Is HumanIK accessible to MEL?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if the new HumanIK retargeting system is fully script accessible? I've been trying to find if there's a way to batch process transfer one characters animations to another character. The major roadblock I've run into so far is that there doesn't seem to be a HumanIK equivalent to the old 'retarget' mel command. I tried turning on Echo All Commands and hitting 'Apply Retargeting' but no userful command showed up in the script edtior, and I can find nothing in the documentation about HumanIK.

Any help would be appreciated,
-Mike

[Anonymous]

I didn't see any new commands for HIK, but did you look at others/characterPipeTool.mel?

[Anonymous]

Ah, thanks! Based on that script it looks like their function changeCharacterInput is a good starting point for me to look at. Too bad there's no documentation for it. 😕

[Anonymous]

hi Mike,

We are looking at batching the retargeting process as well. Did you find anything in the others folder?
Did the proc. changeCharacterInput helped you out?

Thanks,

Marc

[Anonymous]

Never mind, I found it 🙂

Cheers,

Marc

[Anonymous]

Hey, I am having the same problem, how did you figure it out?
I am trying to script the retargeting, but I cant seem to figure out how to change the Retarget Input in the character pipe tab in the HumanIK UI.
I have found and am inside the characterPipeTool.mel, and I know these lines have something to do with it:

"global proc changeCharacterInput(string $pCharacter, string $pNewCharacterSrc,string $layerName,string $controlRigLayerName)"
{

please help

[Anonymous]

this is the only place on the magical internet that comes close to addressing this issue/question.

can somebody please help out, I know u guys know whats up

[Anonymous]

Sorry, hadn't checked this board in awhile. After digging deeply into this problem, I was eventually able to write a complex, batachable animation transfer system for our game. Its been a few months, but here's the relevant code IIRC (in Python):

import maya.cmds as mc
import maya.mel as mel 

mel.eval("displayHIKPipeUI;") ### show the HIK window
mc.optionMenu("gCharPipeCharList",e=True, value=RigName)   ### sets the source character
mel.eval("changeCurrentCharacter(\"gCharPipeCharList\" )")  

mc.optionMenu("gCharPipeCharInputList",e=True,sl=2)  #### sets the 'retarget input' option menu. Had to be done via index rather than name

mel.eval("changeCharacterInputFromUI;") ### applies the animation to the target character
    
mc.deleteUI("hikRetargetWindow")## delete the HIK window 

In mel, the retarget input change line is:

optionMenu -e -sl 2 "gCharPipeCharInputList"

Basically, to make it work, I had to do a little hackery. First I load in both HIK rigs (not in the code above). Then, I show the HIK window and have the script change the retargeting input option menu directly. Note that I had to use the index of the character to change it to (in this case 2), not the name. After that I apply the retargetting and delete the window. A little goofy, but it works well.

Hope this helps,
Mike