On the elegance of remap nodes....

Typically when I rig I hack the heck out of stuff using expressions and what not. For example, this had been my expression driving lid movement...

//Left Lid connections
eyeRigAttributeHolder.blink_center_left = clamp (0,1, -blink_left_anim.translateY);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.blink_inner_left = clamp (0,1, -blink_left_anim.translateY);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.blink_outer_left = clamp (0,1, -blink_left_anim.translateY);

eyeRigAttributeHolder.upperLid_center_left = clamp (-27, 35, -uprLid_left_anim.translateY * 35);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.upperLid_outer_left = clamp (-25, 25, -outer_uprLid_left_anim.translateY * 25);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.upperLid_inner_left = clamp (-8, 20, -inner_uprLid_left_anim.translateY * 20);

eyeRigAttributeHolder.lowerLid_center_left = clamp ( -12, 21, -lwrLid_left_anim.translateY * 21);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.lowerLid_outer_left = clamp ( -14, 12, -outer_lwrLid_left_anim.translateY * 20);
eyeRigAttributeHolder.lowerLid_inner_left = clamp ( -5, 12, -inner_lwrLid_left_anim.translateY * 12);

//adds rotation on the center eyelid skin joints for bend in the eyelid and is then negated by the blink so things seal up
left_uprLid_skin_jnt.rotateZ = uprLid_left_anim.rotateZ - (uprLid_left_anim.rotateZ * -blink_left_anim.translateY);
left_lwrLid_skin_jnt.rotateZ = lwrLid_left_anim.rotateZ - (lwrLid_left_anim.rotateZ * -blink_left_anim.translateY);


//left eyelid group follows the eye
eyelid_left_rig_grp.rotateY = left_eye_skin_jnt.rotateY * .2;
uprEyelid_left_rig_grp.rotateX = clamp (-35, 10, left_eye_skin_jnt.rotateX + (eyeRigAttributeHolder.blink_center_left * 35)) ;


//joint following
//left_uprFan_jnt.rotateX = left_uprLid_jnt.rotateX * .7;
//left_outerUprLid_jnt.rotateX = left_uprLid_jnt.rotateX * .7;

That's a bit of a mess and a major pain to edit for the user and wanting to follow in Shleifer's Animator Friendly rigging principles I looked into a bit of a more elegant solution and learned to love remap nodes in the process.

So with a bid of elbow grease and heavily modifying Doublestein's eyelid joint setup by adding new attributes and some new doodads everything connects in one nice little script.

Here's a chunk of that code...

//connecteding eyelid controls -jb
//upr
string $uprLidMovementRemap = `createNode remapValue -n ("remapUprLidMovement"+$location+$side)`;
setAttr ( $uprLidMovementRemap+".inputMin") -1;
connectAttr ($uprLidControl+".ty") ($uprLidMovementRemap+".inputValue");
connectAttr ($uprLidUprLimit) ($uprLidMovementRemap+".outputMax");
connectAttr ($uprLidLwrLimit) ($uprLidMovementRemap+".outputMin");
connectAttr ($uprLidMovementRemap+".outValue") ($uprLidMover);

//lwr
string $lwrLidMovementRemap = `createNode remapValue -n ("remapLwrLidMovement"+$location+$side)`;
setAttr ( $lwrLidMovementRemap+".inputMin") -1;
connectAttr ($lwrLidControl+".ty") ($lwrLidMovementRemap+".inputValue");
connectAttr ($lwrLidUprLimit) ($lwrLidMovementRemap+".outputMax");
connectAttr ($lwrLidLwrLimit) ($lwrLidMovementRemap+".outputMin");
connectAttr ($lwrLidMovementRemap+".outValue") ($lwrLidMover);


//Blink setup - jb
string $blinkmdNode = `createNode multiplyDivide -n ("BlinkmdNode"+$location+$side)`;
connectAttr ($blinkControl+".ty") ($blinkmdNode+".input1X");
setAttr ($blinkmdNode+".input2X") -1;
connectAttr ($blinkmdNode+".outputX") ($blinkMover);

It's also pretty cool in that there's now attributes sitting on a control that you can mess with to tweak the range of the lid movement by the controls. Pretty nifty.

Now I'd really like to buckle down and learn some python but if I'm gonna finish Morphy anytime soon, it'll have to wait.