3d control panels

[franky]

so far i stayed away from the usual 3d control panels, where you move nulls or something else around to control facial expressions or other rig things. (like stop staring setup)

its been always easier for me to have controls direct and close to the area of the character where they affect it. what are other ppl experience and preferences with these things?

right now i wonder another thing about these control panels. do they slow down the playback speed while watching animation, compared to normal property page with sliders and buttons?
after all its 3d elements that get animated. is this a point to take into consideration when setting up such a beast?

[janimatic]

hey,

i also avoid 3d control panels, though in xsi object view enhance it a lot.
I was just about to make a character secondary sculpt interface but i found better to integrate it directly "on the mesh".
No additional interface, just a new level of detail on the character, with visibility switches to avoid coonfusion...
A property + synoptic + the character controls that's already 3 differents things to check..
Unless synoptic and object view can be integrated to the custom properties, i would avoid multiple interfaces.
PS : also controls on the mesh with DisplayInfo props do a great combo

[mattmos]

I'm also all about 3d controls sitting on the mesh these days along with DisplayInfo parameters, rather than floating in a separate panel - I tend to use a camera view with mesh only visible and a user view to animate with the controls, then just solo the cam to watch the animation.

I don't think they add that much more time to a character's playback than just cpset sliders, but haven't tried it with an intensive enough character to see much diff - though something to note is that you can usually connect 3 or 4 sliders onto one 3d control, so you're economising in a sense.

[franky]

thanks guys for your opinions. seem we share the same ideas.
i rather like to think of level of controls on and around the character then disconnected views.

the idea popped up because i am currently designing a autorigger and it appeared easy to me to create such a 3d panel right from a script. a synoptic would be much harder to create i figure.
but thinking about it, a synoptic still is something different then a slider or 3d panel. it allows for much more possibilities. creating whole chunks of code doing something, while sliders and 3d panels are mostly bound to expressions.
while i often use synoptics they are not needed for actual animation. i use them to create scripts that deal with the character like setting visibilities on whole areas on/off. switch between render/animate rigs, putting poses/animations in the mixer or other stuff....
hm.....

[janimatic]

i prefer to use custom properties instead of synoptics for animation tools.
Animators like funny colors of the synoptic and say i am too techincal, but i prefer to use the workgroup features...
Though it would be nice to integrate synoptics in custom props..

[mattmos]

Might not be too hard to create a synoptic using a generic character, but I guess as soon as you start adding tails, extra limbs, it becomes harder to deal with. I tend to use them for the keying options - key all, key selected, reset all or selected etc without graphical representations of the actual characters - you can select what you want to animate direct in the viewport without too much trouble normally.

Mind you I'm still tied into the marked parameters workflow, should really investigate the newer ways of doing things, keysets and all :)

[guillaume]

i prefer to use custom properties instead of synoptics for animation tools.
Animators like funny colors of the synoptic and say i am too techincal, but i prefer to use the workgroup features...
Though it would be nice to integrate synoptics in custom props..

Hi Julien,

If you need to embed a synoptic view in a custom property you can create a string parameter (to give the synoptic file path) and then in the layout section of your self installing property you can use "siControlSynoptic".

Ex : var oItem = oLayout.AddItem("mySynopticPathParameter", "", siControlSynoptic);

[janimatic]

hey Guillaume,

perfect, i will use this feature right now...
thanks

[franky]

great tip Guillaume. (http://community.softimage.com/member.php?u=679)

i remember the example from the SDK group where they used a picture to control positions of 3d objects. but i didnt know that you can embed a whole synoptic.

mattmos, i came too late to get used to the marked parameter workflow. in fact i found it cumbersome to always mark before keying. the keyable parameters are very nice for my working style. combined with the character key sets they bring you nicely through blocking and animation without much need to switch anything. sometimes i switch in the polish phase from key all keyable to key marked keyable, to reduce the amount of keys set.

as i am searching ways to create a synoptic with the autorigger i see a chance now with Guillaumes tip. i would step away from character pictures anyway. its just a collection of buttons which executes more or less long scripts. that are more or less the same all the time.
how, for instance, would you implement a IK/FK snap and vice versa in a cp or a direct on character control? with the help of a scripted op? so far i do these things in the synoptic. and its rather easy there because i can execute scripts on the click of a button.

[janimatic]

how, for instance, would you implement a IK/FK snap and vice versa in a cp or a direct on character control? with the help of a scripted op? so far i do these things in the synoptic. and its rather easy there because i can execute scripts on the click of a button.
Definately using a custom property plugin in a shared workgroup.
Scripted ops is not suitable for this, and synoptics can do it but it's not has clean as a registred command / callbacks etc... Though once registred, the registred commands can be called from synoptics as well.

[franky]

to understand it right. i create a new plugin which registers the "snapIK_FK" command in xsi, which i then can all from a expression that is linked to a slider in cp?

[Ahmidou]

As far I know you can't call a command in an expression, but you can add a button in a custom PPG plugin that is calling you command or include your command in the plugin itself.

[franky]

Ahmidou, yes that is what i know too. but for that to work the animator always have to have a window open. be it a synoptic or a cpp.

so you end up having 3 things to take care of. the character controls, the custom parameters that might be attached to the controls and the cpp/synoptic.

i wonder now if there is a way to get rid of the cpp/synoptic and put the functionality into the controls. much like.. if the scaleX of the hand control <=0.5 then execute script FK-IK snap.

what works i think (never tried it so far) is creating a self installing plugin and registering that one to the hotkey. right?

[Ahmidou]

a hotkey mapped command would definitly works. A OnSelectionChange event could also be a solution.

[janimatic]

i find selection callbacks slow.
having , in addition to the 3d "on the mesh" controls, a 2d interface with all the buttons, puting together, ppgs, synoptics, curve editing etc.... and all the necessary event driven things, is not to disturbing for me... and put things together in a clean centralised place.

[4602]

hello
this is my first post here, nice to see all familiar xsibase "faces"!
anyway... my take in this interesting topic on interfacing.
for me the approach really depends on the project, and how animators will need to handle characters and interaction.
facial panels are really simple to set up and with object view might come handy. but as said before they are in fact slow, and will enlarge the rig quite a bit.
as far as my experience goes animators will often prefer shapes to be driven by sliders and not panels, having to animate 1 curve for each, instead of 2 or combinations as will happen with panels. panels how ever will come in handy for interfacing secondary facial ctrls, and have the advantage of having only xy to be animated. how ever for more precise means dorritos will do the trick better than any other system, as far as i am concerned.
i tend to organize my rigs on 2 or 3 separated interfaces.
mainly a synoptic with a 1st page with icons for toggling display on facial panel or facial ctrls, secondary ctrls display, parameters sets inspection or displayInfo parms toggling, as well as general switches. then links to secondary pages for keying and selection.
parameters will control stretching, overlapping, ik/fk, and sometimes shapes.
i pretty much try to organize thins in a tree like structure that would be the same animators will use when going from blocking to refining.
4602