Skele: Character Animation Tools, Cutscenes and Animations authoring tools

Thanks. That was very clear.

 

Hi, Developers,

I have just submitted the Skele v1.9.0b2, it should be online soon,

This version is mainly to fix an error during building player.
=====================
v1.9.0b2
Fix: Error during building player;
Add: Constraint system;
=====================

The constraints system is just finished and I've not made examples and docs for that, ( must fix the build error first )
I plan to add those in the next update.

But if you've interest, you could try adding ConstraintStack monobehaviour and try yourself.
Most of the constraints are like their Blender counterpart, some details might differ, but you still could read the blender doc for a quick reference;
http://www.blender.org/manual/rigging/constraints/introduction.html


Best regards, Be creative,

 

Added some helper objects like in Blender.

I'll get to write manuals after finishing the new systems.

http://i.imgur.com/Jcqxv3d.gifv

 

Is this project still alive?

I noticed I can't log into my old account at "http://skele.userecho.com/#" and when I try to make a new one or change my password it brings me to the login screen.

Having problems and need to get some answers.

 

Hi, katasteel,

I checked the UserEcho and can login with no problem,

If you've any question or report issues, you could also send mail to me at:
tmpxyz at gmail.com

Best regards, Be creative,

 

Another test of constraints on walking.

http://i.imgur.com/sKTgohb.gifv

 

this looks fabulous

I hope I can use it so much changed since then


exported out a dae* has no animation, though humanoid set up seems ok, but not all together (see small picts)
*it asks for animation? the pose made with skele(?)

 

Hi, dibdab,

The DAE exporter could export (1) non-skinned mesh, (2) skinned mesh without animation, (3) skinned mesh with animation.

You could check this video for how to convert clips from generic => muscle with DAE exporter.

I don't get it, what happened? it seems that the bones and meshes are all intact.


Tell me if you find anything not clear,

Best regards, Be creative,

 

Hi, Developers,

I've just submitted the Skele v1.9.1 b1, it added the new blender-style constraint system;

There're about 20 example scenes to intro each constraint. Be sure to go along with the number;


==============================
v1.9.1 b1
**NEW**: Blender-style constraint system
ADD: a bunch of example scene;
==============================

I'll get to write text manual as the supplement for video tutorial next.

Be sure to tell me if you find any issues or suggestion,

Best regards, Be creative,

 

I'm not sure if we understand each other, I want to export a dae with animation, made in skele.
(I don't want to convert a clip.)
....
tried even this:
exported out the animation w AnimationBaker into .anim
and added the .anim to dae exporter

but it has no animation data

....
but I'd like to make animation

and would prefer to see the steps involved like>
1. edit the generic model (on its skinned mesh renderer)

2. open pose manager (button G), select hip bone, save pose

3. leave pose manager, edit - open pose manager, save pose again

and I hit a wall here already. I try to overwrite 2.pose and its still the same as the 1.pose.

....
some suggestions:
- I can't check skele version inside unity (okay, I guess I can assume I use 1.9.0 b2 from the ReleaseNotes_CAT)
- I can't find the shortcut which was used to paste keyframe (of a pose) onto an animation
http://tmpxyz.wix.com/alpha#!shortcut-list

 

Hi, dibdab,

Just tried exporting an animation clip on U5.2.1, it works fine here,


If you cannot see animation data imported, could you check:
1. You could export generic & legacy clip, it will not export if the original clip is humanoid clip(muscle clip);
2. whether the "rig" type set properly, it will not import animation data if set to "none";



--------------------------------

I'm not sure if I get what you mean by 1.pose & 2.pose,
I guess you have two ".pose" files?
And at the beginning you're writing into 1.pose, and later you want to switch to 2.pose?
Then you could click the "Load" button to switch between different pose files;

----------------------------------
To apply pose onto the animation clip, just click the button in pose-manager, see the gif below.

 

hm, I can't see anything I'm doing differently. but apparently I'm doing something wrong.
I updated to the new version, and since there's a new version of unity too, I tried it out in it.
and same thing is happening.
I do a new pose, and all the poses are the same.
(by the 1.pose and 2.pose I mean stand01 and stand02)
also made an animation clip, and when I click on the pose button, rotation don't get pasted into the clip.


okay, got a bit further with this
only pastes the rotations on animation timeline if bone gets rotated (not in posemanager)
so I can modify animation directly, which is fine and looks like usable, since keyframes can be deleted and edited, it just differs from the suggested workflow.

and now it exports dae out. (though there skele seems to remembers old settings and first exported out into a project in another folder)
dae looks okay and plays the animation recorded with skele in the editor, but when turned into humanoid and added to animator controller, there are import animation warnings (and doesn't play the animation)
edit: ok, fine. my bad, basicmanH wasn't configured as humanoid.
it works!

I'll leave the picture attached if someone encounters similar issue

 

I was faced another issue: hipbone height (since neither ik or fk can lower the skeleton)
I think it should be part of the editing tools, putting the model on ground when making the animation.
I found out it can be set directly (see: y 0.9) so I guess it should be okay
but it can only rewrite the animation, not the pose, so it's a bit of a hack.

 

Hi, dibdab,

Thanks for the feedback

Yeah, the auto keyframe recording utilizes the changes of transform to set of keyframe, that would save much space.
So if by accident your current pose is the same as the one stored in the pose-manager, clicking the apply-pose button would be no effect there.
But you could just click the "R" button first to reset your model to T-pose, and apply the stored pose.

Yep, just to add that after you converted your clip to humanoid clip, you could also apply it on any other humanoid models. Re-usability is one primary advantage of humanoid clip;

Do you mean you want to move the hip bone lower?
You could select the hip-bone, click keyboard "W" to use move tool, and drag the bone down.
The "W"/"E"/"R" correspond to move/rotate/scale tool as in standard Unity interaction.


( Also I would suggest a handy small tool: ScreenToGif
It could record the screen to high-quality gif animation, which can be post directly or hosted on imgur.com / gfycat.com.)

Tell me if you find any other issue or suggestion,

Best regards, Be creative,

 

I'm really interested in the new constraints! Specifically the "ChildOf" constraints. Should I just open up the example scene for now and I can figure it out from there?

 

Hi, BlankMauser,

Yeah, you could open up the ChildOf constraint example and play with it, you could also check the new manual, we have one individual page for each constraint there

Manual site:
http://www.tmpxyz.com/Skele

Almost all sub-system manual are complete, only the manual for new timeline editor is under construction.

If you find any page not clear, just tell me.

 

Hi, Developers,

Skele v1.9.2 has just been submitted, this version fixed several found issues.

v1.9.2 (Submitted on 2015/12/03)
Fix: error messages when try to RevertPrefabPose, if there're some objects attached to the model;
Fix: LimitLocation constraint, the gizmos might be drawn in wrong direction in 'Self' space;
Add: Undo for CCDSolver constraint editor under 'Continuous' mode;

Just to mention it, I've made the latest user manual online, you could read all the manual for all subsystems (except the Timeline editor which is still under construction)
You could browse the manual here: http://www.tmpxyz.com/Skele


Best regards, Be creative,

 

Hi,

Sorry if this question had asked before, but it's possible to rename a Bone?. Like 'Spine' instead of 'mixamorig:Spine'.

 

Hi, ZJP,

If you're trying to rename a transform, just rename it via the inspector.

But I guess what you mean is to modify the transform-path in the clip:

If that's the case, you could use the AnimCurvePropEditor,

The manual page for AnimCurvePropEditor has video & text explanation on this topic.

Tell me if you find it not clear,

Best regards, Be creative,

 

Will be working on the LudumDare #34 till Monday (Dec 14th).
The emails during this period will be answered since Tuesday.

 

Hey, I've had this package Skele for a while. I can't find the answer to my question in the FAQ. I'm thinking maybe I am supposed to delete portions of the Skele asset before compiling for some platforms maybe?

It is currently imported into my project to remind me that I've bought it and will need it for my project when I'm ready but it or any of it's products is not in use by the only scene in my active project yet.

Which brings me to my simple question I think. Now I am trying to compile the scene in my current project for Universal Windows 10 SDK XAML Windows Store but I get these 3 errors that I don't get on compiling for Android for example (IL2CPP or MONO2X):

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Assets\Skele\AnimatorSP\Files\Scripts\ObjectCopier.cs(4,36): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Formatters' does not exist in the namespace 'System.Runtime.Serialization' (are you missing an assembly reference?)
3. Assets\Skele\CharacterAnimationTools\Scripts\Collada_Main\Grendgine_Collada.cs(10,25): error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'DesignerCategoryAttribute' does not exist in the namespace 'System.ComponentModel' (are you missing an assembly reference?)
4. Error building Player because scripts had compiler errors
5.  

It doesn't matter which of the Windows SDKs I choose. Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8.1 Universal, or Windows 10 Universal the errors are the same.

Unity 5.3.1f1 on Windows 10.

Thanks.

 

@goat - Generally speaking, I don't think you need Skele in your build. It is mainly an editor tool.

 

Thanks, I know but I'm asking as it's more convenient to import and leave in your project then to be deleting & adding it...it's not a big deal though.

 

OK, as I thought it's not really a Skele problem as I deleted it and now get a different error trying to do a Universal Windows 10 SDK build. I will ask there.

Thanks.

 

Hi, goat,

Thanks for your feedback,

This is clearly an issue I need to handle, it's not supposed to let users to have compilation errors during build.

The building process is fine for standalone PC build (Win7 though), judging from the logs it seems that some APIs are not present for Windows Phone, I will investigate and fix this soon.

Best regards,

 

Hi, goat,

Here's a temp workaround for the compilation error for Windows Store build,
It has two steps:
1. Comment out the whole file of 'ObjectCopier.cs';
2. Comment out the 10th line of Grendgine_Collada.cs;

I want to check it myself, but I don't have a win10 machine at hand until new year,
I would be thankful if you could help to test if this could work for Windows Store build (Win10);

Best regards,

 

OK, I've imported Skele into my project again as I had deleted it.

1. Including Image Effects (Pro Only) from the old Standard Assets instead of the new Standard Assets for Unity 5. It says they are Pro only so do examples you use these effects even really benefit from the effects as most of your customers are Unity Free customers? I would save yourself and customers trouble and rewrite your examples to be self-contained. If the Unity Asset Store allows you to create samples that use features in their assets without including their assets on submission to the asset store you could do that and include the fact the Unity asset store QC and Publishing folk and your customers need to download and import the appropriate Unity assets that are needed to do the specific examples you have created for them.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Assets/Standard Assets/Image Effects (Pro Only)/ImageEffectBase.cs(5,14): error CS0101: The namespace `global::' already contains a definition for `ImageEffectBase'
3.  
4. Assets/Standard Assets/Image Effects (Pro Only)/MotionBlur.cs(12,14): error CS0101: The namespace `global::' already contains a definition for `MotionBlur'
5.  

2. Not all your source files have been put into namespaces but most of them have. You may as well save yourself and your customers from support trouble in the future by putting all your source code into name spaces.

3. I've done what you said and that brings the situation to a lot of Skele errors that seem, at 1st glance, related to type definitions being used becoming not available. This is because the Universal 10 SDK must not allow such things and so it might be considered to make those functions editor only code. So there is not enough explicitness in your code where it can be used for the Unity editor & compiler. If you PM me I will work with you all the way through for those things. However, once you get those straightened out I will need to create a new simple project to test Windows Store builds with Skele. I will make it very small and simple.

 

OK, I created a blank project to help you. I've not sure 100% what is causing the problem with SDK Windows Universal 10 in the other project except even if I delete Skele from that project Unity can't build to Universal 10, even after deleting many other correctly functioning assets in other platform target builds.

1. Project empty with no scenes and SDK of Universal 10 XAML builds to completion.
2. Import latest version of Skele
3. Using CutSceneDemo0.unity to build to I get the same errors discussed above.
4. I get those errors whether or not I use one of your example scenes, e.g. build with a new blank scene open and no scenes included in the Universal 10 build.

Because none of the other target platforms I've compiled for have this problem with Skele I think maybe the problem must be that Universal 10 builds are including source files that the builds for the other target platforms do not. For example, I can compile Cut Scene 0 for WebGL and it plays fine in Firefox. However, something keeps the compiled Cut Scene 0 scene from playing in the newest Chrome or Microsoft Edge, however that is Unity's or Microsoft's or Google's problem(s), not yours.

I will send to your regular email support the list of error that happens after the ObjectCopier.cs & Grendgine_Collada.cs alterations you recommend are done again.

Thanks.

 

Hi, goat,

It seems Windows Universal platform brings more complexities than I thought, I need to work on a win10 machine to fix it.
My win10 pc is on the way, this issue would be fixed in the first few days of 2016.

Thanks a lot for your help goat, I really appreciate it

Best regards, and happy new year.

 

Okay, after some struggle, I finally get my win10 machine up and working.
Though I still have no luck installing the win10 sdk from the VS2015 community iso or standalone install files, I can now use win8 uwp to reproduce the issue mentioned by goat on building "windows store app" (UWP).

So to be short, UWP cuts off a bunch of APIs of Reflection, which is used widely in Skele package.

Here're some MSDN doc on this:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br230302(v=VS.85).aspx#reflection
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh535795(v=vs.110).aspx

I'm trying to make a solution to ensure the build succeed on UWP, should be done in a few days.

 

Just done rewriting a batch of methods for UWP, now I can build for Universal windows apps.

Will update the package for UWP tonight.

Best regards,

 

Hi, Developers,

Just submitted the Skele v1.9.2f1 update,
This version solves the build errors for Windows Store Apps;

v1.9.2 f1(Submitted on 2016/01/05)
Fix: Build error for Windows Store Apps & remove warnings

Be noted that, you need to use Unity5.3.1f1 or higher to pick up this update.

Best regards, Be creative,

 

Hi TMPxyz,

I started two weeks ago with Skele but I am still not able to get the DAE Exporter working right. I am having a very simple animation on Robot Kyle. I created the animation just like your videos. I changed the rig of Kyle in Generic. Put it in the scene. Selected the Skinned Mesh Renderer and started editing. Did some rotations. Pushed the record button and finshed the edititing. Everything looks fine. The animation is ok and the character is moving ok. Then I use the DAE exporter and there is an animation but no movement. I rewatched the videos, tried a lot of alternatives, but no succes until now. Any idea what is going wrong?

Wicu

 

Thanks very much. I got your update but because I switch back & forth between hobby in Unity, house renovation, and yard renovation I don't always notice right away.

 

Hi, Wicu999,

Thanks for your feedback and sorry for this late reply.

What's the version of your Unity?
I've confirmed that DAE exporter not work right with animation exporting under Unity5.3.1, seems something has been changed in Unity recently. I'm investigating to make patch now.

I'll notice you when the patch is done.

Best regards,

============================

Okay... so they've changed the animation curves representation for rotation from localRotation(quaternion) to localEulerRaw(euler).

It seems I will need to add new code for this change... Hold on for a while...

 

Okay, Just submitted the v1.9.2 f2 to fix the DAE exporter under U5.3;

It should be online in several hours, check it out when you have got time

Best regards,

 

Hi TMPxyz,

I'v tried it out and it works fine. I am really happy with this. Thank you for the quick update!

Wicu

 

Glad it helps

Tell me if you find out any issues or suggestions again.

Best regards,

 

I tried to make an animation using robotkyle(generic) and then exported it as dae file then changed the exported dae file from generic to humanoid and tried the animation and nothing happened, no animation at all.

 

Hi, rh0bz,

Sorry for the late reply, =}

I've just checked again exporting animation on my machine, it works fine here.

Could you help to check the Skele version you're using, we've an old issue that old version won't export animation on U5.3

If it is not the case, please tell me your Unity version and Skele version, then we could investigate it further.

Best regards,

 

Hi TMPxyz,

I am using a custom character made in Blender, and having some trouble with the animation exported using DAE from a generic rig to an humanoid one, since Blender has a different axis orientation from Unity the mesh and rig exported are rotated 90 degrees in the X axis, and the scale is 100 smaller (bacause when I import a model in Unity using FBX Blender plugin the file scale is set to 0.01 and I can not change that). The scale is not a problem, but my human rig rotate too when the animation is played. So any suggestion or work around that?

Thanks!

 

hi i'am looking for quadriped workflow by retargetting or somethink's else

 

Hi, Kilik128,

Thanks for your feedback,

So, by "quadruped" do you mean horse or dragon or something alike?

Unity's "Humanoid" rig only retargets biped, so you must use "Generic";

1. Use "Generic" clip on multiple quadruped with same skeleton.
You could reuse one "Generic" animations for multiple quadruped models, just to make sure all your horse models sharing same naming conventions.
(Indeed, it would be best if you could skin all your horses with the same skeleton naming convention, it would be ok if you want to add some bones for wings of unicorn, just make sure the main structure match, limbs and head)

e.g.: spine--head
--foot1
--foot2
--foot3
--foot4

The generic animations works by searching the corresponding transform paths, e.g.: assume a clip animates "spine/foot1", then, if you have two horses both having bone "spine/foot1", the animation clip will work on both of them.

2. What if the skeleton are not matched?
Things would be not easy if your quadrupeds are with different skeleton naming conventions.
(Unity said they would make retargeting for "Generic" models, not sure when)

It would be best if you can modify the models to make them share same skeleton naming conventions.

In case you really want to reuse some animation clips, here're an alternative method:
* Duplicate the clip and modify the transform paths;

You could use AnimCurvePropEditor to do that.
( This is kind of complex, only recommended to advanced users )


Best regards, Be creative

 

Hi, Ninivekha,

Thanks for your feedback,

I just made a simple skinned model in blender and exported with DAE exporter, it looks fine here.



(The original model and exported animation are attached below)

The issue you described sounds really weird, it should not happen, as the animation clip only stores local rotations.

If you still have trouble handling that, please send the original model & exported model to me, I will try to find out what the problem is.


Best regards,

 

People asked if the MorphProc (vertex animation) could work with custom vertex offset shader,
So I made a simple vertex offset shader to test it, I'm no guru on shader part, but it seems work fine for now.

 

I have found the problem... in the DAE Export window if I set the skeleton or any bone as the RootNode the animation get rotated, if I set the RootNode as the Character, where the animator controller is set, it works fine.

Thanks TMPxyz!!

 

Thanks for the feedback, NInivekha,

Interesting, I'll check this further and find out what to do to improve usability here, maybe auto-detect the Animator component so user need not to select it manually, etc.

Best regards,

 

Hi, Developers,

I've just submitted the Skele v1.9.3 update.

1.9.3 (Submitted on 2016/03/06)
Add: DAE Exporter: export multiple clips, UI improvement;
Add: CCDSovler: support non-continuous bones to form a IK-link;

 

Hi!
When i started to make new animation, and put cursor on the animation window timescale for move red line my character pose changed and nothing happened after changing some values (points on animations timescale didn't creates).
How can i fix that?

 

Hi, justtime,

Is your model in Humanoid rig-type? You need to change it to Generic rig-type to make AnimationView to record keyframes;

Please check the FAQ here:
http://www.tmpxyz.com/Skele/docs/84...rling-pose-when-i-try-to-make-keyframes-on-it

Tell me if it's not your case,

Best regards,