Set color for Empties or Wireframes used as Rig Controllers
It would be nice if it were possible to color an "empty" right within the settings of the "empty" or the Wireframe of Shapes used for Controllers. For example when an empty is used for an controller within a rig it gets very confusing with them being just black. The same goes with custom made controller shapes that are set to "wire" rendering. So it would help when building more complex rigs without loosing the ability to understand it quickly.
44 Comments
Agree. Especially after last update that allows to color wireframe.
Yes. That would Coloring Empties would be awesome.
But side note about proposal itself:
Color for rigs is great example, but You are unnecessary limiting possibilities in Your proposal. I'm constantly using empties not only in rigs (eg. as object in modifier or constrain setting) and there colour also would be helpful. So someone not so familiar with using empties woudn't be much convinced with that change.
* @Pawel Piotrowski * Thank you rephrased a bit and took the rig just as a useful example to make clear why this would be benefiting
4 years and still nothing? :( this is so much needed. i wonder if there's an easy way to do at least an external addon...
3 years later and nothing happend ;) Just saying..
It seems very useful! Sometimes I have a lot of booleans in viewport display Bound mode for non destructive modeling, so they are very similar to an Empty object. I know it is possible to change general empties color, But have freedon to choose a color for each one could be awesome! You can use this thumb if you like it: snipboard.io/PeUwVZ.jpg
Updated - It should also be possible to choose a color for Wireframes themselves when creating custom controller shapes
Just so you know, anywhere you use an empty, you can use any object you want. That object can be a non-rendering mesh, with all of the tools available for display available to mesh objects. Which includes color. Hiding it from render like an empty is one extra click.
Custom colors for Empties is in development now: projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/133922
I would personally rather see empties made unnecessary for rig control. There are very few things that still require empties (warp modifier, UV warp modifier come to mind) and fixing this would let you use a single, more powerful, more flexible way of controlling things that would make empty changes unnecessary.
* @vasiln * And how would you build a rig without a proper controller setup?
* @datadieb * Happens all the time in Blender. You use an armature with bones as controllers and bone shapes.
* @Jason van Gumster * That's the dirty way to do it, no animator would like to work with that. Speaking from experience using Blender in a pro environment
* @datadieb * Speaking as an animator and rigger. I very much like to work like this.
* @vasiln * Well, it depends on the workflow. When you rig bigger machines for example for vizualisation, you need to shift over huge parts or many objects in hierachies (talking about sveral hundreds maybe) you might need to animate, Hierachies under an empty or NULL object are easy to handle and quick to access. To be able to color them and make the rest unselectable is the most efficient workflow in my eyes..doing this since 2 decades ;) Anyway, beeing able to color NULLS or CURVES does not hurt anybody, right? ;)
* @Oliver Weingarten * It doesn't hurt anybody, no, other than the fact that any changes take time, which is opportunity cost. But you might find that hierarchies under a bone are as easy to handle as hierarchies under an empty, and that there are better tools for controlling them and visualizing them.
* @vasiln * Non-conformal with industry standards , so I would never use Bones as Controllers. It is a Blender Only thing so to former Maya or 3Ds Max Users it would be beyond weird. I asked around within the company I worked at yesterday and all of them didn't liked the idea to use bones for that task. PS: I hate to use the term industry standard but If we want Blender to be used more within the industry we have to at least allow to do things in Blender that are commonly used within the Industry.
* @datadieb * Maybe I could ask why you, personally, prefer the use of empties over armatures for mechanical animation? (Because presumably you use armatures for characters and other organic shapes, right?) If you haven't already tried the use of armatures, I encourage you to do so-- as I've said, there are better tools for organization, visualization, and constraints for bones than there are for objects, and there are relatively few places left in Blender where bones won't work. Personally, I prefer the organization of bones to the extent that when I need something like a warp modifier, I like to make empties parented to bones to control it rather than directly using empties. The empties get a delta, then go straight to layer 20 where I never have to worry about looking at them ever again.
However, I'd also like to draw your attention to something I said elsewhere in this thread, which is that you can use non-rendering mesh objects in lieu of empties for controls. It's not even any trouble. If you try bones and decide you don't like them, you might consider speaking to your rigger and asking them to use appropriately colored (and shaped, and even preview rendered!) mesh objects. Maybe you're your own rigger, I don't know. You have options here, and I hope you're animating on the basis of what works for you-- and taking the time to learn what that is!-- rather than limiting yourself to how you believe it has to be done, and I'm sure your employers/customers would feel the same way.
* @datadieb * the question in the end is what the better design for artists is. It should be as accessable as possible for everyone.
* @vasiln * uhm-..I am talking about controllers and not bone setups..a very different topic, of cause I bind a mesh to an armature but use Empties as Controllers for those Bones...as IIK, FK Controllers while I hide the underlaying Bone system that is why i want to be able to color them... Also using meshes as controllers does maybe work within Blender but when you export your asset to an game engine your mesh controllers would suddenly show up as real geometry. I am working within the game industry and have currently zero interest to just render things in Blender.
* @momotron2000 * Mainly I don't understand why my suggestion is that hated, it is a common thing to use empties as bone controllers why not allow riggers to color them. Or just color wireframes for each mesh differently (not randomized) in a shaded viewport. And how could it be more accessible than jsut setting a color when you create an empty or directly within it's settings
* @datadieb * I like the idea! It was a comment about the "industry standard". I hate when people say they use maya because it's industry standard and even say it's bad software. These people are fucking lazy. I hate them!
Blender on the other hand just started to push their developers some months ago when fund.blender.org was created for the 2.8 quest. Many people who used to work on other software are now getting interested in Blender and now we can start the debate how the developers supported by the fund can improve Blender to become a better software. There are now so many specialized artists in different areas that were missing before.
But you have to keep in mind that everyone who was not so deep in other software don't really understand what the benefit is.
I would love to see better rigs in Blender. Please fight for your ideas!
* @momotron2000 * I use Blender mainly myself but I work together with people who use other tools, our company is very flexible with that. So I get to ask the others what they would like to be added to Blender and the riggers instantly pointed this current topic out to me.
* @datadieb * Bones are frequently used as non-deforming controllers, especially for the situations you give (IK targets). As for game engine use, are you concerned about controls coloration in-engine? That wouldn't be a Blender issue, but it shouldn't be a hard thing to script in to any reasonable engine-- please talk to your coder about it if it's giving you trouble, you need good tools to be able to make good games.
* @vasiln * not in engine...in Blender for the animators... please look up what I mean by controllers .... I am not talking about bones
an example from the latest movie project by the Blender Foundation code.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/springrg.jpg
* @vasiln * Like datadieb says. Using bones is not like using empties as controllers. I know what I´m talking about. Trying to convince people about weird workflows does not help Blender´s reputation in the 3d business. Bones had to be used in the past, because the dependencies were not calculated correctly with empties, to my knowledge. Correct if I´m wrong. So, using bones was/is a workaround. And by the way, packing complex hierarchies under bones is NOT the same and having to hop in pose mode in and out is not an efficient workflow..
* @datadieb * I don´t understand it either. It shows once again a certain mindset. It does not hurt anybody, when coloring controller would be possible. But some people just want to keep everything the "Blender way", though the bones-workflow always was some kind of workaround...weird.
* @momotron2000 * You might hate the wording "industry standard", but it is reality. I work with XSI and got badly f*cked by Autodesk like many thousand people out there. I don´t use Maya nore 3Dmax. XSI was not an industry standard and did many things like none of the competitors did. But some things are just common. Using bones als controllers is just weird. Call it what you like, but there are certain standards an they seem to be there for some reason. And yes, copying stuff blindly from Maya for example is clearly not a good idea. Beeing critical is absolutely fine. We all want Blender to get better and more efficient, that´s what we try here, right?
* @Oliver Weingarten * FWIW, it's not just about the dependency graph. The armature hierarchy has always been a handy way of "packaging" rigs, particularly when it comes to animating with actions and using linked proxies for character and rig assets. Yes, it is a different workflow, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's inferior to the workflow in other applications. It really is worth it to take a bit of time and understand how rigging and animation works in Blender. Yes, there are some rough corners, but I'd suggest heavy thought before writing off the whole "Blender way" of doing it.
* @Jason van Gumster * I don´t not write off the Blender way of doing things. There are many things that are good and I like them. Again, it´s about coloring empties and curves, not about getting rid of a cerain workflow. Again, I´m not talking about characters and rigs for characters. I´m talking about machinery and heavy amounts of objects coming out of CAD. Total different story.
* @Jason van Gumster * Did you watch the Blender conference 'XGen' presentation? I don't care how they did it, but there's a TON of colored wires and control objects for animation. Link 12:00 min. in if the link doesn't work properly. Don't be a 'it's better b/c it's Blender' type of guy. You already 'pollute' lots of discussions over here quite often just because you don't agree on different ideas. This place start to feel a lot like the Maya forums, where it's the 'Maya way or the highway'. For me I'm about to stop posting in this place, it's just too frustrating...
* @rob * FWIW, I never downvoted this proposal. It's right in line with custom color requests for any other object in Blender. As such, it's perfectly fine (especially with the introduction of random colored custom wires in 2.80). I'm just saying that custom colors already exist for bone groups and that bone-based rigs do have their own advantages... so statements about it being bad just because it's different aren't giving a complete picture of things.
As for the comment about me polluting this site... I started RCS and continue to admin it. That includes reading every single proposal. When there's an idea that I feel I can comment on, I will. No one has to listen to me. But I'd like to think that my experience with Blender and other software would count for something.
* @Jason van Gumster * Last one from me on all this, and then I will stay away for a while. First of all, if you're the admin of this website, start doing something on all the duplicate or similar threads like this one, and start cross-linking or bundling them into one thread. So that there isn't so much fluff to wade through.... Second, there are requests/suggestions/tips/rants going back for years. I can't imagine some of these are already added/fixed or changed during later builds of Blender. Sit down with the devs and clean up the database. Thirdly, you're not the only one with experience with other software. A lot of us flowing in atm are users looking at Blender coming from applications like Maya, Softimage, Cinema, Lightwave etc. Heck, I've used almost everything 3D wise since 3DStudio DOS came out. on Irix, PC or Mac... There's a TON of user and workflow experience flowing in into this forum, so don't do the' Yes, but it's Blender' thing.... Although I do like Blender, some of it's workflows are just plain weird, or frustratingly different from other applications what most of us think of as a 'standard'. These are not personal attacks on you, but I feel the existing Blender community should be a bit more open to change. You all want Blender to thrive with more users, so you have to embrace change as a result. The massive interest in v.2.8 is a results of these changes, and making Blender more 'baseline standard' accessible for new users in the process. rob
* @rob * slowclap I agree!
* @rob * Word!
Been there, done that a month ago: Link ;)
* @rob * Yeah..this place does not seem to be well administrated/sorted/maintained. Many good ideas just get lost in this mess here...
How would you solve that? Merging ideas as duplicate?
* @Pablo Vazquez * Personally, I'd like to add a "Duplicate" status to a post and have it include a field for a link to the one being duplicated. Not sure the best way to handle vote accumulation, though.
* @Jason van Gumster * Plenty of Irony in this:
Link 1
Link 2
* @ammusionist * That's a great example! :) We are actively working on Blender Community now and will keep this feature in mind for future updates.
* @Pablo Vazquez * Well, duplicates are just one problem. Over 2800 suggestions, many of them obsolete, already developed or in development. I´m not sure how this hole system could work more efficient. People keep on posting stuff not knowing that similar stuff was posted before, because of different wording etc. Duplicates should be merged into one topic for sure. Maybe a "classic forum structure" with topics would be better and an additional voting system. Maybe easier to maintain...not sure.
* @Jason van Gumster * good idea! I think stackoverflow has a siliar approach!
* @Pablo Vazquez * when people make a request title it could do a search based on it and show "possible duplicate" posts. Might help users who don't manually search.