Forums Technical Discussion Manually adding blendshapes to crowd agents

Manually adding blendshapes to crowd agents

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HybrideRD
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Hi everyone!
I'm trying to add blendshapes "manually" to my crowd agent ( without relying on the character rig or python methods), but instead
using the agent layer SOP.
Is there any help or example on how to set that up?

The videos i have found show how to pull that out from a character rig, all in one go , but in our case, rigs, shapes, and blendshapes come each from different sources .

Thanks a lot
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cwhite
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If you're using the agent layer SOP, it supports the KineFX blendshape format so you can use Character Blend Shapes Add to assemble blendshapes on your shape (https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini20.0/character/kinefx/blendshapes.html)

Note that you also need to have the corresponding channels on the agent's rig, which the Agent from Rig SOP can import from the 'clipchannels' attribute, e.g. from the Character Blend Shape Channels SOP
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HybrideRD
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Thanks a lot! I will give that a try
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DominikPott
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Hello,
I am struggeling to make this work. Would it be possible to get an example file or have a look at mine?
I have attached it with my current state to add an blendshape to an existing agent.

Note that you also need to have the corresponding channels on the agent's rig, which the Agent from Rig SOP can import from the 'clipchannels' attribute, e.g. from the Character Blend Shape Channels SOP

The Agent from Rig Sop seems to create a new Agent which is not what I want and I don't know any other node to use instead.
If its not easiy possible to do with nodes onlz I am also fine with python or vex.


Thanks,
Dominik
Edited by DominikPott - June 20, 2024 15:49:36

Attachments:
agent_blendshape.hiplc (302.7 KB)

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cwhite
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Agent from Rig does create a new agent, but if you follow a KineFX-style workflow for creating the agent (as in the attached example) then that isn't a problem

The agent's rig stores the list of defined channels as well as the joints (https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/crowds/agents#rig), so adding new channels involves modifying the agent's rig. If you do this later on, there isn't a node-based way to do it and you'd need to use HOM (e.g. hou.crowds.replaceAgentDefinitions() after creating a new version of the agent definition with the modified hou.AgentRig

Attachments:
agent_blendshape.hiplc (344.9 KB)

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DominikPott
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Awesome, that helped a lot. I think I was always a bit scared of building my own Agent from scratch as the regular Agent Node is so convenient. Thank you so much for the example File.
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cwhite
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In tomorrow's build (20.5.332) the Agent Layer SOP also now adds any missing blendshape channels to the agent's rig, so you can set this up much more easily (see attached file)

Attachments:
agent_blendshape_v2.hiplc (312.9 KB)

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DominikPott
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Thank you a lot. I hope i find the time to check it out in the near future.
Cheers, Dominik
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