What's New in HumanIK 2012

STL removed from hikdrawobject library

The hikdrawobject library, which offers an optional set of utilities for visualizing HumanIK data, no longer uses any STL containers. This removes the dependency on STL, and makes the library compatible with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 compiler (although it introduces a compile-time linking dependency on redistributable libraries from Intel).

See Libraries for details.

Bug fixes

• This release corrects a problem that could occur when creating a new HIKCharacter from a stream using the Verbose build of the HumanIK library.

Characterization Tool

The Characterization Tool, which was omitted from the original 2012 release, has now been added back into the HumanIK package.

For information on how the Characterization Tool fits in to the overall HumanIK character setup process, see Initialization and Characterizing an HIKCharacter Visually.

For details on using the Characterization Tool interface within Autodesk Maya® or Autodesk Softimage®, or using its own standalone FBX file viewer, see the documentation that accompanies each version of the tool. This documentation is installed when you run the installer for the Characterization Tool, as described under Characterizing an HIKCharacter Visually.

Plug-in for MotionBuilder 2012

This version of HumanIK adds a new plug-in for MotionBuilder 2012. See MotionBuilder HumanIK Solver Plug-in.

Intel compiler

As of this release, the HumanIK libraries are compiled using the Intel C++ compiler instead of the Microsoft Visual Studio compiler. This results in improved runtime performance and smaller code size.

Support for iOS

This release adds support for the Apple iOS mobile platform, used on the iPhone and iPad.

Character validation functions

A new header file, hikvalidation.h, contains several functions for validating your characterizations. You can use these functions to detect common problems such as missing Nodes in the skeletal hierarchy, and to diagnose failed attempts to create HIKCharacters and to finalize their geometry.

In verbose mode, you can also use the HIKValidateHierarchy() and HIKValidateGeometry() functions, which log errors and warnings detected during the validation.