Character Rigs on Blender 4.0 #104433

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Demeter Dzadik · 2024-08-17T02:22:42+02:00

Demeter Dzadik commented

2024-08-17 02:22:42 +02:00

It's not really a bug but there are a lot of reports about this, so I'm creating this to have a place to refer people to.

Character rigs made before 4.0 won't work properly in 4.0 and beyond, since bone layers were removed. This is the nature of software development, especially the 4.0 release, which was a major version number increase indicating major compatibility breaks.

Converting every single character rig in the library to the latest Blender versions is an enormous, painful, and recurring task. There is currently no roadmap for this.

Community contributions here would be welcome. If anybody wants to update a given rig to work in 4.0 or later, you can share it here, and we can upload it to the website after vetting it. If you do this, please provide a description of the changes you've made. Make sure not to save the file with an unstable Blender versions (beta/alpha/RC), and the latest LTS version is preferred.

It's not really a bug but there are a lot of reports about this, so I'm creating this to have a place to refer people to. Character rigs made before 4.0 won't work properly in 4.0 and beyond, since bone layers were removed. This is the nature of software development, especially the 4.0 release, which was a major version number increase indicating major compatibility breaks. Converting every single character rig in the library to the latest Blender versions is an enormous, painful, and recurring task. There is currently no roadmap for this. Community contributions here would be welcome. If anybody wants to update a given rig to work in 4.0 or later, you can share it here, and we can upload it to the website after vetting it. If you do this, please provide a description of the changes you've made. Make sure not to save the file with an unstable Blender versions (beta/alpha/RC), and the latest LTS version is preferred.

Demeter Dzadik referenced this issue from Mets/CloudRig

2024-08-17 02:23:14 +02:00

Layers UI suddenly missing? #163

Demeter Dzadik referenced this issue

2024-08-17 02:24:30 +02:00

Sprite Character and Blender 4.0 #104362

地味　金ト commented

2024-08-17 14:15:55 +02:00

Understood! Yes I was the guy from #163 who realized last minute that the rigs were listed as supporting 3.6 and came to close my issue but I was too late. So embarrassing Sorry. Thank you for your work.

Most efficient compromise for me (regarding the Layers Panel not working for pre-4.0 rigs) was to enable cloudrig metarig under bone collections properties which enables a bone collections panel to show up in the N panel and then rename the layer 1,2,3,4 based on the respective collections. (E.g. Layer 1=IK etc)

Hasn't broken my entire file yet so I'll just brute force from there.

Understood! Yes I was the guy from #163 who realized last minute that the rigs were listed as supporting 3.6 and came to close my issue but I was too late. So embarrassing Sorry. Thank you for your work. Most efficient compromise for me (regarding the Layers Panel not working for pre-4.0 rigs) was to enable cloudrig metarig under bone collections properties which enables a bone collections panel to show up in the N panel and then rename the layer 1,2,3,4 based on the respective collections. (E.g. Layer 1=IK etc) Hasn't broken my entire file yet so I'll just brute force from there.

jaime-paz commented

2024-09-11 03:44:56 +02:00

Hi, sorry for the delay, I've been working on the snow rig. I've organized the layers of the rig and the shell with the poses. I'm uploading it to the cloud. Let me know if you need me to do anything else.
Best.R

Hi, sorry for the delay, I've been working on the snow rig. I've organized the layers of the rig and the shell with the poses. I'm uploading it to the cloud. Let me know if you need me to do anything else. Best.R

snow_v04.zip

106 MiB

Demeter Dzadik commented

2024-09-14 18:21:42 +02:00

Hey there. Thanks, I checked out the file but it's not quite up to the standards of the original.

The dead CloudRig Layers panel is still there, spamming the console with errors. Needs to be removed from the code.
There are 3 different naming conventions mixed together in the collections; Title Case, lower_under_case, ALLCAPS. Should stick to Title Case as it was before.
The Blender UI layout is also not in a welcoming state (the camera is in a random position, shading is set to Studio instead of MatCap, armature x-ray is enabled, screen icon in Outliner is disabled).

This sort of stuff is why there is more than meets the eye when it comes to updating these rigs while preserving a high standard and attention to detail in the releases. And I would love to do it for at least some characters, but I'm currently on sabbatical.

Hey there. Thanks, I checked out the file but it's not quite up to the standards of the original. - The dead CloudRig Layers panel is still there, spamming the console with errors. Needs to be removed from the code. - There are 3 different naming conventions mixed together in the collections; Title Case, lower_under_case, ALLCAPS. Should stick to Title Case as it was before. - The Blender UI layout is also not in a welcoming state (the camera is in a random position, shading is set to Studio instead of MatCap, armature x-ray is enabled, screen icon in Outliner is disabled). This sort of stuff is why there is more than meets the eye when it comes to updating these rigs while preserving a high standard and attention to detail in the releases. And I would love to do it for at least some characters, but I'm currently on sabbatical.

Demeter Dzadik commented

2024-11-12 13:02:26 +01:00

Recently, Snow and Rain were updated to work with 4.1, as these are our most popular rigs, which were always meant to be not just for a single production but for the community to use to learn animation. I'll close this task for now.

Other rigs could be updated to work well on 4.1 at the cost of varying degrees of effort; Rigs will open and technically function on 4.0, it's just that rig scripts will likely fail due to API changes, and bone layers won't be organized in a decent way. But since there's generally little demand for this as far as we can tell, there's still no roadmap for this.

Rain and Snow will hopefully continue to get updates to keep up with changes in Blender, even if with a delay.

Recently, Snow and Rain were updated to work with 4.1, as these are our most popular rigs, which were always meant to be not just for a single production but for the community to use to learn animation. I'll close this task for now. Other rigs could be updated to work well on 4.1 at the cost of varying degrees of effort; Rigs will open and technically function on 4.0, it's just that rig scripts will likely fail due to API changes, and bone layers won't be organized in a decent way. But since there's generally little demand for this as far as we can tell, there's still no roadmap for this. Rain and Snow will hopefully continue to get updates to keep up with changes in Blender, even if with a delay.

Demeter Dzadik closed this issue

2024-11-12 13:02:26 +01:00

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