blurstudio/simplex

The Simplex Blendshape UI from Blur Studio

simplex's Issues

Renaming Combo shape

Changes made to names of Combos and Combo shapes do not get passed through to the simplex node and the shape names themselves don't change, it only changes the name in the interface. This is likely because the renameCombo function doesn't call an appropriate DCC command to actually change things.

Update UI slide values

Sometimes the slide values are changed from outside the Simplex UI
Figure out some way to update the UI with the true values.
We can't really connect to all value updates because that would be slow, so maybe just update on mouseover or something?

Tweak Mix tool

A-la BCS, add a 'tweak mix' tool.

This should be relatively simple to set up: Get all shapes that contribute to a combo (including all previous combos), extract them separately, and build a simple blendshape node out of them. Then reconnect this output shape as a live (or non-live) combo connection.

This will allow an artist to tweak the contributions to a combo to get a better mixed result, because sometimes it's easier to add/remove influence from previous shapes than to sculpt from scratch.

Trees collapse on undo

Undos cause the trees to collapse unexpectedly.
Make the tree-expansion more consistent

[Bug]: extract combo not connected to the blendshape node when one of the sliders is not at 1

Summary

Hi, sorry if this is a bug of mine. The problem I'm having is that when I have three sliders, for example, jawOpen = 0.5, smileLeft = 1, and smileRight = 1, I can create a combo and the new blendshape is created and linked in yellow in the blendshape node. However, if I extract the mesh to sculpt it, the blendshape is no longer linked. This problem only occurs when one of the slider values is not at 1

Expected Behavior

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Steps to Reproduce Behavior

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Solution

No response

Environment

maya 2022

Additional Context

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Multiple children

Importing an smpx file onto a head that has multiple shape nodes fails. Right now, I have follicle nodes as children, next to shape node parented to a transform. It errors out :(

Preserve Combos

It would be very nice to be able to preserve a combo. Meaning it would stay constant when shapes or lower order combos change.

Quick Find

Build a quickfind feature into the trees. It should work similar to code completion.
Hit a hotkey to bring up a textbox that then populates a list of fuzzy matches to whatever's typed.

Simple, pure python fuzzy finder algorithm:
https://gist.github.com/tbttfox/3d44fd4c9cda9c18b0a2a40da9a8fea5

Fail more gracefully on Combo shape connections

If an error occurs during a combo shape connection, there are a lot of intermediate meshes left sitting around. These should be cleaned up

Update combo names on slider name change

Update combo names on slider name change

Add new solver shape type: Traversal

This is a big one.
There are shapes that turn on whenever one slider turns on. These are the main sliders.
There are shapes that turn on whenever multiple sliders turn on. These are combos.

Those two things give us access to all the shape extremes... but then we add progressions.
We can have a cheap shape turn on halfway to turning on a slider.
We can have a cheap shape turn on halfway to turning on a combo.
We can't currently have a cheap shape turn on halfway between two combos. This is a Traversal.

We can do it the expensive way using a free floating shape, and that's fine up to a point. However, that will only ever give us linear interpolation.
This would be an advanced option, and probably wouldn't be used too often. However, it would be nice for PSD like setups, and high quality eye shapes.

This probably requires a new tree for the ui, so this should wait until the trees are abstracted.

Deformed Dump tool (extract external)

Write a tool/button that will extract shapes from some external object (rather than the base head). That way we can apply complex arbitrary deformations/transformations to a head for extraction.

Shape Muting

Add the ability to easily mute a shape.

Reordering Combo Names

Add the ability to reorder combo names by a priority list.
I foresee a right-click menu that allows you to reorder the names for a selection. Then all contributing shapes show up in a drag/drop list and the artist can reorder them by priority

Isolate Mode

Add an isolation mode for sliders that would show only the selected sliders, and the combos made from only those sliders.

Cleanup: Separate the ui into independent parts

That simplexdialog.py file is huge. I should split it up into multiple files so it's easier to manage. For instance, the trees (and their models) could easily be split out. The settings panel could be it's own widget as well.

Make setting values from the UI into 1 undoable action

When middle mouse dragging the values in the UI, each 'tick' sent from the UI is an individual undo step.
I should set things up so that the undo bead is opened on MMB down, and closed on MMB up

Connecting combos breaks things

Live-extracting a combo, then hitting the connect button causes an error. This bug was probably introduced when I changed things over to the multi-shape setup.

Match Shape button doesn't work for combos

Make it work

Creating two combos with the same input sliders

Creating two combos with the same input sliders will double-create the blendshape (at least in Maya). Add a proper check to see if a combo already exists on creation

Ability to extract the raw combination shape

Add the ability to right-click on a combo and extract its 'raw' shape. This is the shape that includes all input shapes, and all previous combos, but not itself.

Add a progress bar for extractions

Sometimes you have to extract a lot of shapes. Add a progress bar for the extraction process

Add an installer and Github update option

As an in-development tool, this is a bit difficult to get working and updated for some artists.
Make an installer and github updater script.

Average multiple face rigs

Figure out some way to build a face rig as some average of multiple other face rigs. Or even a painted blend of multiple face rigs.

This would give us the ability to quickly get first-pass faces out by mixing/matching parts of faces we already have done.

Apply percentages of an updated progression

Say we have a progression with multiple, evenly spaced shapes. If we update the last shape in the progression, we need a way to update the other shapes as percentages of the delta of our change

[Bug]: slider not work at mouse middle click -

Summary

I'm moving the slider with the middle click of the mouse

plus works as expected but minus doesn't

Expected Behavior

I thought the slider's value would go down

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Create any slider, click the mouse middle, and move

Solution

No response

Environment

window 11
maya 2024.2
maya 2022.5

Additional Context

slider_bug.mp4

It looks like it's working fine on YouTube video. But I don't.
Is this my only problem?

multi split combo permutations

Hey, So ran into an interesting splitting issue today, and wanted to get your thoughts on it. It's a little difficult to describe so here it goes....

there are two shapes and a combo:

  shape1_X_Y
  shape2_X_Y

  shape1_X_Y_shape2_X_Y

after we split we get 8 sliders, and 4 combos

  shape1_L_U
  shape1_L_D
  shape1_R_U
  shape1_R_D
  shape2_L_U
  shape2_L_D
  shape2_R_U
  shape2_R_D

  shape1_L_U_shape2_L_U
  shape1_L_D_shape2_L_D
  shape1_R_U_shape2_R_U
  shape1_R_D_shape2_R_D

Let's just look a the Left side for now

  shape1_L_U
  shape1_L_D
  shape2_L_U
  shape2_L_D

  shape1_L_U_shape2_L_U
  shape1_L_D_shape2_L_D

the combos we got after splitting are not ALL the possible permutations. these are the possible combos...

  shape1_L_U_shape2_L_U
  shape1_L_D_shape2_L_D
  shape1_L_U_shape2_L_D
  shape1_L_D_shape2_L_U

there are two permutations we did not get where the L_U is combo'd with the L_D, and these are the combos that we want in this particular case.

  shape1_L_U_shape2_L_D
  shape1_L_D_shape2_L_U

one shape is being split at the lips vertically, and the other at the nose bridge vertically, we need the top of the former, and lower of the latter to be the resulting combo

:D

[Request]: Make splitting naming more robust and extensible

Description

There's no reason to have splitting values be hard-coded. put them into a list and iterate over the list so we can do more than just the 3 main splits

Solution

No response

Additional Context

No response

Include UV's in the .smpx output

UV's should be included in the output for both visualization and technical reasons.
Having UV's is very useful, especially if you have a single head topology or a single unified UV layout.

Changing combo and slider names doesn't update progression names

This can leave a mismatch between the names, and resulting in bad splits.

Switch over to Qt.py

Qt.py is a much better way of handling the differences between PyQt4, PySide and PySide2. Switch over to using this library

Missing 'numpy' module

I'm getting this error when running the latest release:

Error: ModuleNotFoundError: file \uvTransfer.py line 20: No module named 'numpy'

split by map

Hey, we were looking at implementing this but wanted to check if you had already started it. If not, do you have any suggestions or tips for how best to go about it?

thanks

Interpolation type doesn't stick

Changing the 'Weight Interpolation' from Spline to Linear in the settings dropdown doesn't actually change the system in any way. If you click off, then click back on the slider you just changed, it will be the way it started.

Respect filters when extracting

When extracting lots of things, it's easy to select a groupItem then extract. However, when extracting, it will extract every child of that group, rather than only the visible items.
So make the extraction process only deal with what's visible in the filtered trees.

Correctives?

a quick grep of the word 'Corrective' and the resulting methods leads me to believe that Simplex no longer handles corrective shapes?

Always connect shapes and comboShapes in depth order

When connecting lots of shapes, it wouldn't be too difficult to always do them in order of combo depth.
So regular shapes first, then combos of depth 2, 3, 4, etc...

Don't allow invalid names

It's possible to input invalid names into the slider tree. I broke a setup by renaming a slider to "(("