ART doesn’t seem to be happy building me a control rig without generating mountains of errors. This happens even when I do a fresh install of ART and build a rig just clicking through all the default settings. Rough step through would be:
Open Maya 2014 64 bit Windows 7 with fresh preferences
Install ART. Based on the 4.9 files patched with the latest dropbox update files
How do I get a clean error-free rig build? I have received the same errors with many different configurations (Maya 2015, UE4 v4.8 etc).
By the way, I also get a minor error or two about missing icons (see below). Sure enough, I can’t seem to find the files mentioned in any distribution package…?
*Warning: Pixmap file C:/Program Files/Unreal Engine/4.9/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Icons/ART/skeletonbuilder_face.bmp not found, using default. #
Warning: Pixmap file C:/Program Files/Unreal Engine/4.9/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools/General/Icons/ART/skeletonbuilder_face_alpha.png not found, using default.*
Not sure why you’d want to use the ART tbh, I was using it for a while and I think I read somewhere that they don’t really spend a lot of time on that anymore because the character rigging system within Maya is just as good, even better at certain things. I switched to that beecause it was a lot easier to bind custom meshes, general usage etc.
In trying to reproduce this, I had some difficulty with the 4.9 userSetup file with 2014, but not the 4.8 version. Although you stated you have tried many configurations, but please try the following:
With UE4 and Maya closed:
Copy the setup userSetup file from the 4.8 version of UE4
Paste/Replace the userSetup file in [your]Documents/maya/2014x14/scripts
Delete the “mayaTools” file from this same directory
Open Maya 2014: It will say directory is missing
Browse to the the directory where UE4 is installed/4.8/Engine/Extras/Maya_AnimationRiggingTools/MayaTools
Try the repro steps you listed above
Let us know if this resolves the issue or if you still are unable to use ART.
Unfortunately, that went very badly. I followed your instructions meticulously. When I fired up Maya, it asked where MayaTools was and I pointed it to the unmodified 4.8 MayaTools folder location. Maya then went into a loop that I could only break out of by exiting the program. It seemed like it was running userSetup again and again or something.
I blew away maya’s preferences, re-downloaded UE4 again, flushed all my environment variables and tried again. Same result.
On a hunch I deleted the userSetup.py file from my scripts folder. Now I can run Maya again without it entering a loop on startup. And ART is installed. Unfortunately I am back to square one - when I build the control rig it generates all of the same errors that made me create this post in the first place.
I am feeling you Crowley. I’ve spent about a week of my life now just trying to install ART in a way that doesn’t constantly crash or throw errors. It’s getting real old, and V2 of ART never seems to arrive.
It’s a pity, because what I have seen of the system tantalizes me just enough to keep on trying.
PS I’m getting a lot of fatal crashes trying to save things like templates, joint positions etc. ie: when ART is trying to write its own files to my hard drive.
(Yes, I have double checked ART has write permissions etc. I have even tried running ART from a different folder on a different hard drive).
There are no actual errors in that pastebin, just warnings, which aren’t an issue at all. Could the code be cleaned up to make sure no warnings are spit out? Sure, but of all the things on my list, that doesn’t even make it
As for the missing files, there was an update to the dropbox recently that added in the new facial stuff, which is what those are referencing:
As far as your crashes, what version of Maya are you using?
see comment below regarding resaving joint mover file.
Also, anytime you get flickering Maya, it’s because there are competing userSetup files. Probably one in maya/scripts and another in maya/mayaVersion#/scripts
Thanks for taking the time to reply - I know you’re a busy guy (who has written a very popular and useful tool let’s not forget).
That’s a good tip re. the flickering, I will go hunting a second userSetup file.
You’ve been very clear in the docs that Maya 2014 is the officially supported version so my install attempts have been based on that. Whenever I try anything in 2015, I make sure to do the well-documented procedure of re-saving the joint mover file.
I understand your point regarding errors vs warnings. But surely you can understand from a user’s perspective that when I install your tool clean in Maya 2014, do a build using all default settings and the tool generates 634 lines of warnings - well as a user I take the hint that something has gone very wrong! As the head of a 3d department, if one of my team ignored 600 warnings when running a script on default settings and just went on like nothing was wrong, I’d ask him to wake up, go back and fix the problem before someone else in the pipeline inherits a rig that generated 634 warnings about steps being skipped when it was built.
Even before doing a build, the v4.8 ART running under Maya 2014 crashes to desktop for me any time I try to save a file (joint placement templates etc) from ART.
In working through this, it would be really great if that Dropbox folder didn’t contain a subset of the ART files, but rather one whole complete “known to be good under Maya 2014” set of up to date files. That way it would make it a lot easier to get back to a safe, patched build after experimenting with various fixes.
Cheers for even reading this. Please understand I still think you’ve made something great that obviously functions perfectly fine for the vast majority of users.
