Body Rig.

Body Metachain.

Body Metachain is a custom node that describes future body chain. Here is a simplified diagram of how a body rig works after it is built.

Parent chain drives IK/FK component of child chain. IK/FK drives secondary controls, then secondary controls drive npaCurveSolver custom nodes or joints directly. Then, if chain has curveSolve node, curveSolve node drives grandchild chain. If it doesnt have curveSolve, secondary control drives grandchild chain.

In npaBodyMetachain node we specify parents, children, how many joints it has, fk, ik, etc. So rig builder will later know how to process it.

Attributes:

mtBuildStage

Shows on what build stage the chain is at the moment. -1 - Nothing done yet, 0 - Proxyes are placed, 1- Basic Rig, 2 - Rig features are added, 3 - Dynamics added.

mtSpline

Shows the rig builder if this chain should have spline features or not. More about mtSpline.

Note

At the moment, if you need twist functionality on chain, ou should check that.

mtIK / mtFK

Shows the rig builder if this chain should have IK / FK features or not. You can uncheck both, if you want. About mtIK / mtFK.

mtRestParameters

If this chain has spline components, this attribute will store spline parameters of its joints.

mtAutoClavl

Will add autoclavicle solver. More about mtAutoClavl.

mtSoftIK

Soft IK, antipop. More about mtSoftIK.

mtFoot

Will add foot setup(reverse ik, footroll) to the leg. More about mtFoot.

mtKneeLock

Will add knee lock. Knee/elbow/middle ik joint will stich to pole vector controller. More about mtKneeLock.

mtReverseFK_

Adds reverse ik to the chain. Has to have FK checked. More about mtReverseFK.

mtNumOfJoints

Number of joints chain has. If chain doesnt have spline this number should be equal to number of proxy parameters(mtProxyParameters)

mtParentChain

Specifies parent chain. Connects to mtChildrenChains of parent chain.

mtHelper

Connect triggered blendshape/helper here. More about mtHelper.

mtMain(Position/Rotation/Scale)

Transform of chain proxyes root. In world space.

mtPoses

Poses of this chain that can be triggered(for grab pose of palm etc) More about mtPoses

mtProxyParameters

Parameters of proxy transforms. These show where secondary controls of chain will be.

mtChildrenChains

specify children chains. It connects here, because then rig will calculate where exactly to connect it. If chain has spline it will create a locator on spline and place it near this controller.

mtActive

shows the rig builder if we use this proxy or not.

mt(Position/rotation/Scale)

transform of this proxy. In object space of mtMain(*)

mtBendHere

If chain has FK/IK, chain will bend here, on this secondary controller.

Editing meta network.

Every metanode should be connected to others via “mtParentChain” “mtChildrenChains” attributes all the way to the root “nopiaRig_mtnt”.

Before you build anything, you can validate your metanetwork by pressing “Validate Scene for body rig” and “Graph Validation”. Script will check how your nodes are connected and tell you if something is wrong. Usually.

Building a bodyRig.

When your network is ready, you can start building it. First, on stage 1-2.

These settings are mostly for debugging. Unchecking these checkboxes allows user to isolate some build steps and see where build starts to go wrong. Or user can entirely disable some rig functionality if its not needed.

First textfield

Specifies which chains to rig. You can write them manually or by pressing “Pick BODY nts”

Second textfield

Maximum depth of rigging.

FreezeCtrl

Freezes transforms on proxy controls and creates offsets. More about FreezeCtrl.

MotnControls

Replaces proxy controls with new motion controls, that will control curve solver or joints directly. More about MotnControls.

ScaleRamp

Enables scaling on curve solver. More about ScaleRamp

InSlvSett

Instanciates chain settings under all crve solve controllers. More about InSlvSett.

AddFKComp

Adds FK component.

AddIKComp

Adds IK component.

InstSwitch

Instanciates chain settings under IK/FK controls. More about InstSwitch.

ConnctOld

Connects old proxyes with new for live updating proxy position in meta network

SymmCntrl

For symmetrical behaviour. Useful when placing proxies. Moved to stage 4

Spread Joints Evenly

For joints attached to curve solve. Select a joint or a meta network and press to spread all joints evenly along curve.

If you are making entirely new rig, then its better to build chains level by level and place them accordingly. You can build chains first without adding FK component(stage 2), placing proxyes, and then building stage 2. Then you can proceed to the next chain. In order to add a child chain to current one you current chain has to be on stage 2.

Save your file, save a new version of it and try to rebuild it entirely how it is shown in next video.

If your rig was built without errors, then you can proceed to stage 3.

Note

Features like Footroll and SkinProxy require extra steps to work.

Stage 3 menus.

SinEnable

Enables all sine waves on curve solve enabled chains.

VolMaintain

Volume preservation.

PrmtrSwch

Parametrization switch.

SymmCntrl

Symmetrical behaviour.

AutoClavl

Automatic clavicle solver.

SoftIKhdl

Soft Ik handle.

KneeLock

Knee lock. Locks Knee/elbow position in ik pole controller.

SkinProxy

Will skin your proxy meshes automatically.

BendyPtch

Bendy patch fixes the issue when first spline controller twists with fk/ik chain. This doesnt look very good on onganic characters.

TwistPatch

Curve solve handles twist itself, but only on joints and only between its controls, so this patch enables twist between “Non-Bend” spline controllers.

FoootRolla

Adds footroll, where its possible.

TipOrient

Mostly made for feet, so feet can aim to ik controls.

OffsetEff

Adds an offset controller on top of IK effector controller.

ReverseFK

Reverse FK behaviour. Good on spines.

SetCntrls

Sets positions of stored controls CV’s.

VisualizeFootrolls

Creates a set of temporary joints, which you can use for placing footroll pivots before building a footroll.

Adding a chain. (A)

1. Duplicate other chain’s network. Add it to “metaData_ss” selection set

2. Rename it.

3. Connect plug “MtChildrenChains” of the parent chain to a new chain.

4. Edit network parameters in the attribute editor.

5. Build the rig.

6. Put your new chain in place as you did with proxies.

7. Wipe your scene and rebuild the rig.

Adding a chain. (B)

1. Duplicate other chain’s network. Add it to “metaData_ss” selection set

2. Rename it.

3. Connect plug “MtChildrenChains” of the parent chain to a new chain.

4. Edit network parameters in the attribute editor.

5. Build the rig(Stage 0).

6. Put your new chain in place as you did with proxies.

7. Build the rig(Stage 1).

8. If something is off, undo stage 1 and place proxies again.

Adding extra controls.

1. If you are adding a controller to the chain without a spline, change the number of joints accordingly.

2. Add a new item to MtProxyParameters. Check it as active, set the scale to (1, 1, 1)

3. Wipe the scene if a rig was already created for this chain.

4. Put the chain in place.

Skinning.

After you’ve built all body rig stages, you should have your proxy mesh attached to skeleton. Refer to this part of documentation for more details on skinning proxy meshes.

All Features build order and dependencies.

Stage 1

Spline / Joint chain Set Proxy Positions

Stage 2

Freeze Controls Create Motion Controls. Create Scale Ramps. Instanciate Chain Settings. Add FK Component. Add IK Component. no FK or IK - Directly connect chain to parent. Instanciate switch. Connect Old Locators.

** Stage 3**

if Spline

Length Update. Sine enable. Volume preservation. Parametrization switch ( If SymmCtrl is off )

Auto Clavicle if IK

Soft ik ( With or without knee lock and stretchy ) Bendy Patch. Twist Patch.

If Parent IK

Foot roll

if FK

Reversible FK

** Stage 4**

Dynamics.

In Detail.

Freezing proxyes.

Initially proxy transforms drive spline and you need to place them first. After moving em transforms are not freezed. This part of build freezed transform of those offsets and adds offsets to them. Also creates duplicates duplicates of those transforms to connect them back to metanode.

Motion controls.

These are controls that drive spline solver or joints directly.

Scale Ramps.

By default, scaling Motion controls wont affect anything. This part of build enables scaling.

Instantiation of chain settings.

Chain settings are attributes on shape node. This shape node then is instantiated under every controller of that chain.

FK Component.

FK attributes:

RFollow(Something)

Changes rotation space of this controller to selected one.

TFollow(Something)

Changes Position space of this controller to selected one.

RotateOrdr

Rotation order of selected controller.

IK Component.

IK attributes:

Follow(Something)

Changes parent space of this controller to selected one.

AutoClavicle

Enables autoClavicle feature.

Stretch

Enables stretchy feature.

Max Stretch

Determines how much ik chain can stretch.

Soft IK

Enables softIK feature.

Spline Component.

Spline component is driven by npaCurveSolve custom node.

Node Attributes:

In Parameters

Active

Toggles corresponding CV on and off.

Active Twist

Toggles twist interpolation on corresponding CV on and off. ( Doesnt work yet. Placeholder. )

In Matrix

Matrix of controller that will drive spline.

Back Active

Toggles back tangent CV

BackTgWgt

Weight of back tangent. Weight on 0.0 means that tangent will be oriented to InMatrix, 1.0 - to previous controller.

BackTgLength

Length of back tangent. Distance between main and tangent CVs.

Front Active

Toggles front tangent CV

FrontTgWgt

Weight of front tangent. Weight on 0.0 means that tangent will be oriented to InMatrix, 1.0 - to the next controller.

FrontTgLength

Length of front tangent. Distance between main and tangent CVs.

Scale Curve Ramp

This ramp describes how volume preservation will scale chain’s joints.

Parameter curve ramp

This ramp describes how the parameter is distributed along the curve.

Sine Curve Ramp

This ramp describes how position sine wave affects the chain.

Sine Mag

Position sine wave’s magnitude(strength)

Sine Off

Position sine wave’s offset(time)

Sine Freq

Position sine wave’s frequency

RSine Curve Ramp

This ramp describes how twist sine wave affects the chain.

RSine Mag

Position sine wave’s magnitude(strength)

RSine Off

Position sine wave’s offset(time)

RSine Freq

Position sine wave’s frequency

Rest Length

This length node will consider as normal, when it is calculating volume preservation.

Shrink

On 0 chain wont shrink if spline length is less than Rest Length. The difference in length will be a straight line coming out of the last controller.

Stretch

On 0 chain joints wont stretch along a curve and stay in place as if spline has normal length.

Uniform curve

Curve parametrization switch. 1 - 0.0-1.0 along the curve. 0 - 0.0-1.0 Between Each CV.

This node is driven by controllers.

Controller’s attributes used to drive npaCurveSolve node:

TGL

Toggles this CV on and off. Connected to Active

TGL Twist

Toggles twist on this controller on and off. Connected to ActiveTwist

Back TG Len

Length of back tangent. Connected to BackTgLength

Back TG Aim

Aim Of back tangent. Connected to BackTGWeight

Back TG Tgl

Toggles back tangent. Connected to BackActive

Rest Len CRV

Rest length of main chain spline. Connected to RestLength.

Uniform Crv

Switches between unoform and normal parametrization of spline. Connected to UniformCurve

Start P CRV

Connected to (0,0) of ParameterRamp

Mid P CRV

Connected to (0.5,0.5) of ParameterRamp

End P CRV

Connected to (1,1) of ParameterRamp

Stretch CRV

Connected to Stretch

Shrink CRV

Connected to Shrink

FK

Toggles FK Component of this chain on and off. Transforms to IK_FK parameter after finalization if chain has IK comonent.

Mag Pos Sin

Position sine wave magnitude. Connected to SineMag

Off Pos Sin

Offset sine wave magnitude. Connected to SineOff

Frq Pos Sin

Frequency sine wave magnitude. Connected to SineFrq

Mag Rot Sin

Position sine wave magnitude. Connected to RSineMag

Off Rot Sin

Offset sine wave magnitude. Connected to RSineOff

Frq Rot Sin

Frequency sine wave magnitude. Connected to RSineFrq

Direct joint component.

This component drives joints directly with a constraint.

Connect old proxyes.

Todo.

Body chain poses.

Not fully implemented yet.

Correctives.

Todo.

Stretchy IK.

Symmetrical behaviour.

To make the process of placing proxies easier, rig builder will connect transforms of left controllers to right side controllers.

If your chains have symmetrical names (e.g. l_leg_mtnt, r_leg_mtnt) rig will automatically place right chain symmetrically to left on building stage 2. So no need to place right side proxyes manually.

Sine wave.

Volume preservaion.

Parametrization switch.

Automatic clavicle solver.

Proxy Skin.

If this option is checked rig will automatically find proxy meshes and skin em to skeleton. Also it tries to find exported skins and import them back.

To set this up you need:

1. Setup proxies and main meshes rig should copy skin to.

Names of proxy meshes should look like this: “pm_{proxy_index}_{name}”

Names of proxy meshes should look like this: “m_{proxy_index}_{index}_{name}”

Proxy meshes will affect meshes with same {proxy_index}. {name}’s dont have to match

You can rename meshes manually, or use automatic script by pressing “Set As proxy skin”. First select proxy mesh, then select meshes it will affect and press that button. Script will create a group “proxy_geom” and put your proxy skin renamed there.

To skin proxyMeshes to skeleton check “SkinProxy” under stage2 of bodyRig tab. If builder can find exported skins under {Project}/Skins/”[%s]l%s_s%s_skinWeights.xml” % (mesh, skin_level, skin_stage) / [pm_0_body]lp_s0_skinWeights (*example name) To export proxy skins press “Export Proxy Skin” button under bodyRig tab.

Note

This will export skins of all meshes under “proxy_geom” group

How to smooth proxy skin. System has automated script that will apply deltamush to your proxy skin and then bake it back to original skin. Here is how to use it:

Bendy Patch.

Bendy patch fixes the fact that first bendy(spline) Control of chain moves with the first FK/IK controller. ON shoulder, for example, this should not happen.

Twist Patch.

Temporary solution. Currently, twist interpolates only between neighbour controllers and TwstToggle attribute dosnt do anything. If, for example, you have 1 controller between elbow and shoulder twist wont spread all the way to elbow(or other way around). This patch fixes that.

Soft Ik.

Foot Roll.

In order to work, footroll needs footroll network. You create it by executing: bBuilder.create_footroll_network()

Or you can create it yourself. Its a simple network node with custom attributes.

Affected By

Connect it to bodyChain as it is shown on picture above.

Back

Position of back locator. In object space of tip IK controller.

BackCnd

Back condition. Used to calibrate footroll behaviour.

BackCnv

Back convertion. Multiplyes rotation by this number. Used to calibrate footroll behaviour.

Center

Position of back locator. In object space of tip IK controller.

CenterCnd

Center condition. Used to calibrate footroll behaviour.

CenterCnv

Center convertion. Multiplyes rotation by this number. Used to calibrate footroll behaviour.

Etc

Other are similar.

Here are locator labels:

When your footroll network is connected you can check footroll in stage 3 build settings and create it.

Note

when you first create footroll pivot locators will be off the places they need to be. You’ll need to place them.

Knee lock.

Offset Controller.

Creates an extra controller under existing IK effector.

Reversible FK.

If this feature is enabled in build settings and in chain settings, FK chain will be able to reverse its hierarchy.

Controller shapes.

Gets shapes of all your controllers from $PROJECT/rig_controls_data.json Doesn’t do anything if this file does not exist.

Shapes have to be Saved first by pressing “Store Controls CV’s” Button. Shape is saved in object space of a controller.

Visualize Footrolls.

Tip Auto-Orientation.

Adds aim constraint to footroll joints setup. Aims them to the next chain.

Note

Works only with footroll now. It doen’t have to be enabled or set up. Just needs to exist.

next_chain.get_controllers(“fk”)[-1]