Best rig type to use (Rigify, MHX, Simple)

Pickle Renderer

Using Diffeo, which rig do you use and why?  Some advantages of Rigify I heard was lots of people use it, so support is better if you ask random questions on forums.  I tried this with my Genesis 8 imported with Diffeo.  It didn't make a huge amount of sense to me.  One of the panels didn't appear to be present and I couldn't see any poles (the panel that turns on the poles was missing, apparently).  MHX seems to be kind-of slow but apparently it's much easier to retarget to UE5 if that's what you want to do (much harder with Rigify).  The Simple Rig is actually the best I've used out of them (that's Diffeo's native little rig, no bells, no whistles), in terms of speed.  But some features aren't present, like foot roll and so on.

 

So, which rig do you choose?

hardwire666

I prefer MHX as it is more in line with an "industry-standard" (air quotes and sarcasm a plenty) rig and how I was taught to think about a rig as an animator. Also, It's not perfect, but it gets the job done. it's definitely slow, but I think that is more of a Blender issue than anything else. I've used rigs just as complex in Maya that are buttery smooth. As well the more morphs and whatnot that are loaded the more they also slow down the rig.

If anything MHX with Daz characters just shows where Blender is actually hurting when it comes to performance. IMO anyway.

Pickle Renderer

Yea, I realised it was all the morphs causing the slowdown.

I'm so frustrated with all of this.  Think I've tried every tool out there (well, every tool I don't have to pay for) and I can't get a functioning round-trip anim back to Daz, and it seems I can't fully import a Daz character to Blender without it being really slow.  All I need to be able to do is import animation to Daz.  I tried Cascadeur this evening, going through the YouTube tutorial for Daz.  Translation issues on the imported animation, hip in wrong place, foot sliding, etc.  complete disaster.

 

 

 

Padone

To import animations back in daz the best option should be the simple rig since it uses exactly the daz bones with no changes whatsoever. Then comes mhx with some minor changes, then rigify with some more changes. For original animation in blender mhx is better because jcms are more faithful to daz, but most figures work fine enough with rigify too.

As for performances you have to pay attention what you import from daz. Especially HD figures or 8K textures or heavy hair meshes can be the culprit. Remember that daz figures in general are not optimized for animation, so not everything in the daz shop makes sense in blender.

hardwire666

I found out about hair meshes the hard way. lol But Padone it right. None of this stuff was ever meant for this so there will always be unexpected problems. As far as the rigs go though you really only would want to use Rigify, or MHX if you're staying in Blender.

Pickle Renderer

Padone said:

To import animations back in daz the best option should be the simple rig since it uses exactly the daz bones with no changes whatsoever. Then comes mhx with some minor changes, then rigify with some more changes. For original animation in blender mhx is better because jcms are more faithful to daz, but most figures work fine enough with rigify too.

As for performances you have to pay attention what you import from daz. Especially HD figures or 8K textures or heavy hair meshes can be the culprit. Remember that daz figures in general are not optimized for animation, so not everything in the daz shop makes sense in blender.

Padone I've tried that before and it doesn't import the animation back in correctly.  I had a similar problem with Cascadeur last night and every tool I've tried, some I paid for (a mistake I guess) do not work properly either.  Foot sliding, hip in wrong place, etc.  Given there's a key on every frame after baking, you really wonder what's going on there.

Jovanni

I usually have a lot of problems with Rigify. Blender used to freeze while adding a child of constraint for a hand that was attached to another character. Sometimes after converting a character, their knees would be turned slightly sideways.
This was causing strange bends in the legs. Now in blender 3.3 it hangs while converting a character from daz rig to rigify. I don't know what this could be connected to. I tried using MHX and it works smoothly and stable.
This is what I need. My knees always look straight. No hang ups. Variety of controllers to animate the character. Now I want to try and delve deeper into learning Auto Rig Pro. But for now, I'm stopped by a bunch of manual settings. I'm referring to the face rig first and foremost. It's not so easy

Padone

@Pickle I'm working with Thomas to fix the Simple IK rig. Right now it works fine but the snap tool, so you can't snap IK. The feet sliding is fixed though.

steps:

1. import your figure
2. convert to simple ik, if it is G3 G8 then don't use poles or the twist bones will not work
3. animate with ik
4. bake
5. save pose preset

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/1418/

edit. Just tested mhx and seems to work fine too, there's no feet sliding that I can notice. Be sure to get 1.7 with the latest fixes.

Padone

@Jovanni Rigify is designed for a pre-bended T pose so it doesn't work fine with the G8 A pose. You can prebend a T pose in daz studio then import as dbz. Or use "optimize pose for IK", but it doesn't straight the legs so a exported T pose is better.

Will see if Thomas can improve "optimize pose for IK".

edit. I see the 1.7 version already has a better "optimize pose for IK" the poles work fine, so I don't think it is necessary to improve.

Jovanni

@Padone
I always apply the steps from the finising tab to both rigs.
-Make all bones posable
-Finalize armature
-Optimize pose for IK
-Apply rest pose.
-Connect IK Chains. 

I tested version 1.7 and this is what I got. A python error occurs when converting to rigify if tongue IK was selected. In addition, loaded JCMs stop working. Here is the text of the error:

Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Jov\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Diffeomorphic-import_daz-046fc6231246\error.py", line 214, in execute
    self.run(context)
  File "C:\Users\Jov\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Diffeomorphic-import_daz-046fc6231246\rigify.py", line 1203, in run
    gen = self.rigifyMeta(context)
  File "C:\Users\Jov\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Diffeomorphic-import_daz-046fc6231246\rigify.py", line 581, in rigifyMeta
    self.rigifyMeta1(context)
  File "C:\Users\Jov\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Diffeomorphic-import_daz-046fc6231246\rigify.py", line 881, in rigifyMeta1
    self.addTongueIk(gen)
  File "C:\Users\Jov\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Diffeomorphic-import_daz-046fc6231246\fix.py", line 359, in addTongueIk
    self.deletePoseConstraints(bname)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 3.3\3.3\scripts\modules\bpy_types.py", line 817, in __getattribute__
    return super().__getattribute__(attr)
AttributeError: 'DAZ_OT_ConvertToRigify' object has no attribute 'deletePoseConstraints'


If tongue IK is not selected when converting there is no error. 
Now look at the difference in thighbending. All the flexions were done the same way from the orthogonal right projection, so it couldn't have been my posing error.
In Rigify, the knee is turned outside. And this causes more uncomfortable deformities under the knee. In MHX, the knee looks straight ahead .
And it's most similar to how it works in Daz Studio. I have attached all the examples for comparison. 

Padone

reported

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/1422/tongue-ik-crash-with-rigify

I'm not sure how do you pose rigify but here the jcms work fine. If you use a custom figure be sure to import all the custom morphs, since there may be morphs driving other morphs.

steps:

1. import the figure, merge rigs, make all bones posable
2. import jcms
3. import all the custom morphs
4. optimize pose for ik, convert to rigify