Maya: Cascadeur Bridge (Free Maya Tool!)

[@3dincredible672]

Thank you!

[@julez4002]

If you can get this to work with Advanced Skeleton, you are going ot have a bunch of folks downloading Cascadeur!!!!!

[@nalbright5]

I'm slowly working on a plan for that, but it will take a while

[@user-qv5ff1lj2c]

Mgear or even non-standard custom rigs too. HumanIK isn't used a whole lot anymore.

[@brayandelmee2989]

Look promising, i'll be trying out

[@g3nius]

This is amazing, thank you for this bridge plugin

[@julesherring70]

Sir, you got to get Advanced Skeleton compatiable with Cascadeur, its crucial. Is there a Paetron or something to specifically address that.

[@3DcgGuru]

This has come up a few times now. It's on my list to look at, but I'm not familiar with the tool, so I can't comment on it until I look at it more closely. Only the skeleton and mesh (not the rig data) is sent to and from Cascadeur. If you have a copy of your character without the rig, the immediate solution is to send the unrigged character to and from Cascadeur via a HIK definition. Then to get the animation onto advanced skeleton you need to characterize the advanced skeleton using HIK's custom rig mapping. I don't see why that shouldn't work, but again, until I dig into it I can't say for sure. My short term plan was to and a command to the tool that gives people a clone of their character "derigged". I do have a link to patreon in the description.

[@julez4002]

@@3DcgGuru Check out how AS imports a rig that was initially setup for HumanIK but was able to wrap Advanced Skeleton on it. Could your plugin do this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHSpfZKtmNqsq80&ab_channel=AdvancedSkeleton

[@daosilver]

You can rig AS skeleton with HIK or rename all joints UE Mannequin with AS tools. UE Mannequin skeleton can be rigged automaticly in Cascadeur

[@williamreliford_vfx_artist]

For now you can use Maya HIK definition for the purpose of round tripping your character to Cascadeur. When back in Advanced Skeleton, use the moCapMatcher to map HIK to AS rig. But of course you have to make a clone of your character first so that you can have a HIK to round trip to Cascadeur. I suppose you can have your HIK character hidden in Maya while you work. I hope at that make sense. I may have to make a video of it.

[@julez4002]

@@williamreliford_vfx_artist Connect with the author of Advanced Skeleton, he seem to have the pulse on the rigging community. He just created an update to bring in RealAllusions Character Creators rigs and Face Rigs into Advanced Skeleton.

[@tillum9065]

I will try

[@maxdot93]

What if your character is rigged in maya but doesn't use the HIK system in Maya because they are more complex ? For example have rigged hair, secondary moving pieces like armor etc?

[@3DcgGuru]

Right now HIK is really the mechanism for dealing with auto rigging. You can always send arbitrary data over and push it back, but your character would need a really clean division between the exportable data and the rig controlling it. HIK DOES support characterizing custom rigs, but my tool doesn't handle that at the moment. That's on my list. At the moment if someone handed me a custom rig that I wanted to try and get working with the tool I would do the following: 1. Make a copy of the character. 2. Strip the rig off the copy so I only have the skinned mesh and skinned joints (including any extra bones). 3. Characterize the copy and use that for sending to and from Cascadeur. 4. Cascadeur side anything that's not part of the QRT would need to be manually added to the rig (e.g. secondary items). 5. To get the motion back to the official character I would (5a) characterize the original rig in Maya (5b) then retarget the cascadeur character to the custom rig. It's definitely not a one button press solution, but something along those line could work.

[@kytan6734]

hi, i downloaded your installer and the file format is exe rather than a python, and I ran the exe but it says "UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd0 in position 0: invalid continuation byte". what should I do? I'm using maya 2023. i'd really appreciate it if you will help me.

[@3DcgGuru]

Currently the best fix for this error is to change your window's settings to allow UTF-8 for universal language support. This can be in Windows Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Administrative language settings → Change system locale. Please let me know if that helps!

[@playful_banter]

@@3DcgGuru please write it on Gumroad

[@Gudduworks]

Can you tell me after quick export from maya how to import in Cascadeur. I think you have skipped that portion

[@3DcgGuru]

Quick export should automatically import the animation into Cascadeur. It imports either the animation or the whole scene, based on if the data is already in Cascadeur. You need to have Casadeur open when choosing quick export. If Cascadeur is open and nothing happens then I'd check to confirm you have the Maya menu inside of their command menu. If you don't see it then it means something went wrong with the install.

[@kakalookastudio715]

Hi, when I'm trying to download the file I'm facing 404 page not found

[@3DcgGuru]

Oh wow. Thanks for letting me know! It should be fixed.

[@kakalookastudio715]

Thanks:)

[@achimschnick4890]

I have Casc 2024. May be I have a Language Proble. Do I need to reinstall Casc 2024. And in Maya 2024 the Installe py starts fine, but then nothing happens further. Waitet some 5 Minutes twice. I am afraid I am killing sth on my PC. I don't have any Ideas, what that py does in the Background. But anyhow a good Idea. Tranferred an Animation from Casc manually, but defining that Character in Maya seem to be a Proble. There ar to additional Joints the the Shouldes and Pelvis that I can not place the I the Maya Rig. However, grat Plugin, but I better wai for your Answer befor installing it again without Success.

[@3DcgGuru]

Was this with the drag-n-drop installer or the exe you can get from the gumroad site?

[@achimschnick4890]

@@3DcgGuru It was the Drag & Drop. Tried the Gumroad Version this Morning, but my AntiVir killed it twice. Also as Admin.

[@3DcgGuru]

@@achimschnick4890 I looked into making the app play nice with anti-virus, but I'd have to buy digital certification which is like $300/year. You don't have any options to allow?

[@achimschnick4890]

@@3DcgGuru Certificate is no Problem. The Antivir just killed the installer.exe twice. The others in the Folder "_internal" are ok. Surely you will know, which files I mean. But I don't have an Idea, where to put them in my System or the Installer would do. But I tried it manually with Maya and Lightwave. Works perfect via fbx. And for Human Figures I only use DAZ Studio. And Baby Cascadeur has an own Exporter for DAZ, as you know. And DAZ has a Problem with not own Figures though. So don't care. If you like, you can tell me where your Files to be put manually instead of using the Installer, you can do it. But don't make too much Work on it. No matter, if you don't want that. All ok. Thanks a Lot anyway.

[@thanseebmb5860]

hi sir, i download according to vdo but add HIK button is inactive how can i solve it

[@3DcgGuru]

Did you already set up an hik definition before going to the cascadeur tool?

[@thanseebmb5860]

@@3DcgGuru no i don't think so

[@3DcgGuru]

​@@thanseebmb5860you'll have to create a hik definition and map your bones to it. My script just converted the hik definition to the quick rig tool definition.

[@daosilver]

How to install it on Mac OS?

[@3DcgGuru]

Unfortunately, at this point, since I don't have the macOS to test on it's PC only.

[@АнзорЭльдаров-э8м]

Hello! Friend, please tell me why I don’t have the Add HIK function?

[@3DcgGuru]

IS the button greyed out? The editor looks to see if there's any HIK definitions in the scene. If not then the button turns grey.

[@АнзорЭльдаров-э8м]

@@3DcgGuru yes, the HIK button is not active! I did everything according to instructions and step by step, of course. For experimentation, I created a cube and tried to export it to cascareur, but unfortunately this button does not function. Although the animation transfers well with Cascadeur in Maya

[@3DcgGuru]

@@АнзорЭльдаров-э8м What time zone are you in? The official discord server has a general voice channel. I wonder if we could find a time to meet in there and I can try to trouble shoot this with you live. They also have a channel for scripts and plug-in support. You could post your issue there and I can more easily track it. Just @mention me @nathanieljla

[@АнзорЭльдаров-э8м]

@@3DcgGuru thanks! i already found the reason, and animation is successfully exported from maya

[@thanseebmb5860]

how did u resolve it. I'm also facing same issue

[@OnkarabileMolete]

doesn't work with maya 2024 and the recent version of cascadeur

[@3DcgGuru]

This is likely a issue with your specific setup vs. a global issue. If you want to post something in the Cascadeur discord server's "scripts and plugins" forum I'll be able to more easily track down the issue.

[@fourteen4005]

Hello, sir! May I ask, after I installed it, Maya already has the "Cascadeur" option. However, in the Cascadeur software, there is no option for Maya, and the "Cascadeur-commands" only has "Reload scripts-Reload commands-Delete objects" three options, the others are missing. Is there any way to handle this?

[@3DcgGuru]

This video has about 20 minutes left of processing, but here's a link on what is likely the issue and how to fix it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4G0ZoZpgbiaidE

[@fourteen4005]

@@3DcgGuru I finally got it working! It was actually a folder permission issue.. Thank you very much!!!

[@3DcgGuru]

@@fourteen4005 awesome!

[@hicyxundid496]

@@fourteen4005 do you remember the exact fix to this? I'm not getting any errors or warnings for folder permissions so im not sure what to fix or where to look

[@Animario2012]

Can't install on Mac silicone

[@3DcgGuru]

Correct. I don't have a Mac to develop on, so this is Windows only for now.

[@cameronmelville2251]

Doesn't seem to work in Maya 2025.

[@3DcgGuru]

Yeah, I haven't had a chance to test it in 2025 yet, but hopefully soon.

[@pousthemoco]

UnicodeDecodeError: file

[@3DcgGuru]

Currently the best fix for this error is to change your window's settings to allow UTF-8 for universal language support. This can be in Windows Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Administrative language settings → Change system locale

[@nimtormobu1501]

maya 2023 is not supported

[@3DcgGuru]

It should be, if you want to troubleshoot it with me you can jump into the cascadeur discord server and post something in their plugin section. Please also @mention me.