Homework - Cyril Wichers

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in Animation for Animatronics
Homework for live workshop student Cyril Wichers

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  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited August 2017
    So, here's my homework for the first week.
    It's actually a project that I did earlier, but as it's only meant to show we understand how the Pololu software works, I hope this is ok.

    A couple of weeks ago, I used several Pololu Maestro's to control both standard and custom built servos that I used in a couple of mechanisms for a Rube Goldberg machine.

    In this picture you can see the motor controllers on the left and the Pololu board on the right (sorry for the messy wiring, I had to do some last minute changes on site)


    I've got two channels (18 and 19) configured as inputs. They are connected through relais to the showcontrol. If one of the inputs is pulled low, one of the two movements that I put in the script is executed.

    Here's the status page with the mechanism at rest.


    Here are my channel settings. You can see the custom endpoint, startup, speed and acceleration settings.


    And this is the script.
    Basically:
    - when channel 18 is pulled low, the servo on channel 0 goes to position 1 (4800)
    - 3.5 seconds later it goes to position 2 (5650)
    - 3.5 seconds later it returns to it's home position (4000)

    - when channel 19 is pulled low, the servo on channel 0 goes to position 1 (4800)
    - 3.5 seconds later the servo on channel 1 goes to position 1 (6420)
    - 2.5 seconds after that, the servo on channel 1 goes back to it's home position (4800)
    - 3.5 seconds after that, the servo on channel 0 goes back to it's home position (4000).

     
    This is what the mechanism looks like:


    And this is what it looks like when channel 19 is pulled low (sorry for the shaky image):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4CdT6uUPk





  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    Cool. Wish I could be there with you all!
  • Elizabeth Meeker
    Elizabeth Meeker ✭
    Wow, very cool. 
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited September 2017
    Here's my homework for the second week.

    At first I tried to animate one servo using the data generated by Maya and copying it to the Maestro controller the way that Craig demonstrated during the course.
    Then I remembered that I still had an old eye-mechanism gathering dust somewhere, so I decided to try and animate that.
     
    I made the virtual servo connections for the horizontal and vertical eye movement using the eye controls in AnimServo. Then I created two virtual servo's to animate the blinking and the eye tracking.
    I had hoped to be able to parent the vertical eye movement to the eye tracking, but I couldn't get that to work.
    I also tried briefly to connect the "Blink" sliders in the Female-soldier model  to my servo output, but ran out of time.
    So I decided to just set the key frames for those motions manually.

    I hope Craig can take some time to explain if and how this can be done with the software during the next class. I also hope he'll go in to how to set up a model like the Female-soldier and how to animate it using motion capture data.
    Unfortunately I won't be able to join you live for the next class. I can't wait to watch the video once I get back home!

    Maestro status:


    Maestro channel settings:


    Values to put in to Maya:


    Servo setup in Maya. The virtual servos for the blinks and the eye tracking can be seen in the right hand corner of the screen:


    Data generated by AnimServo:
    begin<br>	41 5927 6112 5799 5600 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 frame_0..23 # frame 0<br><br>	41 5927 6112 5799 5600 frame_0..3 # frame  1<br><br>	41 5924 6116 5799 5604 frame_0..3 # frame  2<br><br>	41 5916 6128 5799 5615 frame_0..3 # frame  3<br><br>	41 5904 6147 5799 5634 frame_0..3 # frame  4<br><br>	41 5887 6173 5799 5659 frame_0..3 # frame  5<br><br>	(...)<br><br>	41 5993 6275 5799 5553 frame_0..3 # frame  195<br><br>	41 5970 6219 5799 5569 frame_0..3 # frame  196<br><br>	41 5952 6174 5799 5582 frame_0..3 # frame  197<br><br>	41 5938 6140 5799 5591 frame_0..3 # frame  198<br><br>	41 5930 6119 5799 5597 frame_0..3 # frame  199<br><br>	41 5927 6112 5799 5600 frame_0..3 # frame  200<br>repeat<br><br>sub frame_0..23<br>	23 servo<br>	22 servo<br>	21 servo<br>	20 servo<br>	19 servo<br>	18 servo<br>	17 servo<br>	16 servo<br>	15 servo<br>	14 servo<br>	13 servo<br>	12 servo<br>	11 servo<br>	10 servo<br>	9 servo<br>	8 servo<br>	7 servo<br>	6 servo<br>	5 servo<br>	4 servo<br>	3 servo<br>	2 servo<br>	1 servo<br>	0 servo<br>	delay<br>	return<br><br>sub frame_0..3<br>	3 servo<br>	2 servo<br>	1 servo<br>	0 servo<br>	delay<br>	return

    Playblast:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIgyMy4Uz_M

    Output on eye mechanism:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bfzkl3F1_k
  • Elizabeth Meeker
    Elizabeth Meeker ✭
    Cyril, did you get the female soldiers eyes and eyelashes working?
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited September 2017
    You mean the eyelids? The sliders were working, but I couldn't figure out how to connect them to a virtual servo. I used two virtual servos and set their positions by hand.
  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    @Cyril Wichers How is all the software working on Windows 7?
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited September 2017
    The software we have had to use up until now is working fine (except from some minor hickups). We haven't had to use Faceware or Mixamo yet though.
  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    OK. That was one of the reasons I didn't sign up for the class because I didn't want to upgrade to Windows 10. Win 7 works fine for me and I don't need any problems with an upgrade.
  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    "@Cyril Wichers"  How are things going with this class?

  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited September 2017
    The course was great, @David DeMattia. Maybe a bit more theoretical than the average SWSCA course, but certainly unique.
    Unfortunately, I've been very busy with work for the last couple of weeks, so I had to request for an extension of the deadline for my homework (which was fortunately granted). Hopefully I'll be able to catch up in the coming weeks.
  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    @Cyril Wichers
    Thanks for the update. I am very interested to see your progress and your overall impression when completed. Have you gotten as far as exporting Maya data to the servo controller?
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited September 2017
    Yes, the eye mechanism in the video I posted is controlled by a Pololu Maestro that's running data that was generated using Maya.
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited October 2017
    Finally had some time to work on this course again. I had to rewatch most of the videos to get up to speed.
    First thing I wanted to do was to try and do some simple modelling and animating in Maya, so I recreated the arm that Craig used as an example in the second part of the course.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5B5uss4GNs

    And rendered:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-7zN8bV-T8

    And here's the output for the Pololu board:

    begin<br>	41 4000 4000 6117 5666 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 <br>	0 0 0 0 0 0 frame_0..23 # frame 0<br><br>	41 4000 4000 6117 5666 frame_0..3 # frame  1<br><br>	41 4001 4001 6117 5667 frame_0..3 # frame  2<br><br>	41 4005 4005 6117 5670 frame_0..3 # frame  3<br><br>	(...)<br><br>	41 4012 7999 6823 5001 frame_0..3 # frame  198<br><br>	41 4003 7999 6823 5000 frame_0..3 # frame  199<br><br>	41 4000 8000 6823 5000 frame_0..3 # frame  200<br>repeat<br><br>sub frame_0..23<br>	23 servo<br>	22 servo<br>	21 servo<br>	20 servo<br>	19 servo<br>	18 servo<br>	17 servo<br>	16 servo<br>	15 servo<br>	14 servo<br>	13 servo<br>	12 servo<br>	11 servo<br>	10 servo<br>	9 servo<br>	8 servo<br>	7 servo<br>	6 servo<br>	5 servo<br>	4 servo<br>	3 servo<br>	2 servo<br>	1 servo<br>	0 servo<br>	delay<br>	return<br><br>sub frame_0..3<br>	3 servo<br>	2 servo<br>	1 servo<br>	0 servo<br>	delay<br>	return

    I also managed to do a motion capture using Faceware Analyzer and use the data to animate the Female soldier model using Retargeter, but I'm not happy with the results so far, so I'm going to redo that.
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited October 2017
    I used the Head_rig model that was included with the AnimServo software to animate the neck mechanism I built for Jim Kundig's course.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC4xUPQDr8Y

  • David DeMattia
    David DeMattia ✭✭✭
    Cool!
  • Cyril Wichers
    Cyril Wichers ✭✭✭
    edited October 2017
    Slowly but surely I'm beginning to understand how to rig a mechanism in Maya. Watching lots of tutorials helped, but figuring out how to get things working exactly like you want takes a lot of time.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTzWm4AZByw&amp;feature=youtu.be

  • Elizabeth Meeker
    Elizabeth Meeker ✭
    Cyril I am having the same issue.  Learning how to rig in Maya has been a huge hurdle.  I had to sign up for a class.just on that, and I'm still really confused. 
    Also "un-parenting" hasn't worked all the well for me.  Good luck!

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