Hi all,

Looking for some guidance and assistance on getting my iPi rig to work properly in my Maya rig.

I come from a VFX background, not a modelling/animation/rigging background, so while I know all the basics of Maya, there's a lot I don't know and I'm getting stuck trying to connect my ipi.

Here are my working files for reference:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/csn7e8ri62nf ... 4tBZa?dl=0

One is the rig in Maya that I'm working with (bought on turbosquid), and the other file is the FBX motion builder export from ipisoft.


I've tried my best to follow the tutorials outlined in the wiki and documentation. However, I always end up with problems such as knees facing backwards, or my arms/hands not following the ipi rig. I'll do my best to describe my workflow and maybe someone can correct me where I went wrong.

1: Create new Maya project and import both the model/rig as well as the iPi export.
2: Define the turbosquid model/rig's skeleton (the download from Turbosquid includes the rig and IK, but doesn't have them defined?)
3: Define the iPi export skeleton
4: Connect the turbosquid skeleton's 'Source' to the iPi export skeleton.

This is as far as I've gotten. and it always ends up with animation problems like I described above (knees facing the wrong way, arms/hands not working, etc).

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance.... been loving this software but just hoping I can get a better handle on it.

I never defined a rig that has its own fk/ik ccontrolers. But maya will let you define those in a custom rig. Try importing each file and defining them one at a time. Sometimes maya may connect a joint from different skeletons if they are named the same. Make sure that both skeletons are facing the the positive z axis when you are defining the hik rig. If they are facing a difference direction your animation may be off.

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When you import just the iPi MoCap file, (using Import Motion Capture File), does it perform correctly on its own?

If so,then try using a tutorial character, I haven't beem in Maya in a while, but I think it has pre-engineered character files you can merge in scene, like Motion Builder.

If the iPi file drives that character correctly, then it's your rig I would think.

You can also export your character FBX file out of Maya, (you can, but don't have to export its materials), and import it directly into iPi Studio 3, characterize its bones there and play your tracked animation and it should react correctly to the animation.

Many tutorials on YouTube for MoCap into Maya on custom rigs, maybe look there to see if you could be doing something incorrect.

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As stated 2 posts up, yes, iPi doesn't need both fk and ik, the motion file bvh, fbx, whatever carries all the joint movements.

The rig you have is more for manual keyframing, actually kind of different setup structure than I have seen before, but is what it is.

I opened your rig in Maya and it opens as an unweighted mesh, (is that correct?) I just wanted to see your rig bones config. really, but your mesh will need to be weighted correctly for it to perform accurately also, I didn't go much further than to view its bone structure.

Of course you can save just the skeleton and weight it to any similar mesh, so if you just want to see the skeleton animation to the mocap file, thats all you will get without a properly weighted character mesh. Like viewing the mocap on a biped in Max.

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