Reference-instanced Characters

[drblacksnake]

Hello,
I have to make about 100 similar flowers bloom sequentially along cameras path in Maya 8.5, and maintain flexibility, since there could be some minor changes in animation.
I could not use PaintFX because of its limited modeling and animation capabilities, thus I've made nurbs model, smooth-bounded to skeleton, characterized it and animated it to clips, so I can reference it multiple times into single scene and shift animation time in Trax.

After hours spent in vain I've found that each reference import and Trax interface using is painful (scene loads, that takae eons, centered pivot location, lossy material assingnement, etc), I decided to make 20 references and then instance them 4 times each = 100 flowers.
As I instance(!!!) default group that contains reference (which means: there MUST be a transform node with same looking and acting flower), I got everything but skin moving with that transform - skin remains in source position. DAMIT!!!

There is my workflow:
1) flower.mb contains 2 groups: first contains locked skin of stem (inheritTransforms OFF to avoid double skin transformations), second - skeleton with leaves and morped bud, both parented. Also theres character with animation clip.
2) I reference flower.mb (with Group and shareShaders ON).
3) I move that Group's pivot to origin and scale 2 times, because my flower is too little, and to additon by scaling each reference and instance individually I expect to have natural chaos.
4) I position the Group in scene.
5) I duplicate (INSTANCE) that group and expect to have same flower, but after I try to position it elsewhere in space, it looks different.

Where could be my fault? Perhaps other workflow needed?
Somehow need to instance whole character - geo, skelet, material linking.
Please help asap and thanks in advance.

[gmask]

3) I move that Group's pivot to origin and scale 2 times, because my flower is too little, and to addition by scaling each reference and instance individually I expect to have natural chaos.

You should probably group everything in the reference file and scale appropriately in reference4d file. Move that group around in the scene to sure it is acting as you expect and then reference it. You can of course move and scale the group around once you've referenced it.

5) I duplicate (INSTANCE) that group and expect to have same flower, but after I try to position it elsewhere in space, it looks different.

What do you mean by it looks different?

It doesn't surprise me that trying to import a 100 of these is going slowly.

There are three other options..

You have fewer and you position them in groups and render separate passes.

Duplicate the geometry in multiple positions and then make them animate using blendshapes. You can offset and tweak the blends to vary motion. The only catch is that the morph between shapes is linear so you'll want several inbetween shapes for any motion that is circular.

Use particle instancing and get really familiar with mel scripting.

[drblacksnake]

Hey gMask!
Thanks for Your input!

QUOTE(gmask @ 08/26/08, 07:52 AM) [snapback]290454[/snapback]
You should probably group everything in the reference file and scale appropriately in reference4d file. Move that group around in the scene to sure it is acting as you expect and then reference it. You can of course move and scale the group around once you've referenced it.

Ok, I partly solved this scaling by reskinning whole character in source file. Nevertheless, there still are problems with that moving in space.. translation of single reference makes no pain, what I cannot say about moving its instances.

.
..
... <..and all underlaying stem hierarchy, leaves and bud..>
.
..

This works normally in source scene and in master scene until I make instance from it.

QUOTE
What do you mean by it looks different?

The difference is that as I move instance of around, bound skin in instanced piece keeps its world position, which is weird for instances, even if is set to OFF. When I turn that ON, then I got double transforms.

QUOTE
It doesn't surprise me that trying to import a 100 of these is going slowly.

No.. there were only 20 instances of 500kb MB file (= 10 MBytes).. and I waited to load about 25 minutes. Isn't that "just great"?
The problem is in Maya's referencing itself. Only way round I've found was to load master scene without references and do it manually by selecting all reference links and doing single tick in checkbox. Then it took about 10sec to load and 10sec to "translate" it into Maya.

QUOTE
There are three other options..

You have fewer and you position them in groups and render separate passes.

I guess this is not an option, since it doesn't save time and just makes whole pipeline more complex, because adjusting distribution of animation clips in three scenes is more difficult than in single.

QUOTE
Duplicate the geometry in multiple positions and then make them animate using blendshapes. You can offset and tweak the blends to vary motion. The only catch is that the morph between shapes is linear so you'll want several inbetween shapes for any motion that is circular.

This sounds interesting, but I am not sure if I got that idea - blendshapes of what should I make?
If You didn't mean turning whole character in to blendshaped geometry, then skip this part. Otherwise, yes - right, this will screw whole animation to linear interpolations between blendshape inbetweens, and this will mean that I will need to make some additional blendshapes for compensation to get curvy motion. I've done experiments with simple cubes - it works in general, but not for this case, where I have complex animation of each flower. And hell yes -- that animation could change, and this means that I will need to re-work whole set of blends.

QUOTE
Use particle instancing and get really familiar with mel scripting.

I thought about this, however correct me if I am wrong. Afaik there is no way to alter animation time inside each instance based on agePP.
Only use of this method could be to make those 4 duplicates of each of 20 references, however this seems to be too rigid and lots of programming to just have individual transformation (TRS) for each instance as particles update only on time change.

Did I understood those three ways correctly?
There MUST be a more easier way to make instance of whole skinned character, which as I figured out is problem.
Any ideas?

At present moment the only way is to reference all 100 flowers, which means a lot of handjob in unhandy Trax, and hell knows what would happen when I'll do rendering.

[gmask]

QUOTE(drBlacksnak @ 08/26/08, 09:54 AM) [snapback]290465[/snapback]
The problem is in Maya's referencing itself. Only way round I've found was to load master scene without references and do it manually by selecting all reference links and doing single tick in checkbox. Then it took about 10sec to load and 10sec to "translate" it into Maya.

or you could save the master file as an ascii and add the references to the header in a text editor.. it's pretty easy to do.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
I guess this is not an option, since it doesn't save time and just makes whole pipeline more complex, because adjusting distribution of animation clips in three scenes is more difficult than in single.

It depends.. at a certain point you may not beable to render the scene with too many flowers in it.. I have seen somebody screw themselves on a job doing exactly what you are trying to do with the flowers and the solution was to setup multiple passes.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
This sounds interesting, but I am not sure if I got that idea - blendshapes of what should I make?

Yes you turn the whole pant into a series of blendshapes. doing this of course would be more manageable with scripts but you can blendshape hierarchies. If you are worried about variance in animation then only do this for ones that are not in the foreground. Trying to maintain finite control on all the flowers is overwelming technically.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
Otherwise, yes - right, this will screw whole animation to linear interpolations between blendshape inbetweens, and this will mean that I will need to make some additional blendshapes for compensation to get curvy motion.

That's why you just make a blendshape for every single frame you want them for.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
Afaik there is no way to alter animation time inside each instance based on agePP.

Not really because essential you are just cycling through a series of models. But his is good for background objects and crowd simulations.. again i've witnessed a group of animators totally screw themselves trying to fill a stadium with spectators doing it with references and clips and the total number of character adding up to 40,000... they were fired.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
There MUST be a more easier way to make instance of whole skinned character, which as I figured out is problem.Any ideas?

I dunno.. I'll have to mess around with that but I don't have time right now.

QUOTE(drBlacksnak)
At present moment the only way is to reference all 100 flowers, which means a lot of handjob in unhandy Trax, and hell knows what would happen when I'll do rendering.

well because of the later (rendering) you'd be wise to only work with 20 or so flowers in groups and make sure that will render. Then make a copy of the file.. drag the group flowers to a new location using the render of the previous group as an image plane so you can see where they were and then offset the trax clips. This will save you time, complexity and make the rendering more manageable.