Good morning.
Is the idea of making mGear independent of external plugins still valid?
Should we hope for it?
Thank you,
Alessandro
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hi,
what do mean by external plugins? the mgear solvers?
all plugins mgear use are open source…
or do you mean only using maya build-in plugins?
Use standard Maya nodes and solvers.
No plugins must be present in the pipeline in order to use a rig made with mGear.
its all doable…
the mgear framework allows that.
at the moment there are only 2 components that uses maya nodes, they have the “ms” name in it.
the only component where it might not work is the chain-spring. maya has no build-in node for such. there has to be using dynamics (nhair, good exampe is the make chain dynamic from the bonus tools) and then it has to be simulated, wich will make realtime working impossible…
It’s possible to write this yourself by creating your own custom components. A zero-plugin environment seems like an uncommon pipeline restriction and I wouldn’t expect others to do this work for you if they don’t need it themselves.
Vanilla Maya nodes components are in the roadmap 
I hope before of the end of the year 
Many customers who ask for rigs don’t want to have plugin installation problems.
They want to open the rig, to be able to edit it easily, without being a software developer.
They want to be able to open the rig and work with normal Maya nodes.
Additional nodes, it may be a choice to use them or not.
An autorig that does not require additional plugins to be installed to make the rig work is always preferable.
I didn’t ask to do a job for me. I just said it would be preferable.
Would be very nice.
Maya 2020 has new matrix knots that could be exploited.
Finally, the animators will be able to open an mGear rig without installing anything on their PCs and to be able to modify them using Maya constraints and nodes quickly and easily.
Auto rig builds its rig with standard Maya nodes, has its advantages: the resulting rigged character can be used in any copy of Maya.
Replace Constraints with new Matrix nodes increase frame rate: mGear rig work with matrix but I believe they are not Maya standard nodes.
For the Solver, if you prefer to use the mGear ones, you could install them as a choice if you want have mGear pipeline if you are a developer.
This is for maximum flexibility.
mgear uses the standard maya matrix node “compose” “decompose” matrix…
if you have to deliver rigs with standard maya nodes and want to use mgear, then you have to write your own custom components…at the moment there are only 2 that uses standard maya nodes…maybe in future there will be more.
so at the moment mgear out-of-the-box is not suitible for deliver rigs without the solvers-plugins…
Hello guys.
Please keep in mind the following.
There are indeed some mgear nodes that are redundant with existing Maya nodes but it is not the case for everything. That been said what we do with custom mgear nodes is totally translatable to Maya nodes, even more so with Biffrost now. Like @Miquel said vanilla Maya components is something on our mind and I think we have some existing news that will come soon concerning mgear.
You need to remember that mgear is not only a rigging framework but it also integrates some tools for animation to interact with the rigs. Those animation and extra rigging tools can even be used with rigs that are not from Shifter.
I do understand the need for rigs without custom nodes but keep in mind that rigging inside Maya took some years behind tech because of bad management on the product side (my 2 cents). With Will Trelford now handling this we might need to adopt certain directions because new rigging features coming along inside Maya won’t be available on older versions. So of would be interesting to know your thoughts on this as well.
Lastly mgear is fully open source so if you are motivated enough you can join the efforts of making mgear even more flexible for users in the future.
I would like to have a more constructive input on the subject but I just wanted to share my thoughts with you all.
Cheers
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The software evolves and the compatibility cannot always be maintained with the old versions: otherwise it would never go on.
I am not a developer: if I were I would have really liked to contribute to the mGear project.
In many studios where I worked, autorig was always used which did not require the installation of plugins, such as abAutoRig. This is because the studios that received our rigs were not inclined to have external plugins.
Editing rigs to add or change functionality is also easier if you are not using proprietary systems.
Even someone who is not a developer can easily do this.
mGear rigs are very fast and elegant, this is indisputable, I think is the very best, but getting hold of the network he creates is not very simple and immediate.
Cheers
Alessandro_