A little Python tool I'm working on to draw poses for bendy characters in the APEX Scene Animate node.

Cool! Please tell a bit more on how you achived that.

Roy Ranheim Kristoffersen
Cool! Please tell a bit more on how you achived that.

Hi Roy! It's similar to creating a Python view state, the main difference is the custom code is loaded by the APEX Scene Animate node to act as a sort of sub-tool.

Then you can respond to mouse and keyboard input. I've done some processing of the input using SOP verbs, like comparing the current z-depths of the joints and aligning the transforms, to create the curve that then feeds back into the joint positions using the APEX api.

For the prototype I've also added some properties to the rig so joints know which curves they belong to, it might be possible to make it more general - for example if the tool looks at the joint heirarchy for the selected controls instead.

There's some starter support for multi-level controls in here, so broad controls are positioned first, with fine controls then positioned from the broad curve to give the final curve - this will be nice for manual pose tweaks when it's ready, but the code to go backwards from the drawn curve to the broad curve needs an overhaul when I next get a chance to look at the tool.

I hope that sheds some light on it, let me know if you have any thoughts!