Greetings,

I’ve used a bunch of handles to quickselect certain finger groups.

Since I only want to see these 20 handles when I am working on fingers, I want to be able to turn on their visiblity with one On/Off switch.
Visibility is not exposed (no [A] button to activate the channel) and can’t be activated.

Also using Groups or Sets and turning Visibility Off doesn’t work.

The only solution I could think if is using this hook-plugin: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4624398&postcount=10
which allows to wire up properties which are not exposed, but I don’t want to use plugins.

Does anyone have an idea?

Cheers,
Leander.

I would create a node, reference all the handle viz properties on to it, then set the view to show one properties for all the same type so you can just click that on and off,

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Dojo-Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now:

hi Leander,

My suggestion for you might be overly simple but that’s how i would’ve handled it being not too proficient with python and scripting:

Add another property editor in your scene. Lock it on the handles selection. Make some space for it in your layout. Save your new custom layout.
Now you’ll have a small checkbox in your layout to toggle visibility on/off.

Cheers

GF

Thanks a lot guys for the fast response! That’s awesome. :)

@Brad: I could set up the property-reference and linked up all handle’s “Display Handle” settings to a dummy object, where it shows all of them in a long list under Property Reference. But how do you change the view in the property editor to group all similar referenced properties together and only show one? “group by type” doesn’t seem to work on Property References.

@GF: That’s a nice and simple idea.  But since the rig must work at a bunch of different people’s machines and each one has his/her custom layout, I would prefer to find another solution.

Thanks again!

Cheers,
Leander.

Hi,

You could also try a script to turn the handles on and off as follows:

from pyfbsdk import *
lApplication = FBApplication()

lHandle = FBSystem().Scene.Handles[0]
Ppty = lHandle.PropertyList.Find("Show Handles")
if (Ppty):
Ppty.Data = True

lHandle = FBSystem().Scene.Handles[1]
Ppty = lHandle.PropertyList.Find("Show Handles")
if (Ppty):
Ppty.Data = True

This will work for the first two handles in your scene.  Just copy and paste the lines changing the Scene.Handles[number].  Each consecutive number will reference the next handle contained in the scene.  Create one script to turn on the handles and one to turn them off (Ppty.Data = False).

Hope this helps.

Kelly

Kelly H 30 March 2009 08:26 PM

Hi,
You could also try a script

Hi Kelly,

Thanks a lot! I just figured out the problem I first had with the script - it needed a tab indent after the IF, it works fine now :D
That’s great! Thanks again.

Do you know how I can trigger a script through a custom property, or would it only work through a hotkey?

@Everyone:
In the meantime I have found another temporary solution which pretty much combines the first two suggestions. I’ve created a “custom local view” for each of the handles (using the customize button in the Asset browser). Then creating a group of all the handles.
If I select the group I can now, I can turn on all 26 handles on/off at once. It’s not the prettiest solution, but works for the time being.

Cheers,
Leander.