Friday 7 December 2012

Updated: Computers for the elderly - Windows 8 for the silver surfers

My mother had been moaning for sometime that she found emailing (the only thing she really does on a computer) frustrating. I had set up a Gmail account for her and thought the web interface would be sufficient - not so. Not only was the web interface confusing but windows 7 was confusing too, with its may pop messages that were meaningless to her. 

Then I had a light bulb moment. Could the Windows 8 Metro interface, the one I had berated because of its lack of functionality, be good for an elderly person for exactly that reason. I determined to spend £25 and find out.


My aim is that she will never stray from the metro interface because it is ideally suited to her. There is precious little multi-tasking, you can only do one thing at a time - which is good. You can only have one programme on the screen at a time - which is also good. The screens have very little on them - which is good. Pressing the Windows key will (nearly) always bring you back to the beginning. Excellent!

Installing Windows 8 was easy, after remarkably few checkboxes it sat downloading and installing for an hour or so without human intervention. I chose only to keep personal files as there really was nothing else to keep. Meanwhile I forwarded her Gmail account to a new hotmail account. Hotmail forced me to use a more complicated password :/

Windows 8, once installed, sets you up for a windows live account, sign in with your hotmail etc. This is the first Windows 8 oddity as it only signs you into hotmail, nothing else. I wanted the computer to boot straight into the start screen, no logging in, and that meant changing the account to a local account. (many guides on the internet) and changing it so you don't have to log in. Weirdly you still seem to be automatically logged in to Hotmail (which I wanted) and there appears to be no difference with the other type of account. Oh well, Microsoft moves in mysterious ways.

I was able to organise the start menu; removing all the 'trending' rubbish and travel stuff, and was able to replace them with tiles which were shortcuts to sites she might like. One really annoying thing is the 'Live Tile' feature which changes pictures in the tiles every few seconds. You can turn it on or off, but you can not change the speed of refresh and after about 5 minutes it becomes intolerable so you switch them all off and the screen looks a little less glitzy.

Another problem you can encounter is if you install any software using the desktop. You end up with a pletherer of icons for programmes users were not meant to see like configuration programmes. There seems to be no process for deciding what would be in the start menu like there was in earlier windows. You have to go and remove them all.


Anyway here is my Start screen with just the things she is going to use and a few treats. Now we enter the testing phase. I think she will find this start screen comprehensible and welcoming.. Who knows, I shall report back.

Reporting back
1) you can not have a battery indicator on the start screen (it is a laptop) only on the desktop.
2) no clock.. I tries a clock app and it only kind of worked.

Day 1
Not good. My mother thought it was confusing which I thought was unfair considering there couldn't be much less on the screen.
First problem was there is no wifi notification (infact I think no notifications at all on the start screen). I forgot i hadn't set it up for her wifi and there was nothing to tell me I hadn't. Only found out after the mail did not respond. Not a great start.
One of the tiles was an internet short cut to her favourite cinema. When she went to use it it was hijacked my microsoft and asked he to log into her windows live account. Why!? we were alreadly logged in to receive mail and who cares anyway. That was the second bad start.
We'll do more another day.

Day2 (which is some days after day one)
She was still a bit confused but it was better. I think the complete lack of anything on the screen except for the essentials is a bonus. The inbox confused her even though it works the same way as gmail inbox. Oh well.
We both felt that the text was a bit small (considering the screen was so empty), but as per Windows 7, I was amazed at how little control you have over the font size. I was able to increase it by 125% using DPI settings which was better. Also made the cursor and mouse larger and inverted. You can change the size of the text you are typing by right clicking on the message but we're trying to avoid right clicking because she's a maniac with a mouse.
Internet Explorer shortcuts still default to Microsoft the first time you use them from the Start Screen. Have not found a way round this which is really annoying for me and confusing for my Mum.

But she did admit, guardedly, that maybe it was a bit easier. time will tell.

Day 3
An enormous purpley blue stripe appeared across the screen which said 'this computer will restart in 15 minutes'.... thanks


Day 4
Discover you can not print from Windows 8 email app



Wednesday 14 November 2012

New film 'Still Walking' using blender masks



I have just completed a little film for the Butlers which will be on show as part of their appearance at the Flint Microfest, Wiltshire, England.

Flint Microfest will take place at Salisbury Art Centre on the 17th of November and Pounds Arts Corsham on the 18th of November and the Butlers will be walking from one to the other armed with Victorian maps and traditional measuring equipment to record their progress as they go.

Their 'walks' are inspired by Richard Long's artwork 'A Line Made by Walking' (1967) where he got of a train, walked up and down a field for an hour until he had made a path, took a photo of it and went home.

I made the looping walk cycles in Blender using the lovely new Masks feature in 2.64a. I was going to use AfterEffects, but after five minutes of hating AfterEffects I returned to blender as 2.64a was released and the new Masks saved my life. I did need to upgrade my computer as the interface needs plenty of horsepower and it is still buggy so save every time you make a change.

I ran out of time to completely smooth everything out but I'm pretty pleased with the results. It was all shot on a 550D at Frogs Copse in Southampton, sadly under threat of development.  The soundtrack is made from all the sounds we found there.

Still Walking - Following in the footsteps of Richard Long from Larryboy Eutopia on Vimeo.

Monday 12 November 2012

Windows 8 won't boot - SSDs Gigabyte mobos AHCI UEFI

(edit: This is becoming my most accessed page - so don't forget to complain to Gigabyte because they've obviously done something wrong - if they don't know they can't fix it)

Well I just been in a week of hell as my new computer will only boot on the 5th attempt or so. It was fine at first. I have a Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H motherboard, an OCZ Vertex Plus SSD and a Segate 2T HD.

This all started after I installed the F18 version of the bios, I can't remember which version was on there originally. After that on most attempts to boot I would get 'data can not be read from disk'. Also the SSD (which contains the operating system) would disappear from the boot list in the bios. I think changing the cooler was a coincidence to throw me off the track.

The following worked for me, it may or may not do the same for you so do some research.

I did some research and it seemed I should turn on AHCI (whatever) in Peripherals in the Bios (Sata Mode selection) and that would make good. Well windows did boot and then crashed. One time then I did this and set it back to IDE Windows said I had to use a restore point to get it going.

So further reading and apparently its not straight forward enabling AHCI after you've installed windows 8. There is a link here but the info is wrong in the main article and only corrected in the comments so I thought I would put the correct solution here.

This uses Regedit and you can completely destroy your system with regedit so use with care and I take no responsibility for any damage trying to do the following might cause. Also you need to have installed the Motherboard disk controller drivers.

amended from their website
  • Exit all applications
  • Go to the start screen and type in regedit.
  • If you see the UAC (User Account Control) dialogue box, just click continue
  • Locate the the following registry subkey:
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\StartOverride
    In the right pane, you will find a key labelled O with the value '3'. Double click on this and set the value to '0'
     
  • Go up one level to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\
    there should be a key called ErrorControl which has a value '3'. set this to '0'
  • Reboot your machine and set Peripherals / Sata mode selection / to 'AHCI'. 
  • Save and exit and all should be good.
I shall be monitoring my system. Hope this post cuts down the time it takes you to solve this problem.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Back borders, pixel aspect, HD, SD, and Adobe CS 5.5

This is well documented except for the solution. ( and I will be concentrating on PAL here ).

In the days of Premiere CS3 we were blissfully ignorant. Standard television was 4:3 aspect ratio and wide screen was 16:9. HD telly was 16:9 - all was well.

In premiere, as with other software, if you wanted to make some computer generated footage you would make it 1024x576 (576 for the number of vertical lines in PAL and 1024 because 1024:576 is 16:9) Magic. Also of course HD was 16:9 so you could just scale it down.

This all changed with CS4 ( and the chap on this forum suggests it was coincident with a juicey contract with the BBC). Because if you do the boring maths, 4:3 is not really 4:3, and neither is 16:9.

So SD widescreen is actually a bit wider. 1.46:1 and you are suppose to crop 13 pixels of the top and bottom of you picture. Or, as has been stated elsewhere, widescreen SD is 1050x576...

As one non BBC engineer said to me once, ' you can do it the right way or you can do it the BBC way'.

In the end, as someone who is producing finished material destined for DVD and playable on modern digital devices capable of playing right up to the picture edge (no need for the safe zone), I just want it to work. I don't want to suddenly have thin black borders at the sides (which will show up on Youtube and Vimeo) for the sake of some engineer being right. The software should be there to enable you, not to prove a point.

Forum contributors have been posting how this is not a problem with other editors and apparently there is a button in encore CS6 which corrects the issue. But there is still the problem in Premiere as all the presets for PAL will give you the 1.46:1 aspect.

My workflow is thus:
I work in true 16:9 (usually HD) on my project. When I render for youtube or vimeo I render in true 16:9 using the custom settings in Premiere. These heretical services don't seem to mind this.

When exporting to Encore I take in the rendered footage and scale it (for HD) by 53.4 vertically and 54.7 horizontally. (My reasoning here is whatever the BBC says my telly is 16.9 and the telly will stretch the picture accordingly when dealing with the non square pixel aspect ratio). In the end its 26 pixels and its up to you if you want to loose it. Scaling the vertical by .5 will give a better result)

I then export to Encore so that the Scaling and the transcoding are done in one step thus reducing the number of times the footage is mangled.

Well that's my solution and for people who don't want / can't afford to upgrade to CS6 I hope it helps.

Saturday 3 November 2012

Windows 8 Ugrade with Classic Shell... Very good indeed

So I finally took the plunge and purchased my Windows 8 upgrade for £25 (you can use Paypal). I actually used the Windows 8 trial to run the Upgrade Assistant (XP was also resident on the system) and that caused the Assistant to say that the upgrade wasn't available, but, following a thread on a Microsoft site I ran the assistant in Windows 7 compatability mode and hey presto!. I already had the 64 bit version installed so I can offer no advice on choosing 32bit or 64bit when upgrading.

The upgrade was a piece of cake. I selected 'custom' and wiped the Windows 8 trial version (as it was on my new SSD. Windows 8 activated without asking me (in fact I had to check it had happened.)

You are then presented with Metro which you instantly have to do something about - so off to Classic Shell (and why not donate and buy this chap a drink for all he's done). With Classic Shell installed Windows 8 boots to the desktop rather than Metro and you can choose between Windows Classic, XP or 7 menu. I chose Classic. Classic Shell also adds the XP file manager menu we miss so much.
(Get rid of the stupid ribbon on FileExplorer with http://winaero.com/download.php?view.18)

Apart from that it's plain sailing. Windows 8 boot up times are fantastic. I was able to install all my old software. The taskmanager has great new features and the File Copying in progress dialogue has natty graphs if you want them.

One note though. Windows 8 seemed to find all the drivers without so much as a dialogue box. When I went to install my manufacturers video drivers (coz I thought they would be better), the screen stopped working on reboot and I had a hell of a time - eventually going back using a restore point.

Windows 8 desktop design seems more thorough (windows 7 looked pretty ugly if you turned off Aero). Working with two monitors is easy and the Taskbar now works in all monitors and you can choose how it works.

Not much else to say really. My PS2 keyboard wouldn't work and apparently that's a bug that being fixed. Apart from that it's business as usual.

Metro really is an irrelevant bolt on. Using IE brings you to the desktop. With two monitors you can have Metro in one and the Destop in another, but Metro disappears when you touch the desktop so there's no multiple screen working. Metro shows an irrelavent bunch of your programmes cluttering the Metro desktop. All in all, Metro is a dead loss on a desktop system, but with Classic Shell you don't have to worry about it.

All in all, if you fancy a few days mucking about with your computer, £25 will give you a fresh, new and most useable OS. I don't really know why its getting such a lack luster press - Microsoft have done a good job!

enjoy

Saturday 27 October 2012

Blender MJPEG and Premiere pro

Many times when people post problems using Blender's MJPEG encoded AVI files the reply tends to be.... use image sequences or use uncompressed. But there is a very good reason for using MJPEG - the results look great and the files sizes are much much smaller... and of course its much easier to handle than a mass of image files. But at High Definition sizes they don't work with Windows Media Player, or more importantly, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 ( and probably other versions )

And the answer is indeed the Morgan MJPEG codec at http://www.morgan-multimedia.com/morgan/php/products.php?sProductId=4 which has a 60 day trial but otherwise you have to pay for, but, oh well, sometimes you have to pay for stuff and I'm sure the chap deserves it - 20 euros in this case.

Doesn't solve Windows Media Player bit does solve Premiere, but you can use VLC or Media Player Classic to play them.

And thats it really.. I just wanted to add to the posts pointing in the right direction

Sunday 2 September 2012

Hotmail Exchange Android and Jelly Bean

I have been using the Hotmail app for mail/calendar/contacts as the Icecream sandwich exchange thing goes wrong all the time. The big problem with this is that you can't add a contact to hotmail from the app (think microsoft wants you to but a windows phone)!

Anyway, driven by bordom I decided to try and install some custom Roms on my phone - because I could. I thought I would share the information here as it is not easy to get the right answers sometimes.

This is no step by step guide, just a few important things which stopped me wrecking my phone.There are loads of guides to flashing roms on the internet but hopefully this fills in the gaps.

Firstly a disclaimer: You undertake any instructions here at your own risk. This will void your phone warranty and could possibly render your phone un-useable. I accept no liability for your phone, your data or you.

my phone is a samsung galaxy s2 and so the instructions are for that. Your phone may be different

Lesson 1: Kernels
A kernal in computer speak is the software core. Every time the software on your phone is updated the kernal changes to a new version. Putting in a different kernal is like putting in an engine from a different car, all of the gearbox connectios and so forth will be wrong.. so it will not work.

Your Kernel version is in Settings/About Phone/Kernel version - eg: 2.6.35.7-I9100XXKG1-CL349526
the important part is after the I9100 ie XXKGI. Mine was BVLPD

We do not strictly need to root the phone but it is worth having a copy of your kernel if something goes wrong. You can get that here:

http://s2tip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/kernels-updated-270612-latest-insecure.html

The insecure kernels are ones where the software has been hacked so that you can grant yourself administrative permissions. The secure ones are the untouched version.

Lesson 2: Clockwork Mod Recovery (CWM)

Clockwork Mod Recovery replaces your phones 'recovery software' ( thats the boot software that saves you when things go really really badly) AND KERNEL. It allows you to take a complete back up of your present Rom so you can return it to its original state.
So this nice Chainfire chap has incorporated CWM with the Kernels and some other stuff and made what he calls CF root files.
BUT, unlike many other website say, YOU NEED TO HAVE THE RIGHT ONE!

you need to read this thoroughly
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399

you can get the right cf-root file for your kernel here.
 http://www.mygsmforum.com/f15/download-cf-root-samsung-galaxy-s2-i9100-11221/

You Use Odin to flash the kernels, becareful.

Lesson 3:Backing up

Once the CWM Kernal has been installed your phone should A) work and B) be rooted. You can now install Titamium backup and this will allow you to backup all your apps and all there data. Do this and it stores it on the internal SD storage.

After you've done this you can boot into recovery mode and use CWM to do a 'nandroid' which is a rom backup. This stores the backup on the internal SD storage so its there if something goes wrong. If something does go wrong (as it did for me) boot back into recovery and install this backup. Thewww.

Lesson 4: Jelly Bean Rom

The Rom I used is the ReVolt Jelly Bean rom (Galaxy S2 only) available here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1755884
You will have to try a different Jelly Bean Rom if you do not have the GT-i9100.
I have been using ReVolt for nearly to weeks now and V2.2 seems very stable indeed. No exchange hiccups.

There is one weird setting you need to make otherwise the email client just sits there staring at you.

You need to do this:

Settings -> Data Usage -> Menu (this is the bottom left hand menu touch button) -> and check 'Auto Sync Data'



enjoy

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Cheesey 70s lens flare with the Blender Compositor

I rendered out something I was working on and realized that I had got the lighting wrong. the material I was trying was quite reflective and during the animation the material burned out - I had over exposed hotspots. While I considered what I was going to do about the lighting I realised that what it really needed to make it look authentic was lens flare.

I thought I would try it in Aftereffects as I'm always conning myself that I will oneday learn Aftereffects, but the tutorials for that were either very bad or involved buying an expensive pluggin. Not doing that! So I returned to Blender. Most of the tutorials for Blender involved meticulously choreographing lens flares by hand and I wanted something automatic and easy. Also I was quite happy with smudgy anamorphic style lens flare rather than beautiful blobby nikon lens flare. So I decided to do it myself using the compositor.




Now with my 70s star filter node set up my humdrum dual control assembly suddenly becomes a luxurious and desirable item. Why not use it on all your renders ;)

The node set up is here:
enjoy

Friday 27 July 2012

Android looses sync with hotmail over exchange - Now maybe workround

Not really a Blender post. Yesterday I did a hard reset on my Galaxy S2 because the calendar was empty, the email app had a circle thing going endlessly round and round and my contacts had lost the nice pictures I had set for them.

Doing a factory reset is a little tedious as you have to reinstall the apps and set everything up etc.

Well this morning it has happened again. So this is getting serious. Googling this problem it seems it has existed since 2010 which is even more worrying.

I am not using Gmail because I have been using Outlook for years and like the workflow. I am now trying doing everything using Hotmail; using the Outlook hotmail connector and android sync over exchange. My old SPV C500 windows phone worked seemlessly with outlook, not something that can be said for Android. The hideous Kies software that comes the phone can sync with outlook. you will start to find any contact with anything in the Business field multiply and the calendar sync was rubbish. Used googles calendar sync for a while. My favourite moment is when I try and sync the memos on a freshly reset machine with the notes on Outlook; Kies will delete the notes in Outlook because they have been deleted on the phone. Ggggrrrrreaaaat!

So this morning I shall try to get the phone up and running with out a factory reset. I tried removing the hotmail account from the calendar yesterday but that didn't work. If this is going to happen most days I need a quick solution.


So I removed the account under settings/account and sync and restarted the phone. and set up the account again.

username: joebloggs@hotmail.com
password: *****
domain
server: m.hotmail.com
ssl: checked
receive certificates: checked

It takes a while to sync everything

Doing some reading while it syncs it looks like it could be a bug from the recent update from 4.0.3 to 4.0.3 (no other info given). That was a week or so a go so I don't know why it would suddenly start happening. Any looks like the 4.0.4 update will fix the problem when it finally arrives. It's going to be a pain to have to do this everyday.

Well removing and replacing the account seems to work. The colour has changed (I liked the nice orange) and you have to do Clear Calendars in the Agenda Widget if you use it before selecting the exchange calendar again.

Think I've found it!!!! The corruption seems to occur when the battery is fully charged and the battery full notification appears in the notification bar. So the workround until the update is don't charge your phone to the max until the update arrives.... :/

Looks like it may well be a microsoft problem.. look here

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/hotmail-sync/why-is-hotmail-not-syncing-correctly-on-my-mobile/f1768cab-2818-4637-90a3-b6f00e1e4500?page=1&tm=1341158876259
and log your details

months later:
I am now testing a Jelly Bean Rom and things seem to be working OK. Will post Jelly Bean solution soon.
See new post  here http://blenderboydiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/hotmail-exchange-android-and-jelly-bean.html

Saturday 16 June 2012

Getting OpenCV to work on Ubuntu 10.10

I wanted my face tracker working on my Ubuntu box. It uses Ubuntu 10.10 as anything later seems to crash ( and I hate the dock thing on any operating system ). I had the 64bit version installed and I had read that this can cause problems with some python libraries that are not written for 64bit.
The main thing was the cv2.so (which is the linux equivalent of the cv2.pyd used in windows) was not being compiled and so the openCV stuff I had written in Blender for windows would not work.

So I reinstalled 10.10 32bit version and followed the tutorial here for installing openCV. http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/InstallGuide%20:%20Debian . After a long time it had installed and the cv2 file was created. I had read that there were some problems with video texture on 2.49b but having downloaded the 32bit version for python 2.6 it seems to work OK.

Onwards and upwards
L

Thursday 14 June 2012

The woman who married a pig

My film is now available for viewing in its entirety - enjoy




See 'The Woman Who Married a Pig' at
the 14th Hiroshima International Film Festival
August 23-27 2012

Monday 4 June 2012

Head / Face tracking with Blender - the easy way

HA! Theres nothing easy about this (I haven't even got it working yet!   It Works!)

If you're like me ( and you did follow 'the easy way' title) you don't want to get into really deep programming because, like me, you're not very good at it.

So I have been trying to get face tracking working with the Blender Games Engine (in fact this is my third attempt) and I have hit no end of problems. The problems are around software and library versions.

The person to be most helpful is Akta ( see http://www.aktasway.com/blog/blender-and-opencv/ ) and Akta is kind enough to give away a little demo system which sadly does not work on my computer; but he also gives the original python scripts so I stand a chance of getting it going. Akta's demo is compliled for Python 2.6. He includes 'pyd' files (sort of python dlls) for OpenCV (which does all the clever face stuff. and PIL (python image library). But anyway it doesn't work.

Ashid (http://www.ashsid.sk/wp/?p=174&lang=en-us ) who wrote the marvelous VideoTexture for 2.48 (I still consider this the best (Windows only) and produces beautifully smooth output with an camcorder) has come up with a better version of the VideoTexture for Blender 2.62 using the python VideoCapture library ( and theoretically it should work for 2.49b)
But there is already a VideoTexture for Blender 2.6 I hear you cry! Yes, but a) it is not as good as Ashid's for windows because it uses FFMPEG and b) I can not actually find anywhere about using it with a webcam. The manual mentions it and then fails to mention how to do it.

So first, I tried Blender 248 with videotexture. It uses Python 2.5 so does not work with Atka's code :(

Next, tried Blender 2.63 (why not do it for the latest version I thought). 2.63 uses Python 3.2 and openCV has not been compiled for 3.2! (I did try 'ctypes for opencv' but that didn't work. )

So lastly I am trying Blender 2.49b. It uses Python 2.6 :) BUT, I am using Windows 7 pro 64BIT . Does this mean I have to install Python 2.6 64bit? (which I have). Does this mean I need 64bit versions of the libraries (which don't exist)? Can I install both 32 and 64bit versions of Python?

So I worked on and now its working though its a bit flakey (not anymore)

In the end I used the cv2.pyd library from opencv 2.41 to both capture the video and do the face detection. I don't think I need any other libraries. Blender 249b 32bit and Python 2.6.
I used bytefish's example here http://www.bytefish.de/wiki/opencv/object_detection . The lbpcascade_frontalface.xml detection scheme is a little primative (no eyes or head angles but is suppose to be faster.
 
And without any more a do here it is - Blend file

ONLY WORKS WITH BLENDER 2.49b!
(I use Windows 7 - it may work in Mac or Linux but not tested)
(update - tried on Ubuntu 10 and there seem to be some pretty horrible issues with numpy)

You must have

   
you need the cv2.pyd and lbpcascade_frontalface.xml in the same directory as the Blend file.
The cv2 and lbpcascade_frontalface.xml files are part of opebCV from http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/ version 2.41.
   
You will also need a webcam attached. (you can have more than one webcam see the Start.py file in the text editor)

To use press P and to end press ESc

Results vary greatly on lighting conditions and camera quality

enjoy, L

If you find this useful or it doesn't work for you please leave a comment - as I have no idea

Wednesday 9 May 2012

How to move a Rigify Rig

Once you've got as far as skining your rig and you're weight painting you kind of think, 'Hey nearly there!' and then you try and move the rig how you want so you can do the weight painting and find it doesn't really do what you want.. or anything much... Has all this time you've spent been wasted!

no

It's just not intuitive at all. The main confusing thing is that there are two sets of controls for each limb and they are the same shape as each other and on top of each other. Great. sooo....


On layer 20 of your blend file (not bone layer 20, but normal layer 20) you will find all the meshes used for the control bones and you can change them, either to make them easier to access (because your model has fat legs), or because you want to tell them apart.

For the uninitiated there are two types of control bones in the rig: FK (forward kinematics) bones -  these are like moving the joints of a doll and each limb receives the rotation of the joint nearer the body. Then there are IK bones (inverse kinematics) where you move the extremity and all the other bones move to fit they best way they can between the extremity and the body.

For the arms and the legs there is an IK bone which is about the most useful control bone for the limb. It is the same shape and position as another control bone which is the most mystifying of the limb. If you don't know what your doing you will select either at random and the limb will either move or it won't.


In the picture (we are looking at the meshes on layer 20) you will see the mesh used for the shape of the left foot control bone WGTfoot_IK.L Hidden behind it is WGTfoot.L. We want to make the useful bone different so we can select it easily and not be confused. I stuck a triangle bit at the front of the IK bone to make it easier to select.


You need to do the same with the hands as well. The 'rig hand_IK.L' control bone is just on top of the wrist and also cunning on top of the 'rig hand.L' bone. So I'm going to change it. The mesh on layer 20 is called WGThand_IK.L.


Now my hand IK bone has a nifty handle to separate it from the other bone. If you move these IK bones about, the limbs move... sort of

If we look at the arm we can see that the non IK control can come away from the arm.



The IK control is still above the wrist but the non IK or 'FK' (forward kinematics) control has move south along with the other controls we would normally associate with moving the arm.

So here is how it works. With the FK/IK (hand_ik...) slider set to 1.00 (see picture below) the IK control bone will contol the arm. To be more exact the arm will follow the controller bone but you can not rotate the controller bone so the hand will end up in some pretty strange positions.


If you move the FK/IK slider to 0 then the arm will move back over the other set of controller bones. Now you can move the arm about in the normal way; setting each bone one by one.

By pressing the Snap IK-FK button (bottom one) the IK control bone will move into exactly the same position as the FK bones. If you press the Snap FK-IK button then the FK bones will move to the position of the IK bones. So, if you have the FK/ IK slider up to 1.00. you can press Snap FK-IK to bring the FK control bones to the position of your arm. Move the non IK control bones to a new postion, and then press Snap IK- FK to move the arm to the new position.

Oh and by the way! There are some other IK bones which are influenced by the slider in the same way.



It is interesting to note that the Rig Main Properties sliders and buttons are the same for the set of controls (that was crap explanation). IE. the FK/IK slider is the same slider whether you see it when the IK control bone is selected or the non IK bone is selected.


If you have a non IK control bone selected then there is an extra slider.. Isolate Rotation. This works if the FK/IK slider is set to 0. Basically id Isolate Rotation is set to 0 and you tilt the body the arms will tilt with it. With Isolate Rotation at 1 the arms will keep there current orientation from the shoulder even if the body is tilted.

I think thats enough for now. Its the same from the legs pretty much. Once you've mastered these animation can begin.

Related Posts


How to weight paint a Rigify model

This has been quite labourious and I am not finished by any means.
(If you've not done weight painting before find some simple tutorials to get some practice before trying this)

I'm not sure I can recommend the automatic weights. It seems to give quite a low influence to the parts of the mesh you want and has a small influence over everywhere else. The result is you have to go over the whole model removing the unwanted influence from each bone and strengthening it where needed.

First things first. What to Weight paint?

It seems that in earlier versions of Rigify you needed to select a hidden layer of bones to parent them to the mesh. Now you don't, but you do need to unhide them for weight painting.


This gives you an extra set of boans which the mesh is actually boned to (it is not connected to the control bones). Remember 'Envelopes' should be unchecked as weight painting uses Vertex Groups.



You can see the new set of bones is much like the original rig we used to set up Rigify but for some reason we have two bones for each section of each major limb. (dunno why, but they both have an influence created under automatic weights.)

Secondly, you need to reduce any subdivision modifier on your model to just about 0. Weight painting seems to be a lot slower in 2.6 than it was in 2.49b and you need all the help you can get. Also, make sure that the Armature modifier is the first modifier in the modifier stack for the Model (ie. above subsurf). this seems to speed things up a bit.

Now you can spend ages weight painting everything - good luck and drink lots of tea.

Weight painting fingers is nigh impossible and needs to be taken into acount when making the model. Disregard the position of the legs and fingers in the Rigify initial rig and have the legs and fingers spread to reduce you problems later.

nice tip: See face Selection Masking here http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Weight_Paint#Face_Selection_Masking
Next - How to move the arms and legs about.... not as easy or straight forward as it sounds.

Related Posts 
How on Earth do you use Rigify in Blender 2.6?
How to move a Rigify Rig

Tuesday 8 May 2012

How on Earth do you use Rigify in Blender 2.6?

I hate rigging. You spend hours copying an example out of a book or off the internet only to have your rig go into spasms in front of you and the rig does not work dispite hours of  work and frustration.

I tried to use Rigify in my last film only to give up because it did not seem to work. I came up with my own rig which was fine unless the character took more than 2 paces - so I used a fast cutting editting technique and the characters never walked more than two paces in any shot.

So now I am making another film and I need characters I am having an other look at Rigify. The answers of how it works are buried in a forum thread 11 pages long that starts in 2010 and is thus mostly out of date.

Here is the very simple 'how it works' which no doubt misses crucial features and breaks crucial rules but here we go:

1. Start a new project in Blender and open User Preferences under File and under Addons enable Rigify. It is near the bottom of the list under Rigging.

2. Create or import your model you are going to animate.

3. Shift A or Spacebar or however you bring up the Add dialogue and under Armature select Rigify. You will get a simple humanoid armature.

4. Your model and armature should have their feet at the origin of the Blender space (ie. where the red, green and blue grid lines meet.

5. Edit the armature in edit mode so the bones are in the right place for your model. ( details not covered here - you need to look at some basic armature tutorials)
tips i) switch on X Axis Mirroring in the tool bar of the 3D View window (press T) then everything you do to one side of the armature will be copied to the other side.
ii) a bit of bend in the arms and legs helps the IK (see note at the end)
iii) Also do not scale the armature as an object (scale the bones in Edit). Its worth doing Alt S to remove any scaling as the 'generated' armature (next step) will not have that scaling.

6. Shift A or Spacebar or however you bring up the Search dialoge and start typing Rigify. 'Rigify Generate Rig'. A new very complicated Rig will apear - it will appear in the wrong place. Delete the lold Armature. Move the new Armature over your model in Object mode. It should fit.

7. Select your model then select the Armature and do Control P. I select deform with automatic weights.

Voila!!!
But Wait! There are no constraints! Ah but there are. Once you have done the above proceedure all the constraints are turned down to zero. to switch them on:
1. Press 'n' in the 3D View and the right hand panel should open up.
2. Second from the bottom is Rig Main Properties and when you select a control bone the IK influences for that bone are available as sliders 
 Well if that helped no one else it helped me :)

Next -> Weight painting (not as easy as it sounds)

Related Posts
How to weight paint a Rigify model
How to move a rigify model

Sunday 5 February 2012

Depreciated

Well I've had a lot of fun after the last two days. I did some python in the 2.4 days and I wasn't that good but I had it worked out. Of course in Blender 2.49b (my favourite release by the way) things changed and got 'depreciated'.

Well now I getting back on the GamesEngine thing with 2.61 and I now have to get to grips with the new stuff, that replaces the depreciated. And its been such a painful journey I thought I would document it for a change. So.......

This is really basic ( but it still took me ages to work it out from the documentation)

to get the list of controllers we still use - GameLogic.getCurrentController() - s0
ourControllers = GameLogic.getCurrentController()

then to get the sensor and the actuator we used to do
mySensor = ourControllers.getSensor("Mouse") - where Mouse is the title of the sensor
myActuator = ourControllers.getActuator("MoveThing") - where MoveThing is the title of the actuator

now you should do this:
mySensor = ourControllers.sensors["Mouse"]
myActuator = ourControllers.actuators["MoveThing"]

if the sensor was Mouse movement before you would have got the x direction movement by:
Xmovement = mySensor.getXPosition()

now, in 2.61 I have to write it like this:
Xmovement = mySensor.position[1]
here position is a list variable; it holds two values, firstly the x position then the y. the number in the square bracket denotes which of the variables we are reading, 1 for the first, 2 for the second.

Say our actuator is a Motion actuator (simple), we now write to it like this:
myActuator.dRot = [0, 0, 1]
so we are changing the rotational value which is a list like for position; x,y,z

To make the actuator actually do the thing we used to do this:
GameLogic.addActiveActuator(myActuator,1)

this is now written like this:
ourControllers.activate(myActuator)

and finally - how do we read and write to properties in 2.61?
we used to:
own = cont.getOwner() and then address the property by own.frameY
now do
owner = myControllers.owner and then own["frameY"] to address the property.

there you go. Hope it helps someone. let me know if its wrong