I’ve recently watched this tutorial on Pluralsight (ex digital tutors) on Creating Custom Facial Motion Capture in Maya
It’s a nice and simple tutorial that teaches you to track some facial motion capture in matchmover, export the tracked data as locators in maya, and then parent the locators on an existing rig.
The only bit where it was a bit “meh”, is the part where you have to constraint the generated locators to the animation controls.
Generally, face control have values that range from -1 to 1 and from 0 to 1, but the controls I’ve exported from matchmover had crazy values, and to fit the animation curves within these ranges can be a very boring job.
Therefore I thought…wouldn’t be awesome if I could select the locator and re-normalize the curves based on a range I decide? So I made a script for that!
Now it doesn’t have a UI, but that’s the next step. If you want to play with it now, just copy and have fun with it!
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def generate_keyframes_range(keyframes): #check if there are no keyframes in the selected object if len(keyframes) < 1: cmds.confirmDialog( message= 'no keyframes' ) return #getting the range lenght, lowest and highest values of the range highest_keyframe, lowest_keyframe = max(keyframes), min(keyframes) generate_keyframes_range = highest_keyframe - lowest_keyframe print "generate_keyframes_range: %f \nhighest_keyframe: %f \nlowest_keyframe: %f" %(generate_keyframes_range, highest_keyframe, lowest_keyframe) return generate_keyframes_range, highest_keyframe, lowest_keyframe def ranged_value(keyframe_values, keyframe_numbers, anim_curve_attribute, lowest_keyframe, keyframes_range, new_range, range_translation=0): print "keyframe_values: ", keyframe_values, "keyframe_numbers: ", keyframe_numbers if range_translation < 0: new_range = (new_range - range_translation) for frame, keyframe in zip(keyframe_numbers, keyframe_values): cmds.currentTime(frame) print "frame: ",frame, "value: ", keyframe #getting the new keyframe value based on the lowest value of the new range keyframe = keyframe - lowest_keyframe #adding the normalized value to the normalized value list. #the normalized value is the output of the keyframe * the normalized range / the range lenght #the range translation value is used to shift the keyframe if the range goes from a negative value normalized_value = (round(float(keyframe * new_range / keyframes_range),4)) + range_translation print normalized_value cmds.setAttr(anim_curve_attribute, normalized_value) return normalized_value objects = cmds.ls(sl=True) for object in objects: anim_curves = cmds.findKeyframe(object, curve=True) if anim_curves: for anim_curve in anim_curves: anim_curve_attribute = cmds.listConnections(anim_curve,plugs=1)[0] keyframe_numbers = cmds.keyframe(anim_curve, query=True, timeChange=True) keyframe_values = cmds.keyframe(anim_curve, query=True, valueChange=True) print generate_keyframes_range(keyframe_values) keyframes_range = generate_keyframes_range(keyframe_values)[0] lowest_keyframe = generate_keyframes_range(keyframe_values)[2] ranged_value(keyframe_values, keyframe_numbers, anim_curve_attribute, lowest_keyframe, keyframes_range, 20, -2) |
In the meantime I’ll leave you with the mocap video I made 😀
I should really build a facecam because trying to stay still while performing was very hard…
More updates soon!
hey I’ve updated the parent script I made on this previous post.
Now is more efficient, and it will change the name in the navigator based on the type of constraint (I’ve set it to work only on position, rotation and parent but it’s easy to modify it) so it will look like this:
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def constraint(CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 3, Weight = 100, SNAP = True, child = None , parent = None ): #assign child and parents variables and check if the right amount of items are selected if child == None or parent == None: selectedModels = FBModelList() FBGetSelectedModels (selectedModels, None, True, True) if len(selectedModels) <= 1 or len(selectedModels)> 2 : FBMessageBox( "Error", "Please select two items", "OK" ) return selected_objects = [FBFindObjectByFullName(model.FullName) for model in selectedModels] child = selected_objects[0] parent = selected_objects[1] ''' CONSTRAINT_TYPE_AIM = 0 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_EXPRESSION = 1 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_MULTI_REFERENTIAL = 2 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_PARENT_CHILD = 3 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_PATH = 4 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_POSITION = 5 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RANGE = 6 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RELATION = 7 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RIGID_BODY = 8 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_3_POINTS = 9 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_ROTATION = 10 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_SCALE = 11 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_MAPPING = 12 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_CHAIN_IK = 13 ''' #setting te prefix for the name displayed on the constraint based on its type if CONSTRAINT_TYPE == 3 : constraint_name = "par_" elif CONSTRAINT_TYPE == 5 : constraint_name = "pnt_" elif CONSTRAINT_TYPE == 10 : constraint_name = "rot_" else: constraint_name = "" #constraint creation with type and name myManager = FBConstraintManager() myCons = myManager.TypeCreateConstraint(CONSTRAINT_TYPE) myCons.Name = constraint_name + child.Name + "_to_" + parent.Name #adding elements to the constraint slots #for index, element in enumerate(selected_objects): myCons.ReferenceAdd (0, child) #if I add an index > 1, it wont be added to the slot(dont know why) myCons.ReferenceAdd (1, parent) #if I add an index > 1, it wont be added to the slot(dont know why) #setting up the snap option, so the elements will keep their position if SNAP == True: myCons.Snap() #weight of the constraint myCons.Weight = 100 myCons.Active = True constraint(CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 3, Weight = 100, SNAP = True, child = None , parent = None ) |
hope it helps 🙂
Hey everyone,
I’ve recently wrote this script (which I suggest to bind to an hotkey shortcut) that switches the values of the aux effector between 100% and 0% and will disable the “animatable” attrubute.
enjoy!
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from pyfbsdk import * def selelcted_object(): selected_objects = [] selectedModels = FBModelList() FBGetSelectedModels (selectedModels, None, True, True) selected_objects = [FBFindObjectByFullName(lModels.FullName) for lModels in selectedModels] return selected_objects selected_objects = selelcted_object() for selected_object in selected_objects: def get_animation_node(selected_object, reach_mode): aux_reach_get_value = selected_object.PropertyList.Find(reach_mode).Data return aux_reach_get_value def aux_reach_switch(selected_object, aux_reach_get_value,reach_mode ): if aux_reach_get_value == 100: selected_object.PropertyList.Find(reach_mode).Data = 0 elif aux_reach_get_value == 0: selected_object.PropertyList.Find(reach_mode).Data = 100 RT_Anim = selected_object.PropertyList.Find(reach_mode) RT_Anim.SetAnimated(False) return aux_reach_get_value aux_reach_get_translation_value = get_animation_node(selected_object, "IK Reach Translation") aux_reach_get_rotation_value = get_animation_node(selected_object, "IK Reach Rotation") print "the aux_reach_get_translation_value is %i " %aux_reach_get_translation_value, "the aux_reach_get_rotation_value is %i " %aux_reach_get_rotation_value aux_reach_set_translation_value = aux_reach_switch(selected_object, aux_reach_get_translation_value, "IK Reach Translation" ) aux_reach_set_rotation_value = aux_reach_switch(selected_object, aux_reach_get_rotation_value, "IK Reach Rotation" ) print "the aux_reach_set_translation_value is %i: " %aux_reach_set_translation_value, "the aux_reach_set_rotation_value is %i: " %aux_reach_set_rotation_value |
It took me ages to complete this course, but I can finally remove it from my to do list of this year! 🙂
I’ve learned loads, and I strongly recommend to bot anyone who wants to learn this language from scratch and to those who want to improve their fundamentals.
This course is really well explained and if you get stuck you can always turn on the hints or read people’s questions in the q&a forum.
Below you can find the entire course structure:
This tutorial will introduce you to Python, a general-purpose, object-oriented interpreted language you can use for countless standalone projects or scripting applications.
Now that you’ve completed the lesson on Python syntax, let’s see if you can put your newfound skills to use. In this project, you’ll create a simple calculator that determines the price of a meal after tax and tip.
I’m currently working on the ultimate parent constraint tool for Motionbuilder.
So far the tool is very simple: select the child, select the parent and you have your constraint. In the future I want to add the option to automatically key the weight values before and after a certain range and choose the type of constraint as well.
This is what it looks like in action:
Motionbuilder python tool: parent constraint from Francesco Sternativo on Vimeo.
And this is the code:
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''' Tool: Parent constraint tool V1.0 Owner: Francesco Sternativo www.sternativo.com ''' from pyfbsdk import * def parentConstraint(): #list the selected object displaying their name lSelectedObjects = [] selectedModels = FBModelList() FBGetSelectedModels (selectedModels, None, True, True) lSelectedObjects = [lModels.LongName for lModels in selectedModels] print 'the selected models are: ' + str(lSelectedObjects) def constraint (Name, Weight): CONSTRAINT_TYPE_AIM = 0 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_EXPRESSION = 1 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_MULTI_REFERENTIAL = 2 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_PARENT_CHILD = 3 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_PATH = 4 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_POSITION = 5 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RANGE = 6 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RELATION = 7 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_RIGID_BODY = 8 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_3_POINTS = 9 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_ROTATION = 10 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_SCALE = 11 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_MAPPING = 12 CONSTRAINT_TYPE_CHAIN_IK = 13 #constraint creation with type and name myManager = FBConstraintManager() myCons = myManager.TypeCreateConstraint(CONSTRAINT_TYPE_PARENT_CHILD) myCons.Name = Name #adding elements to the constraint slots for index, element in enumerate(lSelectedObjects): myCons.ReferenceAdd ( min(index, 1), FBFindModelByName(element)) #if I add an index > 1, it wont be added to the slot(dont know why) #setting up the snap option, so the elements will keep their position myCons.Snap() #weight of the constraint myCons.Weight = 100 print "constrained: " + str(lSelectedObjects[0])+ " to " +str(lSelectedObjects[1]) constraint("parent constraint", 100) parentConstraint() |