Brows Rigger Unusable

[HSmith]

Hi folks, having some serious issues with the Brows Rigger in 4.2.2 using Maya 2023.3, so listing them all below:

• Firstly if I select to Compute Topological Autoskin then the skinning bar gets stuck at a percentage, the rig is then interactable but I’m assuming it isn’t finishing the skinning, these are the errors I see in the script editor
  

• Secondly if I try to use the symmetry then I have a weird issue of the left side controls, controlling the right side secondary controls and vice versa, I’ve tried various configurations and can’t get it not to do that
  

• Lastly none of the bones actually seem to be moved by the controls, aside from when they move with the parent control. If I mess with some of the underlying curves then they move but kind of weirdly so they clearly have some sort of hook up but not properly
  

I’ve tried to build the brows separately left, right and center but they still don’t move, plus I then have to hook up the center to work with each side so not ideal. Any suggestions on ways around this until it can get fixed would be greatly appreciated

[Herve.Arphi]

Hello, could you show me your brows rigger parameters with screenshot please ?
Maybe there is a mistake here …

First thing, don’t use brows symmetry building.
You have to generate left, right and center one by one.

After that you will parent center and sides as you want

[HSmith]

Of course, thank you for the response
Yeah it is very possible that I’ve done stuff wrong, but I’ve only found a single video showing off the brow rigger, and I’ve tried it in various configurations. I was following the Data Centric Rigging video series for context of the current rig, but it ended before he got to the eyebrows etc.

Obviously these settings are for the symmetric version but here you go

These are some settings I tried for the left side as an example, but the bones still don’t move with the controls

[chrislesage]

@HSmith

but the bones still don’t move with the controls

If I’m not mistaken, this is because of the errors, so the rigging process never finished.

I’ve never used the brow tool, so I don’t have any answers. But there must be something going wrong around line 1178 of brow_rigger.py. The closestVtxsList list is not populating correctly.

That list gets made on line 1169. So there might be a bug in the meshNavigation code. Or there might be a glitch in your edge selection. Or there might be something about your mesh that is causing the algorithm to fail.

I notice your inner edge selection is on a poly with an edge that goes to a 5-poly branch. The meshNavigation code might be failing there. Maybe try moving your edge selection in one edge, just as a test to see if it finishes building. If that works, then maybe a code bug can be fixed.

[HSmith]

Thanks for the idea Chris, I only get that error when I try to compute the autoskin, and the joints don’t follow the controls whether I turn that on or off unfortunately.

I did just attempt to try using a different edge on both symmetrical and left only, still no luck on all fronts, still giving me the same results. Happy to try whatever though so thank you for the attempt

[Noll]

What I’ve always done is duplicated and extracted a section of the character’s brow mesh. Make sure it’s perfectly quaded with no poles, then run mirror on that temp brow mesh because I’ve found it helps with the vert order. Then the brow rigger should work, usually. I wouldn’t run this tool directly on the character’s full head.

[Miquel]

Hello!
Just a heads up regarding the eyeborws rigger and the old facial rigging tool. It is deprecated and will disapear in the next mGear 5.0
My apologies for the inconvenience.

[HSmith]

Sorry for the delayed response, thanks Noll, certainly something I should try and do more often. It unfortunately didn’t help with my issues, but it is good practice for me to get into so thank you for that

[HSmith]

Cheers for letting me know Miquel

Is there currently an alternative for the brow rigger at the moment, even if it’s an early version? Or any clue on when we’ll get a new version for it at all? I understand if it’s currently up in the air as to when that stuff would come through

We’re looking to use mGear during production so want to be cautious of anything that might trip us up

[Miquel]

@dg3duy @HSmith
There is no replacement. This tool was a contribution from the community, but I have never use it in production and the maintinence cost is too high. So sadly I can’t support it anymore due to time limitations.
There is an alternative for the eyelid rigger. This one I use it constanly and is well maintain.

For the eyebrows and mouth I use other techniques, but are a custom solution using custom steps not a macro tool
The technique is similar to what I explain here https://youtu.be/B-WODl68CQc?list=PL9LaIDCCDjfiR7Uod5UqIKnMM33XXsp80
Also for the eyebrows, it is based on surface sliding, RBF and some rig layering.

If the rig is for a Games pipeline I use the RBF manager with the EPIC_layered_contro_01

I will try to create more tutorials about facial rigging and document better how to use this component with this next release.

[HSmith]

Ah that makes sense, didn’t realise that so it’s good to know. I have been using the eyelid rigger and it seems great thus far

I did figure it would be similar to the mouth sliding as I was following the data centric facial tutorial but I’m still wrapping my head around utilising those processes for the other elements of the face as the videos seemed to have stopped after the mouth blendshapes haha. I understand you’re busy so it makes sense, I just wasn’t prepared for it, but that’s how I ended up here trying to figure out the brow rigger

It is for a Games pipeline so I assumed I’d have to rework some of the process to make it work properly for what I need, but that’s interesting to see. I’m still just starting to figure out the RBF manager and I’ve never used the Layered control before, is there a good place to currently look into that at all that I might have missed? Or would I be able to chat to you in more detail about your process for that in anyway?