New Blender 2.8 Chordata Node System Addon

Guiltyfeet

Hi everyone! 😃

First of all let me introduce myself.
I'm Lorenzo, Lead Technical Artist of Chordata. My role in our team is kinda hybrid as I follow both technical developing matters and artistic / content making tasks.
I'm so excited about what we're doing and couldn't be more grateful for all the support we're getting from all of you.
We all sincerely thank you for that.

As of today, I'm part of the development of the new node based Addon for Blender 2.8 .

We really believe this is going to be a huge improvement.
We're doing our best to deliver a completely new system, basically re-built from the ground up: more stable, easier to use, more expandable and modular!

Let me share with you one of the first mockups we made while designing this new system:

We decided to open this discussion to know what you think about it!
Feel free to ask anything in this thread and please share with us all the suggestions, ideas and feedback you come up with!

Lorenzo

amjaddb

I just found out this website and what you guys are doing is amazing. I just wanted to know why I can't find the motion capture tab? Also, I tried to find the nodes but nothing was there.

Guiltyfeet

amjaddb The version of the addon that we're distributing right now is still only for Blender 2.79
The node system addon for 2.8 is still in development.

amjaddb

Guiltyfeet That's great. When are you gonna release it?

highmatergogo

Excited for this!

Guiltyfeet

AxonSpark

amjaddb We don't have an official release date yet but we'll keep you updated!

AxonSpark

@Guiltyfeet Looking good! It'll be nice to setup/run everything inside Blender, and I hope that the debug nodes will give you data that's more useful than this.

Will individual K-Ceptor calibration still need to be performed using the terminal interface, or will there be a node for that as well? Or is there a scan mode for the Notochord node? If we'll be able to calibrate the sensors directly in Blender, would there be an accompanying .blend file that would trace our movements as we performed the calibration procedure in real-time? I figure this might help ferret out potential issues during calibration.

Lastly, should I recalibrate my K-Ceptors before trying the 2.8 plug-in when it's released? Or should I keep my current calibration in order to determine if the new software will fix the drift issues I've been having? Also, will the read rate in this version be odr 100?

Thanks!

Guiltyfeet

AxonSpark Our current main objective for the new Addon is re-designing a clearer interface and structure both for our users and our developers and integration with Blender 2.8. In the beginnning this will bring mainly more consistent and easier access to the system. Secondly we're designing everything to fully integrate, in the near future, the Control Server functionalities. This will bring easier and more complete access to Notochord unit. What will come next is an update of the actual Notochord software itself.

AxonSpark Lastly, should I recalibrate my K-Ceptors before trying the 2.8 plug-in when it's released? Or should I keep my current calibration in order to determine if the new software will fix the drift issues I've been having? Also, will the read rate in this version be odr 100?

Calibration and read rate will be addressed in the Notochord update, not in this new Addon release.

Once we're confident about this first release we'll start exposing more features like the one you suggested so please keep us posted with all your ideas! 🙂

Lorenzo

AxonSpark

Guiltyfeet One more thing: the root bone does not move in the current version of the add-on. Will there be a check box option to enable root bone height in the Blender viewport instead of only being available when retransmitting data?

daylanKifky

AxonSpark Will there be a check box option to enable root bone height in the Blender viewport instead of only being available when retransmitting data?

Absolutely.
This is one of the most annoying things on the old add-on even for us

In order to keep all the ideas and suggestions for the new addon organized it would be great if you guy can open issues on the gitlab issue tracker for the addon: https://gitlab.com/chordata/Blender-addon/issues

please use the label [paper-cut] for this type of annoying little details

bristle2008

yes i would rather use 2.8 instead of 2.79. I was going to look at the Blender client to see how it would be changed to 2.8. But since you are doing it, lucky me-- i can forget that part. Also i am going to use an IMUSim so i can hooked up the sim to the Blender client.

daylanKifky

Hi everyone!

We created a small DEMO to share with you the state of the add-on development.
As you can see, the base of the new node system is running (and I can tell you, making an node execution engine inside blender was not an straightforward task 😅 ), and some basic functionalities are already implemented.

The add-on is still not usable to receive actual capture data from a mocap suit. But we are releasing an executable DEMO version togheter with the video for a couple of reasons:

Stability tests

We are particulary interested in testing the stability while the node execution engine is running, so please: hit the "connect" button and try to mess around with the objects in the scene or nodes in the tree. Move them, delete them, group them, press UNDO and REDO several times, open a different file, import an FBX, whatever..
If blender crashes while doing it please let us know.

UX feedback

This is a great time to hear your opinions about the overall direction the GUI and user experience is taking.
For example: We placed some "meta-nodal" operators inside Window menu > Chordata simple because we couldn't think of a better place. Perhaps you can come up with a better one.
We would also like to know your opinions about names: does TestCube node mean something to you? What about the "Connect" button?
Feedback regarding it at this stage is very welcome!

☢ So fell free to download the DEMO add-on from our download page and give it a try. ☢

AxonSpark

Looking good so far! It'll be great to have everything in one place. I'll do some stability testing and let you know what happens.

daylanKifky

A new Beta of the addon is released!

It has networking functionalities and armature support. So you can already receive the capture coming from the Chordata hardware

Here's a brief explanation on how to install it and setup the capture: https://wiki.chordata.cc/wiki/User_Manual/1.Chordata_parts/1.4.Client_software

Another nice advanced features that we added recently are:

A vector node which allows to visually debug one of the raw vectors coming from a sensor. It can also draw a point cloud to visualize the results of the magnetometer calibration.
A custom node, which includes a python boilerplate script to easily code custom processing of the capture stream. This might serve for users like @HalloweenBob who need to convert the capture to a custom text format.

The release is still a Beta (hence the B1 in the version number), since many of the functionalities need polishing. For example you might notice that the capture visualization is a little more noisy than in the previous addon. The record node requires further testing, and the forward node is still not implemented. Our own testing showed a much improved stability with respect to the previous version of the addon, but if you still get crashes please try to inform us using the issue tracker

We are working on documentation on the usage of this new addon, keep an eye on this thread

HalloweenBob

daylanKifky Thank you!! I will be looking into this!

AxonSpark

Hey @daylanKifky, Hope you and the team are staying healthy.

I attempted to use the 2.8 add-on in Blender 2.82 on my relatively new Windows laptop, but ran into an odd error. Getting everything up and running through the terminal worked, but when I tried to connecting with the Notochord Node, I kept getting this error with different body parts indicated each time I tried it:

Unfortunately, when I checked the console window, there were no additional details.

The result was the same both with a Firewall setup with permissions for Blender, and with the Firewall completely turned off.

I tried looking through the forum for answer to this, but couldn't find one. Any ideas why this is happening? Thanks!

daylanKifky

Hey AxonSpark! is great to see you are trying the new addon.
The problem is probably caused by an outdated version of the notochord which sends messages in a slightly different format than what the new addon expects.
Updating your notochord with the usual pull and compile should solve it

AxonSpark

daylanKifky Ok, I pulled and complied the latest Notochord software, and that fixed the connecting issue. I did some tests with as single K-Ceptor and I noticed that it doesn't matter if I changed the send rate and/or the odr, the Packet Rate in the Stats Node tends to hover around 23-24. Is this normal?

daylanKifky

for now the packets receiving rate is initiated at the scene's fps. We are restructuring the way packets are exchanged, so it might change in future versions. If you want to test it at 50Hz for now just change the scene's FPS

AxonSpark

daylanKifky So I did a full biped test with the new add-on and it looks like the knee bend problem is still an issue. Before I start a new testing thread, I wanted to ask:

Would it be helpful to use the Dump Node to gather some data for you? If so, which boxes should I be checked?
Would further spine or spine & leg tests help at all? Or maybe setting up groups of 3 K-Ceptor models in order to see if the axes align properly?

I made notes on where all the sensors were placed, so hopefully that'll help with troubleshooting.