Cineversity

Hi

I am having two problems:

1.I am unable to attach the Face rig to the Mixamo Rig body….I have been unable to align the Head joint with the “Face_Upper_Algn” null, to be able to attach my face rig, to the head joint of the body, with a “PSR constraint”. This was instructed in the tutorial at 00.53 seconds into the video. Also if I initiate the “PSR constraint” the head complete turns into and undesired position.

2.My Eye target controller (Master_eye_Con) will not follow the position of the Rig.

Please see the file I have uploaded, I hope you will be able to figure out what is causing these issues.

Thank you in advance!

Hi davidharris3d,

The Joint that will move the head mesh in the Character Object - Body Rig will undoubtedly have a Constrain tag. This tag has a priority; the Face Rig’s Face Align object needs a PSR that is at least equal or plus one higher. The body rig is above the Face rig in the Object Manager.
If the Body rig is keyframe-based, the default PSR settings should work.
Character rigs can be complex and include several specialized sub-rigs, which will be blend at one point. Which excludes these sub-rigs to be used as the base for the Face-Rig.

This problem was discussed here before; perhaps have a look:
https://www.cineversity.com/forums/viewthread/4515/

Please make certain to check that the Constraint is set to Expression +60 to +65 and the Face Rig is below the Body Rig.

I have sent you an upload link, as I can’t see any file attached to your post.

Some parts might be easily missed from the tutorial, that the rig needs to be position, first, to the body rig (00:38, min: sec).

I will look at your rig; I will automatically get an email from DropBox, no need to do anything other than uploading.

All the best

Thank you for that thread it was very helpful, I was able to fix my character rig rotation issue and I was able to attach the head to the body from what I learned about the PSR offset, good job on that thread!

After everything is working I ran into another problem lol, when I animate the controllers, there is a delay at the connection (If I move the head It takes a second to catch up, and then the head spins uncontrollably.

I have one overcasting question, does the face rig connect better to one of the character rigs, better in comparison to the other character rigs (Biped, Biped advance, mixamo..etc)?

I have sent you the new fixed file with the new delay/rotation issues, to the drobox link you sent me.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to look. These rigs are really fun and powerful to animate, I’m excited and determined to fix and complete the setup. When I have time this evening I will look closer into the new issues.

Hi davidharris3d,

Your rig is already set up pretty advanced, so I’m not sure how to give you a lot of information. I will try anyway, even I might double what you already know.

Delays are primarily based on priorities, either in settings or in the object manager hierarchies.

The first thing that obviously tries to destroy the setup is the PSR at the mixamorig:Head. When this is on, a slight rotation leads to a loop of rotation-increments while the play head is running.

The Neck_Con+. is a parent to Head_Con+. This Head_Con+ is then used via PSR/Expression +25 by the Head_Bind. Then used by the Mixamo with a PSR and expression zero. (Note that the Mixamo is already influencing the rig, which feels like trouble; hence I switched it off, and things stayed stable. Note that the Constraint between the Body and Face Rig needs to be between the Expression values of the Constrains of each rig, here, so far I can see it tis Expression +60 to +65, and place them top to bottom: Body Rig first, then face Rig.

The FaceAlign is also expression zero and uses the Head_Bind. (Hence my suspicion with the feedback-loop behavior.

Some points (Forehead)have a lot of influence below 0.0%, while some don’t reach 100%.  This is the side that doesn’t follow to 100%. Since the Character’s left side is OK, I think you know how to do that.

When you go to the Content Browser, you will find the Artista character. I hope that allows for the needed information.

In this rig, he uses only one Skin object. Somehow, I like to have the Skin below each polygon object, as the Delta Mush should sit below the Skin, and most objects don’t need that deformer (So far, I can tell).

The Cloth parts of the rig might have no need for the weight tag if you like to keep things light. You used the Surface Deformer here.

I think you are making good progress.

All the best

edited

Hello,

I am having a very similar issue, where the facerig is only catching up late - do you have a suggestion what priority I should set my PSR contstraint to? Currently it’s set to Expression +1

Thanks and best regards

Hi f.ribbeck,

Try Expression 0 for the Mixamo rig, or +60 to +65 for the character Rig, and as mentioned the Body Rig above the Face Rig. below that the Skin and polygon parts.

These two rigs are elaborate and consist out of a vast number of parts. Each part is different in priority, the way the priority is set (fixed or adjustable), and different in the Object Manager’s information-flow. Hence there is no way to just shift all the priorities from one Character Rig and have the data for the next one. This is the problem you encounter. Sometimes I get files where things are not sorted out very well in the Object manager. Top to bottom would be the simple way to keep it in mind, while the priority setting will put a layer of complexity on top of that.
Worse case, you can increase with each miss-management of that information flow the delay by one frame.

The simple answer is, there is no magic button or simple adjustment of it. At least not to my knowledge. I would expect that someone sharing this excellent tutorial would have shared it while having a massive background in Character Rigging.

The earlier the information is placed from the Character Rig to the Face-Rig, the less likely that delay shows up––BUT––that will with no doubt work only if one limits the functionality and expectation of such rig. In short, there is a reason why the BIND_Joint is used and not one of the many others in the rig.

If nothing works, my tip is to bake a Null Object with the connection point’s PSR animation. This means the information available at the end of the Character Rig “calculation” is now available from the earliest start of that same frame. (If a piece of information is not available, the previous frame information is used, hence the delay).

This could be done with an XPresso switch set up, so you can go back and forth.

All the best

P.S.: Here is my suggestion for the Mixamo Rig to Character Face. The Mixamo rig was the question here, but the rig that I got from post #2 was incomplete. I used a new Mixamo rig.

Screen-capture:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/tXcziMGSxPDXS5XEmFiOBC8XvXyzllPuh9gNgqNXXr0

Character Rig:
In any case, there are many rigs available, and so far, I have tried to explain the problems with priority when a delay happens. The Binding Joint, if from the Character Rig, has a PSR tag attached. This PSR tag is typically adjusted or left at 0, whatever fits. Again, check there before searching or applying anywhere else additional PSR constraints.
It is always all about the information flow. Priorities are being kept with the Face Rig to work with the Bi-Ped Character Rigs available.

I repeat this here, after having checked all available rigs in the Character object, item by item, took a whole day:
The Joint that will move the head mesh in the Character Object - Body Rig will undoubtedly have a Constrain tag. This tag has a priority; the Face Rig’s Face Align object needs a PSR that is at least equal or plus one higher. The body rig is above the Face rig in the Object Manager.
If the Body rig is keyframe-based, the default PSR settings should work.
Character rigs can be complex and include several specialized sub-rigs, which will be blend at one point. Which excludes these sub-rigs to be used as the base for the Face-Rig.

The Shift Priority Tag should be seen as a last resort, as it is very mighty. Note to exclude the PSR (Head Alignment!). If you shift everything with a single tag for a complex rig while using other information outside the rig, your priority will perhaps fail. I tried to avoid suggesting this so far, but I see more and more people running into problems with really complex setups.

All the best

edited

Dr. Sassi,

Adjusting the priorities/expression tags did the trick!

Also thanks for taking a further look into the file, and giving the general tips on how I could clean up my file to lighten up the scene!

I couldn’t get rid of my weird head rotation issue, but I did some tests and started from scratch and figured out that the rotation issues seemed to be correlated to the initial character object building phase. The first time I built it incorrectly and the Head scale was huge in comparison to the body, and instead setting up the character by setting the scale and stacking the components in a strategic manner, I had just scaled it down in the adjustment phase lol. Hope this may help others avoid that issue and save some time.

Anyways, thank you for your help!

David

Thanks a lot for your reply, David.

When I set up everything from scratch, it works fine here. Yes, if I have, in some cases, the rotation is there. My best explanation after all these tests, the 180º jeopardizes the alignment. I have to go through this a few more times before pin-pointing the cases when it happens to ask to file a report.

It should be easy from the start. That was the point of the Character Object, AFAIK.

Thanks as well for the additional information.

My best wishes