WorldViz User Forum - Problems with getting head bone rotation right

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Problems with getting head bone rotation right

Hello,

I am trying to write some code that causes a head to turn and face an object. I looked at the lookat() commands, and those didn't do what we were looking for, so I am writing it from scratch.

Now, I have a routine that takes two points and gives the euler angle that will point the first at the second. I can use this to turn the camera towards an object. However, when I try to do the same thing with the head or neck bone of an avatar, it does not work like I expected.

The code is here:

def GetTargetAngleToFace(position1, position2):
# Find horizontal target angle
x_pos = position1[X_POS] - position2[X_POS]
z_pos = position1[Z_POS] - position2[Z_POS]
horiz_angle = math.degrees(math.atan2(x_pos, z_pos))
#find vertical target angle
vert_x = math.sqrt(x_pos*x_pos + z_pos*z_pos)
y_pos = position1[Y_POS] - position2[Y_POS]
vert_angle = -math.degrees(math.atan2(y_pos, vert_x))
#print "Angles: H: " + str(horiz_angle) + " V: " + str(vert_angle)
return [horiz_angle, vert_angle, 0]

target_euler = GetTargetAngleToFace(self.ObjectToFollowWithHead.g etPosition(mode = viz.ABS_GLOBAL), self.HeadBone.getPosition(mode = viz.ABS_GLOBAL))
self.HeadBone.setEuler(target_euler, mode = viz.ABS_GLOBAL)

where self.HeadBone is the locked 'Bip01 Head' of the vcc_female model that comes with vizard.

What I get is the head tilting to not at all the same euler as target_euler. For that matter, if I just get the current euler of the head and change one element of it, then put it back in with setEuler in viz.ABS_GLOBAL mode, I get a different value when I do a getEuler in viz.ABS_GLOBAL mode. So I figure I am doing something wrong. Could anyone help me here?

Thanks,
Christian

You should be able to use the bone.lookat command to have the head face a certain position. Here is a sample script:

Code:

import viz

import vizact

viz.go()



viz.add('tut_ground.wrl')



#Create animating ball

ball = viz.add('white_ball.wrl')

ball.add(vizact.sequence(vizact.goto(-2,1,0),vizact.goto(2,1,0),viz.FOREVER))



#Create male avatar

avatar1 = viz.add('vcc_male.cfg',pos=(-2,0,3),euler=(180,0,0))

avatar1.state(1)

head1 = avatar1.getBone('Bip01 Head')

head1.lock()



#Create female avatar

avatar2 = viz.add('vcc_female.cfg',pos=(2,0,3),euler=(180,0,0))

avatar2.state(1)

head2 = avatar2.getBone('Bip01 Head')

head2.lock()



def UpdateAvatarHead():

        """Update avatars to look at ball position"""

        pos = ball.getPosition()

        

        head1.lookat(pos,0,viz.AVATAR_WORLD)

        head2.lookat(pos,0,viz.AVATAR_WORLD)



vizact.ontimer(0,UpdateAvatarHead)



viz.MainView.move(0,0,-5)

We require finer control than lookat provides, but I solved the problem - it appears that mode = viz.ABS_GLOBAL does not work in python, though I used viz.AVATAR_WORLD

Thanks for the help in any case.

Christian