Daggers Control Rigs (Updated by Simite for WW June 2022)

[Simite]

7 hours ago, dannysdb5 said:

The UV and texture data does not load into Blender 3.3. This is one of the problems when importing an older S4S export mesh into Blender 2.8+. This does not happen when exporting a mesh from the S4S beta to Blender 3.3.

 

From what I can tell the rig still deforms and functions fine but I'd still like a bit more assurance before I start animating.

 From what I understand blender 3.0+ displays things differently, all the data is still there you just have to apply it to the mesh again, it was annoying for me when 3.0 first come out but now I have worked my way through applying materials to meshes and then just pick the image defuse that is still in the blend file just not being used. ^^ I hope this gives further clarification that its just a simple loading error. I still use blender 2.79 because S4S used to have compatibility issues and would not let you upload animations from 3.0 but from what Khals suggested they have updated that and maybe I will look into using 3.0 or higher in the future.

[dannysdb5]

5 hours ago, Simite said:

 From what I understand blender 3.0+ displays things differently, all the data is still there you just have to apply it to the mesh again, it was annoying for me when 3.0 first come out but now I have worked my way through applying materials to meshes and then just pick the image defuse that is still in the blend file just not being used. ^^ I hope this gives further clarification that its just a simple loading error. I still use blender 2.79 because S4S used to have compatibility issues and would not let you upload animations from 3.0 but from what Khals suggested they have updated that and maybe I will look into using 3.0 or higher in the future.

Because Blender 3.3 doesn't support Blender Render, to apply the textures to the Control Rig's Sim model in 3.3 you have to:

1. Select any part of the base mesh in the Outliner. For the female rig, they are inside the "rig female" collection (any one of: headf, teethf, topf, etc).
2. Go to the Properties Panel > Materials > Click "Use nodes".
3. Open a Shader Editor (I would recommend clicking '+' at the top > Shading. This will add a Shader Workspace)
4. Delete the Principled BSDF
5. Shift-A > Texture > Image Texture
6. Select the image from the drop down menu (for the female rig it's called 'FemaleBaseTexture.png.001') and connect the color to the Material Output

People who are used to creating CC in Blender 2.7 might not understand stuff like this, which is why I think it's a good idea to update the rig for S4S 3.2(Star) / 1.4(Aurora).

 

Here is a version of the female rig I tweaked with the textures applied for 3.3: https://mega.nz/file/1PtCGAZS#QFWgSHcimLJmfYpB8EL8cjnD1OlsJ8ZELRFMFYgxhAs

There are probably other tweaks and optimizations that could be made too. I will try to highlight them as I explore the rigs more.

Edited October 11, 2022 by dannysdb5

[Mimi-e]

1 hour ago, dannysdb5 said:

Because Blender 3.3 doesn't support Blender Render, to apply the textures to the Control Rig's Sim model in 3.3 you have to:

1. Select any part of the base mesh in the Outliner. For the female rig, they are inside the "rig female" collection (any one of: headf, teethf, topf, etc).
2. Go to the Properties Panel > Materials > Click "Use nodes".
3. Open a Shader Editor (I would recommend clicking '+' at the top > Shading. This will add a Shader Workspace)
4. Delete the Principled BSDF
5. Shift-A > Texture > Image Texture
6. Select the image from the drop down menu (for the female rig it's called 'FemaleBaseTexture.png.001') and connect the color to the Material Output

People who are used to creating CC in Blender 2.7 might not understand stuff like this, which is why I think it's a good idea to update the rig for S4S 3.2(Star) / 1.4(Aurora).

 

Here is a version of the female rig I tweaked with the textures applied for 3.3: https://mega.nz/file/1PtCGAZS#QFWgSHcimLJmfYpB8EL8cjnD1OlsJ8ZELRFMFYgxhAs

There are probably other tweaks and optimizations that could be made too. I will try to highlight them as I explore the rigs more.

That's a roundabout way to doing it. A Material is what covers the mesh, and the Texture can be loaded into any Material. No need to create a new Material, just change the one the shader node gives you by default.

 

I was working on 3.03, just downloaded 3.3 to see what's the "support problem", but I don't see any. Everything is there, you just need to tell Blender to use it.

1.Click on any Mesh part on the outliner. Go to the Material tab, the one with the red ball shape at the end of the Properties menu. Click on "Use Nodes".
1b.On Surface, change the default "Principled BSDF" to "Emission" (This step is actually unnecessary, the default material works just the same).
2.When the option "Color" appears below, click on the left yellow circle, choose "Image Texture".
3.Click on the left icon to show the 4 available textures, choose the one you want, probably 'FemaleBaseTexture.png.000'.

 

You could also load your fav texture from an external file on step 2 if you click on "Open" instead.

 

Note: There are three materials in the Female mesh parts: BaseTexture.001 seems to be used in head, feet and teeth, tongue uses DiffuseMap.006, and top and VaginaAnusBottom uses DiffuseMap.003 according to thet default settings. This means that you need to do the above steps three times. But you can just select one body part mesh, then change the material from the Material Tab you open on step 1. Look for the white ball icon under the render example ball.

None of the above is necessary for animation. It's just a cosmetic choice, and animations will export correctly without it, as it's only the bone values that we use for animation.

 

So back on topic: Thank you so much for the updated rig controller, @Simite !!! I dislike animating the bones, as I was taught to use control rigs with constraints to avoid unnatural movements. It's of course a personal preference, there's no wrong answer. This is really useful, because I have not tried to set a control rig on Blender yet. A very welcomed shorcut, thanks again!

[dannysdb5]

48 minutes ago, Mimi-e said:

That's a roundabout way to doing it. A Material is what covers the mesh, and the Texture can be loaded into any Material. No need to create a new Material, just change the one the shader node gives you by default.

 

I was working on 3.03, just downloaded 3.3 to see what's the "support problem", but I don't see any. Everything is there, you just need to tell Blender to use it.

1.Click on any Mesh part on the outliner. Go to the Material tab, the one with the red ball shape at the end of the Properties menu. Click on "Use Nodes".
1b.On Surface, change the default "Principled BSDF" to "Emission" (This step is actually unnecessary, the default material works just the same).
2.When the option "Color" appears below, click on the left yellow circle, choose "Image Texture".
3.Click on the left icon to show the 4 available textures, choose the one you want, probably 'FemaleBaseTexture.png.000'.

 

You could also load your fav texture from an external file on step 2 if you click on "Open" instead.

 

Note: There are three materials in the Female mesh parts: BaseTexture.001 seems to be used in head, feet and teeth, tongue uses DiffuseMap.006, and top and VaginaAnusBottom uses DiffuseMap.003 according to thet default settings. This means that you need to do the above steps three times. But you can just select one body part mesh, then change the material from the Material Tab you open on step 1. Look for the white ball icon under the render example ball.

None of the above is necessary for animation. It's just a cosmetic choice, and animations will export correctly without it, as it's only the bone values that we use for animation.

 

So back on topic: Thank you so much for the updated rig controller, @Simite !!! I dislike animating the bones, as I was taught to use control rigs with constraints to avoid unnatural movements. It's of course a personal preference, there's no wrong answer. This is really useful, because I have not tried to set a control rig on Blender yet. A very welcomed shorcut, thanks again!

You're right. I guess I'm just used to doing it via the shader editor; that's generally what gets used in other Blender workflows.

With both methods, I only need to apply it to one mesh component. There is no need to apply the other three materials, and I can't even find anything called DiffuseMap.006 or DiffuseMap.003 in the Control Rig .blend file.

and yeah, materials are unnecessary for WW animations, but if I'm animating, I would think most people wouldn't want to work with a creepy gray plastic looking mannequin, lol. I just brought it up because it's one of the things that doesn't seamlessly transition from Blender 2.7 to 3.3.

[Simite]

23 hours ago, dannysdb5 said:

You're right. I guess I'm just used to doing it via the shader editor; that's generally what gets used in other Blender workflows.

With both methods, I only need to apply it to one mesh component. There is no need to apply the other three materials, and I can't even find anything called DiffuseMap.006 or DiffuseMap.003 in the Control Rig .blend file.

and yeah, materials are unnecessary for WW animations, but if I'm animating, I would think most people wouldn't want to work with a creepy gray plastic looking mannequin, lol. I just brought it up because it's one of the things that doesn't seamlessly transition from Blender 2.7 to 3.3.

It's really a preference thing, some people don't bother with textures and just use a simple matcap anyway.

So long as the rig is still fully functional and the texture is there to be used if wanted then I don't see the need to create another version just for that.

[dannysdb5]

35 minutes ago, Simite said:

It's really a preference thing, some people don't bother with textures and just use a simple matcap anyway.

So long as the rig is still fully functional and the texture is there to be used if wanted then I don't see the need to create another version just for that.

That's fair enough.

 

One of the other things I've noticed is that if you save a .blend file in 2.7 with hidden objects in the outliner (like bones), then open the same .blend file in 3.3, it's impossible to un-hide those objects. They no longer have an eye or camera widget in the outliner; alt-H doesn't un-hide them either. With the Dagger Control rigs, all the deform bones (the s4s export rig) are hidden. The only way to unhide them is re-opening them in 2.7, unhide every bone, saving, then re-opening in 3.3, and you'd have to re-hide all the bones you don't want visible.

[Simite]

6 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

That's fair enough.

 

One of the other things I've noticed is that if you save a .blend file in 2.7 with hidden objects in the outliner (like bones), then open the same .blend file in 3.3, it's impossible to un-hide those objects. They no longer have an eye or camera widget in the outliner; alt-H doesn't un-hide them either. With the Dagger Control rigs, all the deform bones (the s4s export rig) are hidden. The only way to unhide them is re-opening them in 2.7, unhide every bone, saving, then re-opening in 3.3, and you'd have to re-hide all the bones you don't want visible.

Actually you just need to select the bone you want, then open the object panel and under the visibility tab tick the checkmark next to viewport.

 

Edit: Also tick the checkmark next too selectable if its a bone you want to manipulate.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Simite

[dannysdb5]

14 minutes ago, Simite said:

Actually you just need to select the bone you want, then open the object panel and under the visibility tab tick the checkmark next to viewport.

 

Edit: Also tick the checkmark next too selectable if its a bone you want to manipulate.

Oh you're right, sorry. I'm not used to using that menu for visibility parameters and forgot S4S exports use it.

Still don't understand why the eye widgets in the outliner disappear, I think that's a file compatibility issue. Obviously not a high-priority issue.

[Simite]

38 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

Oh you're right, sorry. I'm not used to using that menu for visibility parameters and forgot S4S exports use it.

Still don't understand why the eye widgets in the outliner disappear, I think that's a file compatibility issue. Obviously not a high-priority issue.

No need to be sorry, we can't all remember and know everything. I am testing those add-ons you suggested recently, wiggle bones won't install in 3.3 and that was the one I was hoping would work.

 

Can't get Rigid body bones to install either, looks like they where both made for blender versions pre 3.0

Edited October 12, 2022 by Simite

[dannysdb5]

13 minutes ago, Simite said:

No need to be sorry, we can't all remember and know everything. I am testing those add-ons you suggested recently, wiggle bones won't install in 3.3 and that was the one I was hoping would work.

Sorry, my fault. I gave you the wrong link (it was a godot engine plugin lol).

 

Here is the right one: https://blenderartists.org/t/wiggle-bones-a-jiggle-bone-implementation-for-2-8/1154726

 

Here is a short demo of it in action with the female dagger rig: https://files.catbox.moe/m8vy1i.webm

[dannysdb5]

22 minutes ago, Simite said:

Can't get Rigid body bones to install either, looks like they where both made for blender versions pre 3.0

Did you follow the installation instructions on the github readme?

 

Make sure you download the latest Rigid.Body.Bones.zip from this page: https://github.com/Pauan/blender-rigid-body-bones/releases

Then install it as an addon in the Blender preferences page.

 

It hasn't had a release since May 2021, but you should still be able to install it in 3.3.1

[Simite]

10 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

Did you follow the installation instructions on the github readme?

 

Make sure you download the latest Rigid.Body.Bones.zip from this page: https://github.com/Pauan/blender-rigid-body-bones/releases

Then install it as an addon in the Blender preferences page.

 

It hasn't had a release since May 2021, but you should still be able to install it in 3.3.1

Okay yeah my bad, the latest version did install, still trying to figure out how to make it behave how I want.

[Simite]

56 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

Sorry, my fault. I gave you the wrong link (it was a godot engine plugin lol).

 

Here is the right one: https://blenderartists.org/t/wiggle-bones-a-jiggle-bone-implementation-for-2-8/1154726

 

Here is a short demo of it in action with the female dagger rig: https://files.catbox.moe/m8vy1i.webm

I missed this post, I really need to sleep more. Those results look very nice, the rigid bones doesn't seem to give very nice results easily.

 

Oh yes this works very nicely, I'll have to play around some more ^^

Edited October 12, 2022 by Simite

[Mimi-e]

1 hour ago, dannysdb5 said:

Oh you're right, sorry. I'm not used to using that menu for visibility parameters and forgot S4S exports use it.

Still don't understand why the eye widgets in the outliner disappear, I think that's a file compatibility issue. Obviously not a high-priority issue.

I was trying to bake the Ambient Occlusion for some clothing recently, and discovered the different ways Blender hides/shows things. There are three options you'd want to use, Viewport Temporal (eye icon), Viewport Global (screen icon) and Render (camera icon). All of them can be toggled into selectable cllicking on the "filter" button in the Outliner menu, as Simite explained. I wanted to mention the Render one bc it's hidden by default but if you want to ever make good quality objects by using normal maps, you'll need it. I had some briefs throwing shadows on my textures even if they were hidden in the viewports because they were visible for Render.

Also, about the texture use in animations, well, industry standard tends to not use them, or minimal. It loads faster, and also, sometimes the rest of the team hasn't finished that part. Blender is made aiming to be usable for full teams, where each part is done by a different person. Even making control rigs have people dedicated sorely to it. So of course we get confused and overwhelmed, it's a lot of information and tasks for only one person. If every option was available by default, Blender would be even MORE confusing and scary to open for the first time.

 

Oh, and you need to tell Blender to load with your prefered options or it will load the one saved in the .blend file. If you get it from someone, the menus and options you'll see are the ones they had set up. So no, it's no compatibility issue. It's a feature, not a bug. I haven't looked for how to set that up yet tho, I'm sorry I cannot help with that. I personally like it, it allows me to have the menus ready as soon as I open an archive where I work on, say, texturing vs animating. But I can understand how it can be frustrating, it happens to me when I open someone else's archive.

[Simite]

1 hour ago, Mimi-e said:

I was trying to bake the Ambient Occlusion for some clothing recently, and discovered the different ways Blender hides/shows things. There are three options you'd want to use, Viewport Temporal (eye icon), Viewport Global (screen icon) and Render (camera icon). All of them can be toggled into selectable cllicking on the "filter" button in the Outliner menu, as Simite explained. I wanted to mention the Render one bc it's hidden by default but if you want to ever make good quality objects by using normal maps, you'll need it. I had some briefs throwing shadows on my textures even if they were hidden in the viewports because they were visible for Render.

Also, about the texture use in animations, well, industry standard tends to not use them, or minimal. It loads faster, and also, sometimes the rest of the team hasn't finished that part. Blender is made aiming to be usable for full teams, where each part is done by a different person. Even making control rigs have people dedicated sorely to it. So of course we get confused and overwhelmed, it's a lot of information and tasks for only one person. If every option was available by default, Blender would be even MORE confusing and scary to open for the first time.

 

Oh, and you need to tell Blender to load with your prefered options or it will load the one saved in the .blend file. If you get it from someone, the menus and options you'll see are the ones they had set up. So no, it's no compatibility issue. It's a feature, not a bug. I haven't looked for how to set that up yet tho, I'm sorry I cannot help with that. I personally like it, it allows me to have the menus ready as soon as I open an archive where I work on, say, texturing vs animating. But I can understand how it can be frustrating, it happens to me when I open someone else's archive.

 

Yeah I still need to learn how to make good normal maps and to be honest I still need to learn how to make my own defuses based on the materials I've applied in blender. Have you made any of your content public yet or is it still WIP? I'd be interested in some new briefs ;3

 

Oh and using the filter to make them all selectable at once is very helpful, I hadn't noticed that function before and had been doing them one at a time xD

It doesn't make the bones easily toggled in visibility though, seems to work fine for mesh's but not for individual bones in an armature.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Simite

[dannysdb5]

23 hours ago, Simite said:

I missed this post, I really need to sleep more. Those results look very nice, the rigid bones doesn't seem to give very nice results easily.

 

Oh yes this works very nicely, I'll have to play around some more ^^

Glad to hear. I like how it provides a nice combination of both physics and manual control.

 

Another addon that could prove very useful in WW animations is Animation Layers: https://blendermarket.com/products/animation-layers

Unfortunately it's a paid addon, but it makes the workflow much more similar to Maya which is industry standard for animation. 

[Simite]

4 hours ago, dannysdb5 said:

Glad to hear. I like how it provides a nice combination of both physics and manual control.

 

Another addon that could prove very useful in WW animations is Animation Layers: https://blendermarket.com/products/animation-layers

Unfortunately it's a paid addon, but it makes the workflow much more similar to Maya which is industry standard for animation. 

Yeah that does look cool but it kind of looks like it just does the same things you can do in the NLA editor just a little more user friendly with easier to see controls.

[nooddood]

Hello! I was just reading about being able to use this rig in version 3.0 or higher. I have had a quick practice but I have a bit of a noob question: how do you go about baking the animation onto the rig in the newer versions? In 2.7 you can select the bones whilst you have the rig in pose mode but that doesn't seem to be the case here?

[dannysdb5]

I think it would be handy to have the knee and elbow pole targets to automatically move(track) to the forward vector of the knee and elbow points. In other words, when the knee or elbow moves down, the pole targets should move down with them automatically while maintaining their correct position relative to the knee joint. This is a tutorial demonstrating it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suP14lYWpN8

 

 

43 minutes ago, Simite said:

Yeah that does look cool but it kind of looks like it just does the same things you can do in the NLA editor just a little more user friendly with easier to see controls.

Try to tweak the bottom layer animation of the stack while being able to view the overall result and you will start to see a problem ?.

The addon also has:

- View and edit multiply layers keyframes

- An extra bake method that can merge or bake additives to a new additive layer (NLA's bake, is baking only into a new replace layer)

- Smart bake

- Extract selected bones to a new layer

- Extract from markers for mocap cleanup

- Reset layer keyframe values

- Select bones in Layer and more

[Simite]

12 minutes ago, nooddood said:

Hello! I was just reading about being able to use this rig in version 3.0 or higher. I have had a quick practice but I have a bit of a noob question: how do you go about baking the animation onto the rig in the newer versions? In 2.7 you can select the bones whilst you have the rig in pose mode but that doesn't seem to be the case here?

You will need to make sure that all the rigs are set too selectable (and show in viewports) in the object - visibility panel, then you will be able too select the rig your trying to bake onto, then put them into pose mode, then select a bone, then hit the pose button on the viewport, then select animation - bake action. 

 

If you have done it before you should be good from here, but I suggest that you make sure you select visual keying and remove constraints. If you leave "selected" ticks it will only bake the bones you have selected, if you untick that it will bake all the bones on the selected rig.

[dannysdb5]

14 minutes ago, nooddood said:

Hello! I was just reading about being able to use this rig in version 3.0 or higher. I have had a quick practice but I have a bit of a noob question: how do you go about baking the animation onto the rig in the newer versions? In 2.7 you can select the bones whilst you have the rig in pose mode but that doesn't seem to be the case here?

In the outliner, click the control rig, then ctrl-click the deform rig (EG: rig female), then Pose > Animation > Bake Animation. Tick Visual Keying, untick everything else, and make sure Bake Data is set to Pose. This can be done in both Pose Mode and Object Mode.

[Simite]

6 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

I think it would be handy to have the knee and elbow pole targets to automatically move(track) to the forward vector of the knee and elbow points. In other words, when the knee or elbow moves down, the pole targets should move down with them automatically while maintaining their correct position relative to the knee joint. This is a tutorial demonstrating it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suP14lYWpN8

 

 

Try to tweak the bottom layer animation of the stack while being able to view the overall result and you will start to see a problem ?.

The addon also has:

- View and edit multiply layers keyframes

- An extra bake method that can merge or bake additives to a new additive layer (NLA's bake, is baking only into a new replace layer)

- Smart bake

- Extract selected bones to a new layer

- Extract from markers for mocap cleanup

- Reset layer keyframe values

- Select bones in Layer and more

 

Thanks for that tutorial, I will be putting that function onto the control rig that has always been something that bugged me.

 

Like 90% of those things are do-able in NLA editor, you just have to open each action strip up in the action editor then you can make any changes too them.

You can bake actions individually before pushing them onto the NLA and doing combined Bakes.

I can see the addon makes some of these things easier and has additional functions but its not something I feel like is needed to produce high quality animations, mostly just a increase workflow thing.

[Simite]

14 minutes ago, dannysdb5 said:

In the outliner, click the control rig, then ctrl-click the deform rig (EG: rig female), then Pose > Animation > Bake Animation. Tick Visual Keying, untick everything else, and make sure Bake Data is set to Pose. This can be done in both Pose Mode and Object Mode.

You will also want to clear constraints so the control rig is no longer deforming the bone positions. It will lose its effect when you delete the control rig anyway but its just cleaner and doesn't leave all the bones on the base rig with empty constraints for the importing.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Simite

[nooddood]

1 hour ago, Simite said:

You will need to make sure that all the rigs are set too selectable (and show in viewports) in the object - visibility panel, then you will be able too select the rig your trying to bake onto, then put them into pose mode, then select a bone, then hit the pose button on the viewport, then select animation - bake action. 

 

If you have done it before you should be good from here, but I suggest that you make sure you select visual keying and remove constraints. If you leave "selected" ticks it will only bake the bones you have selected, if you untick that it will bake all the bones on the selected rig.

 

1 hour ago, dannysdb5 said:

In the outliner, click the control rig, then ctrl-click the deform rig (EG: rig female), then Pose > Animation > Bake Animation. Tick Visual Keying, untick everything else, and make sure Bake Data is set to Pose. This can be done in both Pose Mode and Object Mode.

 

Tyvm for your replies, it has helped me a lot! But I am still not sure I am doing it correctly as when I import the file into S4S the frames aren't registering correctly.

 

If and when you have a moment would you be able to look at my file and see where I am going wrong? I would appreciate the help.

 

Also apologies if this is not the place to ask these questions I can DM you if that would be better

squat_test.blend

[Simite]

4 hours ago, nooddood said:

 

 

Tyvm for your replies, it has helped me a lot! But I am still not sure I am doing it correctly as when I import the file into S4S the frames aren't registering correctly.

 

If and when you have a moment would you be able to look at my file and see where I am going wrong? I would appreciate the help.

 

Also apologies if this is not the place to ask these questions I can DM you if that would be better

squat_test.blend 1.9 MB · 0 downloads

Seems like its baked fine you just need to delete the control rig and any other junk (hair mesh) then save the file before importing the animation data (rig female)

Edited October 13, 2022 by Simite