Opinions sort. Diffeomorphic. Rigify Vs MHX rig ?
trebor_gb_37ba5b8bb6
Posts: 33
Ive used Rigify beforefor animations, but not MHX. Essentially I know they both do the same thing and quite well now Ive had a play with MHX.
I'd Just like to know other opinions on which might be better with one over the other? advantages, disavantages?
Thank you
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Comments
Check this thread first - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/620921/best-rig-type-to-use-rigify-mhx-simple
Quite a few enhancement / fixing have been made to MHX, since you've started playing with it, you'll experience them. I've been testing sending the animation back to DS with MHX, I would not say it's 100% perfect but so far so good.
Also check this thread - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/672561/diffeomorphic-how-to-export-animation/p1 ; There some changes and tricks related to MHX...
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Setup/Rigging
All in all it's about use case and preference. I prefer MHX if the asset is staying in Blender. It is more inline with "industry standards" IE. has FK/IK switching. Exporting to Unreal I started with SimpleIK and eventually created a custom Pawn that uses the MHX rig and havent looked back.
What do you mean by "custom pawn"? Do you have an MHX rig in Unreal, using Unreal's IK blueprint system?
Rigify also has FK/IK switching.
Also you have the option of importing the better facs control rig that shipped with Genesis 8.1
Which makes it alot easier to polish facial animation mocap that you imported via the free ,video based ,live link option for Genesis 8 in Blender.
As the Bitbucket link doesn't have the executable, how does one acquire it?
Sorry, here is the link to the windows executable
https://github.com/Qaanaaq/Face_Landmark_Link/releases/tag/v0.2
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/downloads/
Thanks. Downloaded and trying under WINE. Sorry if I've pushed the thread a bit sideways. As someone who has never successfully exported a human figure out of Studio and into Blender for animation, I look forward to learning from everyone. The figures in my scenes are all from Mixamo, while the vehicles and sets are from Studio.
Just be advised that “Face landmark app” is very
bare bones” as it does not actually install to your program files but just runs from clicking the .exe and asks a few Y/N questions in a command terminal.
It the nbrowses for the location of your source video to face track
and runs the tracking solve and quits leaving you a .CSV file
that you must import into Blender running the latest stable build of Diffeomorphic with a diffeo imported Daz genes 8.1.
I've run the program, created a CSV, and imported via Diffeo, though I have not yet selected to create either Rigify or MHX via Diffeo inside of Blender. Also looks like I need another Blender plugin to import and apply the CSV.
The latest stable build installs two N-panel tabs.
in Blender, “Daz setup” and “Daz runtime”
the latter is where you see the button to import Live link and/or Apple Facecap data files.
As this loads the animation to the G8.1 FACS rig,
it seems however that if you convert to rigify
you will lose the Daz FACS rig weighting and the imported CSV data will not work ( at least that is my experience).
I have not tried MHX becuse I despise the MHX rigs
I know of no way to convert the Daz FK rig to rigify and keep just the Daz FACS rig active, (Perhaps @Padone could chime in if there is a way)
So I just leave the Daz FK rig in place because I have two free retargeting addons (Rokkoko & ExpyKit), to import Data from My offline hoard of the entire mixamo library as well as bespoke animation from Iclone and they can both retarget to the Daz FK rig much Like BVH does inside Daz studio.
You can import CSV animations from the FACS panel. Be sure to check FACS in easy import. This works for G8 G81 G9.
@Padone
just to clarify,
I am using the Excellent FACS control rig that shipped with genesis 8.1
because it makes it so much easier to tweak/polish the facial mocap on a separate non destructive layer in Blender.
However if I convert the rig to rigify (which would be preferred of course)
I lose the Daz FACS control rig to the basic rigify head controls.
thus losing my ability to clear out the previous CSV mocap data and import a new one.
Not a major shows stopper ,for a free solution, if you are importing external animation for the body via Diffeo, Rokkoko or Expykit.
But it would be Ideal to have a rigify control rigged body
with the Daz FACS rig attached to keep using CSV data imports
This is how we have it with Auto rig pro body rigs with Faceit mocapped heads attached.
@brainmuffin
It is in the “Daz Runtime” tab under “FACS”
@wolf359 When you convert to rigify, the G81 FACS rig is in the "custom" bone layer, in blender 4 you have to make it visible in the bone collections. However, the "custom" layer is not added to the rigify panel and also makes the relative bones visible that's probably a bug, now reported to Thomas.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/1960/g81-facs-rig-issues
Does Diffeo work with Blender 4?
@brainmuffin
In the N-panel of Bender.
Also I am remaining on blender 3.6 LTS for now but I am fairly certain diffeo supports blender 4.
I don't have that panel. I'll see if I can find it.
On Blender 4, I install DAZ Importer, there are no errors, but it doesn't show up. I currently have 4.0.2, so not sure if I need newer. So far, I'm sitcking with 3.6.2.
Same here I find nothing, so compelling in version 4.x , that would make me endure the vicissitudes of potentially breaking many of my critical addons by updating.