Motion Mixer and Expressions Phenomenon

[bradenbickle]

Has anyone out there figured out why Expressions and channel drivers like Set Driven Key don't work with Motion Mixer?

This seems to be a very common problem or question with anyone trying to use Motion Mixer, but so far, not a soul has come up with any answers.

I have sent a message to Larry Shultz, Dan Ablan, and Meni to see if any of these guys have the answer.

Guys, if you are out there, please respond.

If anyone else knows, feel free to chime in.

FYI, to my knowledge, scanning for X Channels does not work in this context. It works for other things.

[bradenbickle]

I've noticed that several people have viewed this thread, all of which are probably looking for the same answers, but don't have any so they move on.

Newtek, please investigate this.

[DigitalDeuce]

You ask -- and we will investigate.

Please - just to make sure -- you're trying to use Motion Mixer to grab an actor, and it has expressions and channel modifiers on them -- and it's not grabbing them?

[jonny]

Hmm, interesting. Expressions don't seem to read Motion Mixer.

On the other hand many motion and deformation modifiers do...

Follower, Joint Morph, constraints all work with Motion Mixer, so it's strange that expressions don't, since all these are derivitives of expressions.

Definitely something to look into Deuce.

[daveythegravy]

Hi,

Glad to see someone has the same problem as myself.

I started an animation walk cycle for my eventual show reel.

The rigging and IK set was grand. My four leged Character walked fine for about 100yrds, then slippage occured. I was using the Graph Edditor to offset repeat. I tried to remedy the problem for a couple of weeks. Posted two threads on here asking for help, but no help came.

So, anyway, I delved into Motion Mixer, which seemed to be the answer to my brayers. I could sort out the slippage broblem by giving each leg a seperate motion and tweeking the timming if slippage occured. This is all theory of course because my pelvice center expression does not work with Motion Mixer no matter which angle I come at it. I also tried the XChanel route, but that agme me exactly zip.

This problem needs to be addresses by Newtek, because expressions are now used more frequently in walk cycles. I am surprised taht the forum isn't full of stoeries about this problem. Are we the only people that are in the dark?

I Emailed Customer Suport, but the were about as helpful as a smack in the face with a wet kipper.

Just wanted to share

daveythegravy (currently dazed & confused?:confused: :mad: :( :eek: :mad:

[trick]

Maybe a stupid suggestion: do you have "After IK" checked in the Expression Modifier in the Motion Options Panel of the involved bones ???

[daveythegravy]

Thanks, but I tried that and problem still there.



daveythegravy.:(

[trick]

Maybe a second stupid suggestion: Have you altered the bones rest positions/rotations AFTER you imported them into Motion Mixer ??

[bradenbickle]

I'm glad to see the discussion is still continuing although Newtek hasn't yet done anything to fix the problem.

The only solution, and a painful one, is to bake the curves of the channels that use the expressions before creating a motion in Motion Mixer.

Once it accepts the motion and deletes all of the motion on the channels the expressions will still be useable and in tact for future animations.

Motion Mixer just will not take the expressions.

Tedious to go through all those channels for baking, but will eventually work.

One thing I haven't tried is to cheat on the joint morph plugin. Since this apparently works, maybe there is a way to tie in something besides a joint morph to the Joint Morph plugin. I don't know. There has to be a way.

This is one of the only things holding Motion Mixer Back.

[SplineGod]

It sounds similar to the issue of expressions failing to work when IK is applied to bones after expressions have been applied to them. I would suggest the following:
1. Bake you motions and then remove Motion Mixer
2. Try using the expressions available in the motion panel. These do see IK and may also see Motion Mixer.

One comment on using expressions with walkcycles;
Ive done a lot of character animation for TV shows and other projects. Ive rarely ever animated just a walk cycle. If you see one its for a couple of seconds or mostly above the waist shots.
Ive also never used expressions to automate things like pelvis centering and so on. I dont know of any animators who animate that way simply because it takes control away from them.
The only times Ive seen anything like that done is if you have an extreme deadline or you need to animate a large group of things in the background. Most of the time that stuff sounds cool in theory but the reality is that no professional animator does that. Most get very very angry with the rigger if they do stuff like that. :)

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by bradenbickle
I'm glad to see the discussion is still continuing although Newtek hasn't yet done anything to fix the problem.

The only solution, and a painful one, is to bake the curves of the channels that use the expressions before creating a motion in Motion Mixer.

Once it accepts the motion and deletes all of the motion on the channels the expressions will still be useable and in tact for future animations.

Motion Mixer just will not take the expressions.

Tedious to go through all those channels for baking, but will eventually work.

One thing I haven't tried is to cheat on the joint morph plugin. Since this apparently works, maybe there is a way to tie in something besides a joint morph to the Joint Morph plugin. I don't know. There has to be a way.

This is one of the only things holding Motion Mixer Back.
Id be interested in knowing what youre doing with Motion Mixer. I find it hard to come up with reasons to use it and to be honest I think I would go with Motion builder as an alternative. There are a lot of instances where expressions wont work with certain things or force you to do certain things before they work.
You also have expressions in the graph editor, motion panel and in the objects/deformations panel. I have no idea what to do with them there.
Lightwave also needs a way to add things like follower to lots of items at once with an easy way to offset timing or path delay. It can become very tedious setting up some things.

[jonny]

There's lotsa uses for Motion Mixer other than walk cycles :)

Basically it can be used as a replacement to Cyclist, only much easier to setup, and with more control. In a bird I created recently I used MM for the flying motions and wings folding and unfolding. Because each of these involved complex bone translation and morphs working together, they would have been incredibly more difficult to use in animation if not for MM.

And no, expressions in any form, any place, before or after IK don't work with Motion Mixer and vice versa. Baking is a short term solution, but it's merely a work-around for a bug that shouldn't exist.

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by jonny
There's lotsa uses for Motion Mixer other than walk cycles :)

Basically it can be used as a replacement to Cyclist, only much easier to setup, and with more control. In a bird I created recently I used MM for the flying motions and wings folding and unfolding. Because each of these involved complex bone translation and morphs working together, they would have been incredibly more difficult to use in animation if not for MM.

And no, expressions in any form, any place, before or after IK don't work with Motion Mixer and vice versa. Baking is a short term solution, but it's merely a work-around for a bug that shouldn't exist.
That really limits its usefulness IMO. It would have to be something like you described that would get me to use it.
Motion builder is looking better and better all the time. :)

[daveythegravy]

I already tried using my pelvice expression in the motion panel.

The expression still does not work.

I have reported this problem to Newtek Support.

The assured me that they would look into it, but I'm still waitting.


daveythegravy:mad:

[bradenbickle]

Originally posted by SplineGod
That really limits its usefulness IMO. It would have to be something like you described that would get me to use it.
Motion builder is looking better and better all the time. :)


Motion Builder?

Now I'm an idiot for sure. If you could shed some light on this, it could be the fix I need.

I really just use expressions to help create sliders for fingers and hands vs. anything else.

As far as motion mixer goes. I just wanted to build a library of generic movements for a character that would be used a lot. Once you have that set up you can do secondary animation on top of it to keep it from looking mechanical.

I'm with you on the automation, but if there are movements you are going to use a lot, why keep rebuilding them and spending time on them when you can concentrate on the performace?

[Mike_RB]

motion mixers timewarp curves kick ***.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13592&highlight=motion+mixer

i talked about a couple of the different uses there.

Mike

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by bradenbickle
Motion Builder?

Now I'm an idiot for sure. If you could shed some light on this, it could be the fix I need.

I really just use expressions to help create sliders for fingers and hands vs. anything else.

As far as motion mixer goes. I just wanted to build a library of generic movements for a character that would be used a lot. Once you have that set up you can do secondary animation on top of it to keep it from looking mechanical.

I'm with you on the automation, but if there are movements you are going to use a lot, why keep rebuilding them and spending time on them when you can concentrate on the performace?
Motion Mixer has many of the same problems other things have. They feel slapped on rather then integrated seamlessly.
The more I rig for myself at least the less I use sliders to control fingers and such. The reason is that its far quicker, easier and more flexible to just use selection sets. I can actually load up multiple characters and create selection sets for them faster then setting up the hands with sliders on one character. The other downside is that once you apply expressions to something you no longer have the ability to easily key it. So if you need to position the hands and then tweak a bone or two you cant.
Parent child bones in LW when selected at the same time will rotate additively but will still allow you to select individual bones and tweak more. You can also continually add selection sets as needed. Also theres a free plugin out there that stores bone poses that I wanted to start checking out.
Check out this thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69762

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by Mike_RB
motion mixers timewarp curves kick ***.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13592&highlight=motion+mixer

i talked about a couple of the different uses there.

Mike
I agree thats good stuff esp pose mixing. My biggest issues with Motion Mixer( as well at MD, Spreadsheet and others) is that it feels like walking thru a cow pasture barefoot...its nice until you unexpectedly step in some crap. :)

[bradenbickle]

Larry,

Checked out the displacement plugin you were talking about on CG talk.

Mac users get screwed everytime. I'll have to wait it looks like.

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by bradenbickle
Larry,

Checked out the displacement plugin you were talking about on CG talk.

Mac users get screwed everytime. I'll have to wait it looks like.
Ouch! I know how you feel. I went thru Amigas, Dec Alphas and now Im firmly entrenched in PC land. I got tired of either being left with orphaned computers or no software/hardware choices.
At least you can still do some of this with MDScan.

[daveythegravy]

Couldn't agree more