I've been looking around for any learning materials that cover non-dynamic mechanical rigging without much luck.
There seemed to have been a couple good courses from 3DBuzz and cmiVFX but these are no longer available and would likely be outdated now.
Having a hard time getting my head around best practices for combining bones with CHOPS. Essentially trying to learn to rig vehicles without much luck. The car rig examples that are available are somewhat helpful but because of the way CHOPS works I'm finding it difficult to figure out what is connected to what, where and why.

Thinking this is a good candidate for a SideFX master class or something since there isn't much available from third parties.

Thanks!

Agree and noted.
-f

Thanks Fianna!

+1
Would also like to see some breakdowns of mechanical rigs

That the main problem with houdini.
The software is the best I ever used for 3D.
I absolutely love it but the lack of courses is what keeps people away.

For example now there KineFX and there no courses for it.
Where a course showing on how to rig a biped from start to finish with facial rig?
Where a course on how to use KineFX for a cartoon character from start to finish with facial rig?

How do you assemble your scenes?
In Maya we reference scenes/models/props/rigs/light but how should we do in Houdini?

Here a example from Maya:

[ibb.co]

It is so frustrating to learn Houdini because of the lack of structured courses.
Scene Assembly for indies, meaning a studio with less than five people.
How we should organize the file system and reference models and animation.
How to rig.
Whats the point of having KineFX without a clear pipeline example from start to finish.
A person doesn't have the luxury to do R&D in a tight schedule.
For example, you have the Rig from Rok Andic, how would you build it on Houdini.
It is too difficult for someone coming from another software.
It seems that he had to create very different solutions because of dependencies and speed.
Also, by the look of KineFX, his rigging techniques in ben might be obsolete.

Why don't Side effects take a little of their budget to pay for the courses?

Do a project base game assets modeling/texturing course in Houdini.
The texturing part is not about painting.
It is about workflow, procedural textures, noise, generating high poly and low poly, baking, sending to substance painter, and reimporting the textures.

Building the materials, having a lookdev assemble scene.

But if you want people to stay and use Houdini in the pipeline, you need rigging materials.
How to rig, export, reuse, apply animations, etc.
But in a structured way.

Houdini is complex, it is different, but it is the best in many areas.
I love modeling in Houdini, but I have to export to Maya to assemble my scenes after modeling.
Because I can't figure out how to do all the stuff I need in Houdini in a reasonable time-frame.

It is such a wasted opportunity.
Again I am trying to only use Houdini since 16.5.
There is still no structured, project-based learning path.

It is hard to learn new things.
But it is harder to learn without courses.
And another thing most of the time Houdini users are not aware of their knowledge level.
A person coming from another application may not understand it because it lacks concepts related to Houdini to entirely understand the process.

Most Houdini tutorials over complicate things.
Here a example:
Houdini in the Pipeline // Rob Stauffer // Houdini Illume Webinar

The first 10 minutes are enough to tune out.
There a lack of structure in the presentation, and it was too confusing.

Instead of a clear to the point explanation with clear examples, it is a mess of small tips you have to look for in a 1-hour video.

What happens people go back to their old software of choice.

it was a huge reason why I stopped using it

incredible connection black friday sale is out now
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I'd like some content for rigid (non-deforming) setups as well.

Araniera88
For example now there KineFX and there no courses for it.
Where a course showing on how to rig a biped from start to finish with facial rig?
Where a course on how to use KineFX for a cartoon character from start to finish with facial rig?

+1
I was on a good path with custom facial rigging until recently, applying stuff I know from Maya, but now that scene level rigging is becoming obsolete, I think I'll halt my experiments and wait for more learning material on the subject. Learning by reading from docs, although possible in principle, it makes very little sense nowadays and time is so scarce.

Daryl Dunlap
I'd like some content for rigid (non-deforming) setups as well.

So do I

Hey Everybody,

I provide my first solution for mechanical rigs with kinefx.
I guess there are better solutions but this could be one way of doing it.

Cheers
CYTE

So, Mechanical to me means, no deformation, only rigid transforms - as in, just a transform applied to a piece of Geo (a packed primitive probably).

So the challenge becomes, what's the best way to attach Geo to a skeleton for rigid transforms? One additional thing is I might want the option to convert stretching into scaling along the joint axis (assuming the Geo has a pivot that's supports this). Another thing I might want is secondary-transform(s)?….for example, if I have some visible gears on this character, and I want to convert the movement of the character locomotion point into “animation” of those gears….how would you do that as well?

These are some of the problems I'm hoping can be solved and shared.

capture packed geo is what you wanna use.

mestela
capture packed geo is what you wanna use.

This works, it attaches Geo to the Joint, but its missing some features.

Made some progress on this, I just need to add the option of scaling based on the Link length.

…which will probably require me to store which Primitive (Link) the Geo is actually bound too.

So, this is working in my test….I need to put it into a Crowd and see how it performs there as well.

…hmm…I should probably get the secondary rigid animation working before that. Like, based on the frame delta of Link length value, calculate some other motion that can be applied to other parts of the rig. For example, a Piston that has exposed gears inside of it. Rotating those gears as the Piston expands/contracts, procedurally.

“Why don't Side effects take a little of their budget to pay for the courses?” i can't agree more.

I'm looking for rigging a robot with KineFX but no resources so I use blender

Maybe SideFx is waiting until KineFX is out of „beta“.
As far as I know from their last presentation is that KineFX will become more user friendly.

Maybe it’s better to let KineFX, Solaris ect rest and divert energy to the more mature areas of Houdini.

I‘ll just wait until Tops become Rops, Shop becomes mat, chops become KineFX, obj becomes Solaris , dops become sops, just kidding :-D

CV
I‘ll just wait until Tops become Rops, Shop becomes mat, chops become KineFX

I just want to add my 'plus one' to the requests for mechanical rigging and constraints tutorials, eg: mechanical robot arms, pistons etc.