What do I need to setup to fix troublesome A.R.T. Mannequin Auto Hips?

Whenever I attempt to animate the Mannequin that comes with ART I run into a problem. To start things off I’ve reinstalled both Maya and downloaded the plugin again after removing it completely. None of which has helped.

The auto hips feature on the rig keeps enabling itself even though the parameter is set to 0. If I make a character set or just select the entire rig and make a base keyframe so that everything is keyed auto hips enables itself. Which might just be the way the rig is built but then you figure that you might try and disable it, but it doesn’t work since it is already set to 0. Once it enables itself I have to start a new project file and try again since it ruins the entire animation. Like this run animation that I was working on is completely ruined and I can’t continue because the auto hips ruin the entire thing.

http://pahlavan.se/dump/2014-05-02_18-15-53.png

If I am very careful and do not use character sets or anything like that and make sure to never touch it, I can slowly animate but it seriously disrupts my workflow and things take a lot longer to do since I always have to make sure I am avoiding that one control on the rig. I tried hiding it but there is no option to hide it individually.

I have yet to find anyone else having this issue so maybe it is just me. I’m using Maya 2014 Student Edition. I get 0 errors from A.R.T. since it was updated to work with Student Editions properly. So I have no idea what is going.

There was an issue in one of the previous code bases where the rig was being built with some locators still visible in the scene. If one of these locators received keyframes, it would definitely break the auto hips.I’m assuming that is what has happened here, and apologize for the inconvenience.

If you rebuild the mannequin rig from his export file (edit existing character–.edit export file) with the latest code, does this fix your issue?

Oh dang. I was away for the Epic meet up in Malmö and then I completely forgot about this. I’ll give it a go. Not sure that you will see this comment so if it doesn’t work I guess I’ll have to make a new question.

yep! I can see the comment! Let me know how it goes, sir!

It almost works. But the hands break instead! I’ve made a video of what happens. For some reason the mouse doesn’t show up in the video but near the end when the broken rig loads up I add a key to all joints to test if the auto hips get enabled. They don’t. But like I said earlier, the hands break for no apparent reason.
http://pahlavan.se/dump/ue4mannequin.mp4

okay, I know why the hand breaks. I believe in the export file, there are some IK bones called ik_hand_root, ik_foot root, etc, and those have constraints. Go ahead and delete those ik bones under the root. They are used for gameplay purposes and you can add them back in with this little script if you need them:

(after the rig has been built, if you need those IK bones for gameplay, open the export file and run this script. No need to rebuild the rig)

#create the joints
cmds.select(clear = True)
ikFootRoot = cmds.joint(name = "ik_foot_root")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikFootLeft = cmds.joint(name = "ik_foot_l")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikFootRight = cmds.joint(name = "ik_foot_r")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikHandRoot = cmds.joint(name = "ik_hand_root")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikHandGun = cmds.joint(name = "ik_hand_gun")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikHandLeft = cmds.joint(name = "ik_hand_l")
cmds.select(clear = True)

cmds.select(clear = True)
ikHandRight = cmds.joint(name = "ik_hand_r")
cmds.select(clear = True)


#create hierarhcy
cmds.parent(ikFootRoot, "root")
cmds.parent(ikHandRoot, "root")
cmds.parent(ikFootLeft, ikFootRoot)
cmds.parent(ikFootRight, ikFootRoot)
cmds.parent(ikHandGun, ikHandRoot)
cmds.parent(ikHandLeft, ikHandGun)
cmds.parent(ikHandRight, ikHandGun)

#constrain the joints
leftHandConstraint = cmds.parentConstraint("hand_l", ikHandLeft)[0]
rightHandGunConstraint = cmds.parentConstraint("hand_r", ikHandGun)[0]
rightHandConstraint = cmds.parentConstraint("hand_r", ikHandRight)[0]
leftFootConstraint = cmds.parentConstraint("foot_l", ikFootLeft)[0]
rightFootConstraint = cmds.parentConstraint("foot_r", ikFootRight)[0]

also, thanks for taking the time to upload a video! Very helpful!

No problem about the video. However, I’m feeling rather incompetent right now. Where do I find the list where I delete them? I’m looking at the list view for the rig in maya and I’m not finding anything called ik_root.

Edit:

Oh. My bad. Supposed to look in the export file. Let me give that another go.

my apologies for not being more clear. In the export file, in the outliner, you should see the following bones under the root:

Go ahead and delete those (really it’s the constraints causing the problem), and then rebuild the rig. That will fix your hands! If you want/need to re-add those Ik bones, you can use the script above and add them only after the rig has been built, back into the export file.

That fixed it! And now the autohips work like they should, too. Thank you very much for the quick help!

http://pahlavan.se/dump/2014-06-05_21-06-41.png

haha! Thanks for your patience man! Let me know if I can do anything else for you!