Exposing joint rotate params in LE

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Exposing joint rotate params in LE // Tutorium Requests

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Post by Igor K Handel // Aug 10, 2008, 2:40am

Igor K Handel
Total Posts: 411
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As the title says, I would very much like to be able to get at the rotate numbers for a given joint in a skeleton. Right mouse and expand on the joint shows no additional info. Message says this is not a script object when I go into 1D.


Ultimately I would like to hook up the rotation of a joint to the morph tool input, in order to automate muscle bulge when the joint is rotated either through IK or FK... But unable to get at the joint rotation output..


Unfortunately I am an LE novice at best. Can get at the rotations of an object no problem, just not a joint?


Any help warmly received.


Cheers

IK

Post by RichLevy // Aug 10, 2008, 4:08am

RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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It's not as difficult as it may appear.


You need to be in 2D mode, that will expose all of the individual objects in your scene. Instead of the 1D that you selected (which brings you into the script editor) just select 2D.


Now you are in the LE, all of the objects in your scene will have there own node, that is a seperate icon which represents them.


In your case you will either see a skeleton node or an actor node. The skeleton node is the holder for all of the skeletons, joints, bones and such. The actor node will hold the object file (your mesh that you are working with), the skeleton, and other things we will leave out right now.


Select to the skeleton node by clicking the orange square in the top right hand corner. This brings you down to the joints and the bones.


Now click on the joints to highlight them in WS, this will give you a visual of what you are working on. This also will expose all of the values in the node that you can work on.


Follow the pictures for a visual of the operation.


Hope that helps


Rich

Post by RichLevy // Aug 10, 2008, 4:16am

RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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The Actor Node is created when you attach the skeleton and the mesh (with the Attach Skin to Skeleton command) Until you do that the skeleton node will not be merged into the Actor, nor will there be an actor for it to be in :)

I would have done a video but I do not have audio rihgt now and this really is not too complicated. Feel free to ask any questions, I would be happy to explain further.

Rich

Post by Igor K Handel // Aug 10, 2008, 4:43am

Igor K Handel
Total Posts: 411
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Rich many thanks for such fast help!!!

Have hit a snag though. As per your pics if you look real carefully the rotation of joints is not shown... everything else appears to be, but not the actual rotation. Have been tinkering and have made myself a euler specifically for rotations, with sliders. Can connect them to the root object of a bone, and can manually use the slider to rotate BUT one of the other bones became invisable, leaving a joint down the heirarchy apparently in mid air.

If I disconnect the joint to bone connection and replace with Euler to root of bone it works, but then the heirarchy has no longer a parent bone.hmm.

Solution still seems to be getting at the rotations of actual joint. Think It must have to do with creating,through a script, the rotation attributes.. which then can be got to show up in LE... but can't script for life of me.
Interestingly if I select a joint in dynapose, when I rotate it the object info panel (as in right click on the object arrow icon) shows the rotations of the selected joint.... HMMM so how to grab info form the info panel in LE ... any suggestions?

Think I better start a thread in the Tech thread rather than clutter up the tutorial request thread..... See ya there if you have any further suggestions.. I'll name it "grab joint rotations"

Cheers
IK

Anymore help appreciated!!

Post by RichLevy // Aug 10, 2008, 4:56am

RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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Rich many thanks for such fast help!!!


Have hit a snag though. As per your pics if you look real carefully the rotation of joints is not shown... everything else appears to be, but not the actual rotation. Have been tinkering and have made myself a euler specifically for rotations, with sliders. Can connect them to the root object of a bone, and can manually use the slider to rotate BUT one of the other bones became invisable, leaving a joint down the heirarchy apparently in mid air.


If I disconnect the joint to bone connection and replace with Euler to root of bone it works, but then the heirarchy has no longer a parent bone.hmm.


Solution still seems to be getting at the rotations of actual joint. Think It must have to do with creating,through a script, the rotation attributes.. which then can be got to show up in LE... but can't script for life of me.

Interestingly if I select a joint in dynapose, when I rotate it the object info panel (as in right click on the object arrow icon) shows the rotations of the selected joint.... HMMM so how to grab info form the info panel in LE ... any suggestions?


Cheers

IK


Anymore help appreciated!!


To be honest with you Igor I have not had to dig into the LE skeleton since the Very early days of character animation betas... back than we used to have to make our skeleton rigs by hooking up joint and bone nodes like you see here :o it could be very scary back than lol.


I am not quite sure on how to exactly do this, and I am pretty sure it can be done, I do not specifically see rotation, though I do see x,y and z paras... let's see if one of the LE gurus can shed further light on this for us. I'll also post a question in the beta area if no other responders can help here.


HTH


Rich

Post by trueBlue // Aug 12, 2008, 1:42am

trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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IK... I like your Handle. 10 4 :)
Have you experimented with the Sharks in the libraries? Glen did an AWESOME job with his creations here bar none.
14171
With the Handles you can Only transform/move them in XYZ and Joints ONLY rotate them in XYZ. If you look at the Expanded aspect of a Joint panel you will see at the bottom a WldMatrix. Right click it and select Expand. With the Dyna Pose tool move that Leg/Joint's Handle around and watch the ExpandOut panel. This is where you could drive a Morph control by exporting these attributes out.

Post by Igor K Handel // Aug 12, 2008, 12:24pm

Igor K Handel
Total Posts: 411
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Cheers for that TrueBlue, I will get onto the example you posted tomorrow for sure, looks promising.


Thanks Rich, I am all at sea here. Glad I "missed" some of the early workflows. Pioneering is all well and good but sometimes it's nice to arrive when the tents have already been put up, the fire lit, and the kettles already on :D


IK
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