Ragdoll for Blender - Early Access

News
1

Hello

Ok! :grin: We’ll be doing a little mini-early access, followed by frequent updates over the next few weeks.

If you are up to get your elbows scraped and fingers cut, in an effort to help us perfect this Blender Addon, then this is for you! :partying_face:

Ragdoll for Blender

This is the early access version of Ragdoll for Blender, it contains about 80% of what exists in the Maya plug-in, at a 1/10th of the performance.

  • Expect bugs
  • Expect crashes
  • Windows only
  • Supports Blender 3.4, 3.6 and 4.0

These will all be addressed in the coming weeks, including support for Linux and MacOS (ARM and Intel).

Download

With that out of the way, here’s how you can get started.

The Blender Addon is a bridge between Blender and “Ragdoll Core”, so you’ll need both installed in order to benefit from Ragdoll. The Core installer is a Windows .msi file that you double-click and watch it go.

Step 1

To install Ragdoll Core, double-click the RagdollCore.msi you downloaded from above, and click through the dialogs.

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Step 2

To install the addon, you do what you’d normally do for addons, via the “Install” button in Blender’s preferences.

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And select the RagdollBlender.zip you downloaded from above.

Once that’s done, you can enable the addon.

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Licence

One of these apply to you.

  1. If you haven’t used Ragdoll before, a new trial licence will be automatically activated upon loading the plug-in. It’ll last you 30 days, and enables you to simulate and record your simulations of up to 100 frames. Once the 30 days are up, you can keep simulating but will be unable to record.
  2. If you’ve already expired your trial (via e.g. Maya), get in touch with us via support@ragdolldynamics.com to request a new 30-day trial.
  3. If you already have a licence, then good news: this licence also applies to Blender! :partying_face:

You can purchase a new licence via our website as per usual.

We’ll enable purchases via https://blendermarket.com once we pass Early Access as well.

Using Ragdoll

Once the addon has been enabled, you’ll find a few new elements in your Blender UI.

  1. With a Ragdoll solver in the scene, you’ll be able to manipulate it interactively via this icon
  2. Any and all new Ragdoll objects end up in this group, for easy organisation
  3. Any properties to control the Ragdoll simulation end up in this tab
  4. Finally, the entrypoint to all things Ragdoll

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  1. (You can also use the search panel to find all Ragdoll operators)

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Learning Material

We’re working on material explicitly for Blender, until then feel free to enjoy the tutorials for Maya, as the workflow is near identical:

Questions

Let us know here, we’ll keep updating this thread with new releases as we patch things up. Let us know if you run into any issue, and how to reproduce it such that we can fix fix fix!

Thanks for your patience on this one, it’s taken a long time, but now it’s close.

Enjoy!

4 Likes
2

Hi all,

Here’s a minor update, primarily related to stability.

You should now find less, if any, crashes. We’ve also updated the appearance of recording, which should now be more pleasant to look at (without big ugly crosshairs). You’ll also be able to use Translate Stiffness on the root Markers of your characters, regardless of what the Linear Motion property is set to.

Download

See above for installation instructions.

You’ll need to download and install both of these as they have both been updated.

2 Likes
3

Hi again!

Thanks for the (private) feedback so far, especially @Manikandan_Rajendran for finding and helping us squash bugs and make refinements to the overall workflow of this Ragdoll Blender addon!

One more update, here’s what’s changed:

  • Less crashes
  • Manipulator properties are now relative the current value, meaning they work predictably at any scale
  • Live Mode now works again
  • User-friendly notifications for MacOS, Linux and other unsupported flavours (so far!)
  • Multi-select of shapes in the Manipulator now works with non-industry standard keymapping
  • Replaced meshes are now more predictable with undo/redo
  • Removed Input Geometry from Properties Panel (use Utilities → Replace Mesh)

Download

Both the addon and Ragdoll Core has changed, so be sure to install both.

Let us know here if you find any rough edges, I think we’re getting close to a 1.0 now. Performance comes last, and I expect to at least double to triple it before we call it done.

2 Likes
4

Whop whop! Here we go again.

  1. Attach Constraint now includes the name of what’s attached
  2. Record Simulation now ignores locked channels
  3. Record Simulation now ignores Animated markers
  4. Delete All Physics now deletes hidden Ragdoll objects
  5. Delete All Physics now deletes master Ragdoll collection
  6. Assign Marker button removed from Properties Panel, use Ragdoll menu

Work have also begun on optimisations, here’s what you can expect in an upcoming release:

Before - 0.19 fps

After - 18 fps

Download

Some very exciting days coming up, so stay tuned! :partying_face:

2 Likes
5

Hi all,

Here’s the latest of what has become a daily release schedule. :blush:

  • 100x greater playback performance
  • New retargeting picker
  • Repaired assets with Load Physics, including the Wyvern asset

As promised, the plug-in is now 100x faster than before. Don’t expect these two often. :slight_smile: Compared to the Maya plug-in, it runs at about 90% 60% the speed. Which is magnificent considering the amount of Python that’s in here, compared to the Maya plug-in which is 100% C++.

Download

Working on tutorials next, which will iron out any last inconveniences, so stay tuned.

2 Likes
6

Next minor update.

Now that playback performance is fast, the next nail sticking out is the time taken to undo. You see, Ragdoll is not unlike Blender in that it has its own internal scenegraph, it’s own selection model and internal commands. So a Ragdoll integration really is a synchronisation between these two pieces of software. As such, it is important to keep the correlation between Blender and Ragdoll objects intact and one of the things Blender does that complicates this is that it goes completely Alzheimer’s whenever you undo. It forgets every object reference you were working with and hands you entirely new references to work with. Therefore, whenever you undo, Ragdoll must venture out to look for what used to be references it knew, and when there is too many options - i.e. when your Blender scene is large - this takes time.

It’s a lot faster in this release, but it can still take up to a second on larger scenes… :sob: Not ok, and we’ll find ways to combat this as we go.

Changes

  • Retargeting picker now has a UI
  • Less crashes from poor input matrices
  • Fixed recording of targets with only 1 unlocked axis, e.g. elbows
  • 10x faster undo, but still not as fast as it can be

Download

Here’s the new picker for retargeting. If you don’t know what “retargeting” is just yet, hold on. We’re working on getting new tutorials out for you. In a nutshell, it’s for assigning onto IK bones but record onto the IK end effector and pole vector.

2 Likes
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Linux users, this one’s for you. :partying_face:

The addon itself remains cross-platform.

Install

On Windows, the installer takes care of the final installation path for Ragdoll Core, but on Linux it’s not so obvious.

  1. Download the RagdollCore*.zip
  2. Unpack it in your home directory, e.g. /home/marcus

For example.

cd ~/
wget https://content.ragdolldynamics.com/1490f389-a647-4615-8f4e-56b29d97a3a9/RagdollCore-linux-2024.02.09.zip
unzip RagdollCore-linux-2024.02.09.zip

And that’s it! With the Blender Addon loaded, you should see a new Ragdoll menu like in the above video.

If it fails to find where Ragdoll Core is installed, you can override the search path like this.

export RAGDOLL_CORE_PATH=/home/marcus/ragdolldynamics/core/2024.02.09/lib
./blender

Where you would replace the example path with your own.

Let us know if you run into any issues; we are aware of a crash upon exiting Blender with the addon loaded and are working on a solution to this as we speak.

Enjoy! :partying_face:

2 Likes
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Hold on, technical difficulties. To be resumed tomorrow. :woman_factory_worker:

9

New minor update.

  • Undo/redo performance improved by 10x
  • Less crashes due to replaced meshes
  • Less crashes in general
  • More reliable remove/unremove of objects, e.g. undo a removal

It’s much faster! But, we’re expecting another 10x boost for undo/redo, in giant scenes it can still take up to 1 second to undo. From there, it’s tutorials followed by launch. :partying_face:

Download

And finally, a platform independent Ragdoll Blender addon.

With this, it’s just about time to start posting more widely across the interwebs - performance is in a good place as is stability and usability.

So stay tuned! :partying_face:

1 Like
10

Hi all,

We’re finally at the stage where stability is good, performance is good and we’ve got our first tutorial!

It’s a little more on the advanced side, stay tuned for beginner level tutorials! :blush:

Changes

  • Even less crashes
  • More reliable scale, limits won’t freak out
  • Maintain History option for Replace Mesh
  • More robust capsule manipulator, won’t tangle itself
  • Undoable Replace Mesh

Download

And finally, a platform independent Ragdoll Blender addon.

2 Likes
11

Wow! I missed Ragdoll for Blender a lot. I used it in Maya but my “personal” soft is Blender. Thanks for developing the software for Blender!!

1 Like
12

Ok, next up, Universal Transfer with Live Mode.

Ragdoll 2024.02.16

This feature enables posing with (pure) physics (no AI), and is a lot of fun. :blush:

We’ve also added a description to the Ctrl/Cmd+click menu.

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More Examples

Look how fast it is to transfer!

Transferring works outside of Live Mode too.

Some extras, nice results from tuning the global limit stiffness. :blush:

2 Likes
13

Minor update, some bugs here and there, and some new strides in the performance of undo.

  • Much faster undo in complex scenes
  • Undo/redo now reliably works inside of the Manipulator
  • Tapered Capsule Preview

Download

There’s also this! :blush:

More of this to come, I’d like to incorporate something akin to ZSpheres in Ragdoll. Both for tuning of shapes, like in this example, but also for authoring of new shapes and characters, as an alternative to objects/bones in Blender - and nodes/joints in Maya.

1 Like