tiistai 30. lokakuuta 2012

Rigging Toolbox (alpha)

So, I haven't been so active on developing this toolbox because life in general has been on the way and whenever I have time on my own, I'm often too exhausted to focus on it or find C++ more to my liking... So I'm releasing the toolbox with it's mostly working tools now and wait for community feedback before I continue further.

But enough of the intro. Here's the toolbox and more detailed info for each tool down below.
Download Rigging Toolbox

Installation instructions:

Download the .zip file and extract it on blender addons directory. ...Blender/2.64/scripts/addons








 



Activate it on blender. File->User preferences->Addons->Rigging













All comments, suggestion, critique, roses and candy are accepted. Tell me what do you think and what should I add to it or do different, also ideas for new tools. :)

Tools:

1. Apply bone shape: (no known bugs)

This tool is designed to help with bone shapes, it makes the process a lot easier than manually placing the shapes. You can shape the object however you want in edit or object mode without any limitations, when you apply the shape, it's going to be exactly where you placed it, original shape is stored by default in layer 20 and it's aligned with the bone so that when you edit it in edit mode, changes are applied exactly to the visual shape.


- Select object you wish to use as a shape -> shift select bone -> hit apply bone shape tool button in tool panel.

2. Bone relations: (has some weird bugs from time to time but generally works)

 

Tool is used to show bone relations, at this point, only parent, child and bone constraint relations are considered, driver and object relations are on the works.

- When bone selected, open the tool properties, click on the bone that relies on current one to select it.









3. Rig debug: (in development, do not trust 100%)

 

This tool finds a number of possible problems in your rig, starting from useless bones that nothing seems to connect to, this generally works and considers a lot of possibilities, driver dependencies included. But don't trust it 100%. Bad naming detection works, detects keywords "Bone" and blender's numerical ending. Other detections are not as reliable.

- Select a rig -> in pose mode, hit rig debug -> Open tool properties to view problem bones, click on it to show it.










4.  Vertex group remove: (no known bugs)

 

This tool is handy if you wish to remove vertex groups from objects that were automatically generated. If for example you have two set of separate wings, automatic weights give both objects .L and .R ending weight groups, you can use this tool to remove the .L ending weight groups or .R and more. Text inclusion or exclusion.

- Select an object -> hit tool button in tool shelf in blender -> select an option to your liking. Text field can be found in tool properties.



That's it for now. Have fun and let me know your thoughts on this. :D

tiistai 14. elokuuta 2012

Starting up a blog. This would be my centralized coding blog for blender python scripts and addons but I'll drop in some of my artworks too sometimes. :)