked on by our documentation team to provide the latest information. We appreciate your feedback and are working to improve it, so if you have any specific information you wish to see, please let us know.

I am not sure what you mean by "bip" bone in regards to placing joints in the hierarchy, but there are many types of special joints that the game engine uses for information. Identifying the limbs for limb IK, ground contact IK, weapon aim joints, head look joints, and IK target joints are all part of IK systems designed to do specific things in the engine.

Limb IK:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-ik-limb.html

Ground Contact IK:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-ik-leg-foot.html

Aim IK:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-ik-aimpose.html

Look IK:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-ik-look.html

IK Target:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-ik-anim.html

In regards to a good example of character setup, I would point you to the Jack character in our new Starter Game. You can download the Starter Game pack if you haven't already here:

https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/downloads/

Inside the Starter Game, navigate to ...\dev\StarterGame\Objects\Characters\Jack, and you can look at how the Jack player character has been set up on the exported character side (not the source file). Thanks for your feedback regarding the source file, we have not released this character's source file, but we are working on releasing the FBX file in the future, which can help in examining the setup. However, you can see that the Jack character has root motion, physics proxies for ragdoll, and the runtime IK limbs, IK aim, and IK ground contact setups.

LOD:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-model-export-max-lod.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-export-maya-lumberyard-tools-lod.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-fbx-import-lod.html

Ragdoll:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-phys-intro.html

Physics colliders:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-attach-collisions.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-attach-proxy.html

Root motion ("Animate root" component property) on simple animation component: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/component-simpleanimation.html

For character rigging best practices, you can look at our page here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/userguide/char-rigging-best-practices.html

I think that any reference to "biped" in our documentation may either be a leftover reference from the old documentation, or a generic reference to a bipedal human rig (not the 3ds Max Biped system). In any event, the root joint of character should be at the ground level, not at the pelvis level, and oriented properly with a scene root node as needed.

Geppetto crashes on new character creation are a known issue and being fixed in an upcoming release.

As far as the new FBX importer versus the Max exporter, we are moving everything in our systems towards the FBX importer, and are improving it with every release. But regarding the foot sliding you are seeing, you can actually adjust the compression of the animation that is imported, and this should help.

Scale is not currently used by the engine - make sure all joints are scaled to 1.0/1.0/1.0 in your base skeleton and in all animations.

Thanks for your interest, please let us know if you have any further questions.

answered 7 years ago
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Thanks for the infos.

As for the 3dsmax biped you can move the root at feet(using rubber band mode), but it doesn't work out as I previously stated, so the solution for biped was to move root out of the hierarchy(including the "bip" node it in the export isn't indeed required as it seems from the documentation) and use a different root bone in its place.Root seems to work even if randomly named.So yes the "bip" thing is possibly an old naming convention...indeed I achieved to export properly the character and the anim with this alternative setup with root motion and all.

Also Cat worked quite well not without some modifications and always substituting the root motion extraction bone(the big arrow at character feets) with a custom one that follows the salient movement of the real one(the real one is too sensitive to rotation keeping the character turn at every step).

It was a lot of trial and error however just to sort it out to export a clean root motion.

Keying root motion at start and end of the animation is too simplistic for varing footstep timings key it manually sampling the good parts from the old root bone is far better with feet completely planted.

fbx and compression is very bad as even small levels make feet slide and I don't know the actual compression as I didn't found the final compression ratio so I had to totally disable compression.

This need to be verified imho the final result of fbx should be the equivalent of the other export system and sport the same exact parameters and final compression ratio and quality.

Naturally ik driven feet may solve any sliding and compression issue as ik single targets compress far better than the hierarchical fk chain in any scenario.

Look forward for the fbx sources.

answered 7 years ago

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