kuligs2 So maybe my question is - is there a better way to create manipulators to pose the mesh in godot game?

If I understand correctly, you're trying to use bones for what is normally done with shapekeys. That's a very interesting approach. I'll keep an eye on the topic. My plan is to start experimenting on this topic in about a month

But i will never be able to replicate the initial face armature because it was hand made (bone placement).

It's a strange approach to learnflow. Usually first, as a base, do something simple that can always be easily repeated.

    kuligs2 Why do you need to rotate the ball? Btw if a purpose of this ball gizmo is just to move a bone in the screen plane then you can use a 2D draggable gizmo, project its position onto the constrain plane and move a bone directly to that position.

      Tomcat It's a strange approach to learnflow. Usually first, as a base, do something simple that can always be easily repeated.

      imo this is as simple as it can get using sort of production mock up models.. i mean why would i try to do this on a cube mesh with one bone where if you start adding more bones it gets very complex?

      Also this way i learn how to and not to create bones in blender.

      Tomcat If I understand correctly, you're trying to use bones for what is normally done with shapekeys.

      whats a shape key?

      xyz uhm, i think i did that because i needed the x/y/z axis to be in aligned position with the mouse positive negative x/y axis so that it could translate without the trying to convert them somehow i cant even imagine right now..

        kuligs2 lol I was about to suggest that your origin axis or something to that effect was flipped in Blender

        kuligs2 xyz uhm, i think i did that because i needed the x/y/z axis to be in aligned position with the mouse positive negative x/y axis so that it could translate without the trying to convert them somehow i cant even imagine right now..

        Yeah but you don't need that at all. The orientation/basis of the gizmo or of the bone is not important as you're just need to set the position to a point calculated by constraining the mouse projection to a plane.

          xyz Continuing debugging, i noticed:

          When i click on the ball (i removed look_at() ) i print out positions of the ball and intersection.

          ball_node.gd

          if cam != null:
          	#look_at(cam.global_transform.origin,Vector3.UP)
          
          	print("interset click0: ", global_position)
          	
          	temp_plane = Plane(cam.global_transform.basis.z,global_position)
          
          	var RAY_LENGTH = (cam.global_position - global_position).length()*1.1
          	var mousepos = get_viewport().get_mouse_position()
          
          	var origin = cam.project_ray_origin(mousepos)
          	var end = origin + cam.project_ray_normal(mousepos) * RAY_LENGTH
          	var query = PhysicsRayQueryParameters3D.create(origin, end)
          	query.exclude = [self]
          	query.collide_with_areas = true
          	var intersect = temp_plane.intersects_ray(end, cam.global_transform.origin-global_position)
          	if intersect:
          
          		ball_position_changed.emit(bone_index, intersect)
          		print("interset click1: ", intersect)
          		ball_clicked.emit(position)

          Clicking the ball that is not related to bones prints out position that is close to real position of the ball.

          interset click0: (0, 0.959433, -1.63808)
          interset click1: (0.03866, 0.905366, -1.619112)

          But when i click the ball that is attached to bone, the ball jumps to some arbitrary location and prints out that wrong location.

          While i was writing this, i figured it out i think.

          Previously on garbanzo..

          func _on_ball_position_changed(bone_index, bone_pos):
          
          	skeleton_3d.set_bone_pose_position(bone_index,bone_pos)
          
          	pass

          Working code:

          func _on_ball_position_changed(bone_index, bone_pos):
          	
          	var pos =  bone_pos * skeleton_3d.global_transform
          	skeleton_3d.set_bone_pose_position(bone_index,pos)
          
          	pass

          So the problem was the transforms3d as per usual..
          Another culprit is that skeleton_3d.get_bone_global_pose and skeleton_3d.set_bone_pose_position work in local coord space relative to skeleton.

          But.. as per usual, some things are still not working.. 😃.. In the video i try to move the child-bone and this messes up everything.. mowing root-bone works as expected.

          Still need to work on the child node manipulations..

          • xyz replied to this.

            xyz

            func get_bones():
            	var bone_count = skeleton_3d.get_bone_count()
            	
            	if bone_count <1:
            		return
            	for b_index in range(0,bone_count-1):
            		
            		var b_pos = skeleton_3d.get_bone_global_pose(b_index)
            		var pos =  skeleton_3d.global_transform * b_pos * global_transform
            
            		var new_ball:Ball = ball.instantiate()
            		new_ball.ball_position_changed.connect(_on_ball_position_changed)
            		new_ball.bone_index = b_index
            		new_ball.cam = cam
            • xyz replied to this.

              kuligs2 This is initialization but balls of child bones are moving when you move a parent ball. How do you update this?

                xyz

                func _on_skeleton_updated():
                	pass
                	
                	for child:Ball in ball_nodes.get_children():
                		var b_pos = skeleton_3d.get_bone_global_pose(child.bone_index)
                		var pos =  skeleton_3d.global_transform * b_pos * global_transform
                		child.global_transform = pos

                Tomcat Blend shapes are per-vertex animation technique. It has nothing to do with what is happening here. Even skeletal mesh animation is not relevant. The problem very likely boils down to faulty transform calculations.

                  xyz Blend shapes are per-vertex animation technique.

                  I mean, both are changes to the meshes. Yeah, in different ways. But they're similar enough in appearance. We don't know the end goal thoroughly. Somehow modifying by bones is supposed to be easier for the engine (so it's sometimes claimed). I want to try it, though I'm still vague about how it might be.

                    Tomcat so its a blender thing.. not really what im looking for unless the "end" goal i have in mind can be achieved with this.

                    I agree with xyz, its always transforms..

                    Tomcat well i didnt know any other way to do what i want - change for instance character shape.. i havent tested this with baked in animations, how it will all work, but the goal is to have character manipulation thingie, that players can set up their char face or any other bone/mesh the way they want.. with limits tho 😃..

                    I kinda hate when devs take a shortcut and just give few options to change the hair or have pre baked faces or body types..

                    I think something similar is in ARK survival game, tho i dont remember if you could adjust face.. i mean if you can adjust bone then face should be no problem.. ??

                      kuligs2 so its a blender thing.. not really what im looking for unless the "end" goal i have in mind can be achieved with this.

                      Well, those keys can be transferred to the engine.

                      well i didnt know any other way to do what i want - change for instance character shape..

                      Yep, that's exactly what the keys are for.

                      But character customization is a bit more complicated. Just to give you a very brief rundown on that: you have to be careful to match the rig and the mesh.

                        Tomcat Well, those keys can be transferred to the engine.

                        from what i seen keys are like linear manipulation, but idk.. yes i saw you can export to godot, but i dont like that you have to manually select vertices and move to a "maximum" distortion value rather than just modifying the root deformation bone somehow.. idk.. maybe the bone thing wont work out with animations etc.. need more testing..

                        Tomcat But character customization is a bit more complicated. Just to give you a very brief rundown on that: you have to be careful to match the rig and the mesh.

                        yeah this i learned, but you need to scale rig + mesh at the same time, and it should be ok, pretty easy to do in godot on node level.

                          kuligs2 need more testing..

                          Yeah, I want to try that too.

                          but you need to scale rig + mesh at the same time, and it should be ok, pretty easy to do in godot on node level.

                          No, it's not the size (not only the size) but the ratio of the different bones that changes, and this leads to severe distortions.

                          So i keep breaking things, not sure how and why..

                          Idea today was to create function that resets the bones to the initial positions. But somehow when i do that the mesh is mangled up.

                          As a bonus i figured out why the child bone didnt work properly. It was that function that get triggered when the skeleton is updated, so i disabled it and now i can move child bones and the bone/ball is not jumping away from my grip but the mesh is still deforming in not the bone direction but opposite (child bones)

                          Working code so far:

                          func get_bones():
                          	var bone_count = skeleton_3d.get_bone_count()
                          	
                          	if bone_count <1:
                          		return
                          	for b_index in range(0,bone_count-1):
                          		
                          		# works	
                          		var b_pos = skeleton_3d.get_bone_global_pose(b_index)
                          		var pos =  skeleton_3d.global_transform * b_pos
                          
                          		var new_ball:Ball = ball.instantiate()
                          		new_ball.ball_position_changed.connect(_on_ball_position_changed)
                          		new_ball.bone_index = b_index
                          		new_ball.cam = cam
                          	
                          		new_ball.global_transform = pos
                          		ball_nodes.add_child(new_ball)
                          	get_bone_reset_postions()
                          	pass
                          	
                          func _on_ball_position_changed(bone_index, bone_pos):
                          
                          	# works
                          	var pos =  bone_pos * skeleton_3d.global_transform 
                          	skeleton_3d.set_bone_pose_position(bone_index,pos)
                          
                          	pass
                          
                          func get_bone_reset_postions():
                          	var bone_count = skeleton_3d.get_bone_count()
                          	
                          	if bone_count <1:
                          		return
                          	for b_index in range(0,bone_count-1):
                          		# works	
                          		var b_pos = skeleton_3d.get_bone_global_pose(b_index)
                          		var pos =  skeleton_3d.global_transform * b_pos
                          		
                          		reset_bones_positions[b_index] = pos
                          	print("Reset position get")
                          		
                          func set_bone_reset_postions():
                          	
                          	for child:Ball in ball_nodes.get_children():
                          		child.global_transform = reset_bones_positions[child.bone_index]
                          		
                          		var pos =  reset_bones_positions[child.bone_index].origin * skeleton_3d.global_transform 
                          		skeleton_3d.set_bone_pose_position(child.bone_index,pos)
                          	print("Reset position set")

                          Its all inside the garbanzo - the face scene where i have access to skeleton and ball_node which contains balls that gets spawned by get_bones()

                          Continuing observations..
                          Godot does not import last added bone in blender..

                          I created new mesh and new bones from scratch. And now the movements are again flipped.. its not consistent.. script hasnt changed..

                          And same script with the other mesh

                          Not sure how and why this is happening and how to proceed..

                          Maybe its time to investigate shape keys??

                          EDIT:
                          One thing i noticed while here is that bone direction are different in blender, maybe thats the reason?

                          While the garbanzo works decent on the bones that are not the nose, the suzy bones do not at all..

                          EDIT2:

                          Ah yes.. yes yes yes.. this is quite peculiar.

                          TLDR:
                          Cannot chain bones if you want to deform mesh
                          Remember to add last sacrificial bone in blender because godot is too based to import it.
                          In blender, create bones that are Z-aligned (call em Z-bones) Z- axis in godot, in blender it could be either x or y

                          Note:
                          So for deformation in godot, you want to create separate armature that is based on the things i mentioned above.

                          Next:
                          Try to create idle animation for the mesh, then deform bones in godot and see how animation looks after deform.

                          Next - to last:
                          Try to save deform bone transforms to import them from either file or memory and apply it to the current session.