RoboSavvy Forum

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-14T18:32:44+01:00

I have a Lisp version of the maze algorithm - which runs using robobuilderlib.dll. Its pretty basic. Its described here, see "A'mazing" pg 48

http://robobuildervc.googlecode.com/files/PDFOnline.pdf

Its not continuous walking though, for that you need something more like pepep code (its written in LISP). Have a look in the forums LISP thread for more info on it, here's a video of it in action:

http://www.youtube.com/v/k8dz1tX9O48

You could even now write in BASIC - have a look here at examples including a basic continuous walk:

http://code.google.com/p/robobuilderlib/wiki/BasicDemos

I think the next challenge is to create a stearable continuous walk, with autobalance.

cheers

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Sat Aug 14, 2010 6:32 pm

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-14T07:10:39+01:00

Hey l3v3rz I read in another post that you have some code for making RB walk around and avoid obstacles. I was curious where I could find some more info on this? It sounds really interesting and Id love to see it in action.

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Sat Aug 14, 2010 7:10 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-06T10:29:56+01:00

I have converted to all metal gears on both 1108 and 1111 servos. I did this for resilience rather than performance. I have kept battery voltage to 8.4V and not raised to 11.1V.
I did break a few plastic gears, mainly by long drops, rather than sudden moves or strains.

We are working on a robot controller based on the Bifferboard and the I/O controller will have Robobuilder ports. Since the higher level protocols will be Bioloid Dynamixel based, we intend a proxy to convert between. This may allow you to use some of the open source apps. for bioloid on the Robobuilder.

Let us know if you have any ideas around this.

Alternatively it should not be difficult to adapt something like Pypose to the Robobuilder direct.

Statistics: Posted by i-Bot — Fri Aug 06, 2010 10:29 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-06T10:20:38+01:00

Worked like a charm =) I have been able to transfer the file to all 3 Robobuilders

Great stuff.

If you're interested in 3D files - here's my progress to date

http://robobuildervc.googlecode.com/fil ... r-full.zip

Ive converted the STP/IGES file into blender format - and started assembling the bot. The models are millimeter accurate - so should be good enough for physics modeling. Not sure how to wire / animate in blender though - still learning.

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Fri Aug 06, 2010 10:20 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-06T08:22:34+01:00

Their implementation of requiring 'registration' of their microcontrollers is by far the most ridiculous and ludicrous thing I've seen in the robotics industry recently. 2nd most ridiculous goes to their original plan of charging for motion file downloads.

Dear Robobuilder: You are not Apple.

Statistics: Posted by Tyberius — Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:22 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-06T03:25:22+01:00

l3v3rz wrote:
when I try to upload the motion file to that particular RBC it said serials don't match. So its not letting me upload it.

Try loading the file into a text editor and then edit. I think the parameter you want to modify is the third one. Try setting it to all zeros that might work. otherwise if you want to send me the file I'll have a look at it.

cheers

Worked like a charm =) I have been able to transfer the file to all 3 Robobuilders. Thanks again!

On another note. Has anyone here upgraded any of there servos to full metal gears? I'm curious how much of a performance difference you might notice. This is one of the things Iv been looking into doing to mine.

Also anyone know of a place to get any lipo batteries?

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Fri Aug 06, 2010 3:25 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-06T00:52:09+01:00

limor wrote:
Robobuilder's reply is that no one has complained about bugs with the software hence no software updates.
Little do they understand that in a world of free everything, what matters is novelty.

Hrm interesting while there may not be a huge amount of bug's they could definitely build upon the software and make it loads more intuitive. Combining actionbuilder into motion builder would be a fantastic start. Letting you use all those sensors in a much more streamlined way. Things like a visual representations of each pose would also greatly improve the usability of the software, and the ability for people with less coding skills to create great motion files.

But like you said all this costs money and if the company is small and getting no negative responses from people then they have no incentive to make changes.

Would be cool if you could somehow hack Bioloids software to work with this bot.

l3v3rz ill give that a try later tonight thanks for the heads up!

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:52 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-05T23:18:52+01:00

when I try to upload the motion file to that particular RBC it said serials don't match. So its not letting me upload it.

Try loading the file into a text editor and then edit. I think the parameter you want to modify is the third one. Try setting it to all zeros that might work. otherwise if you want to send me the file I'll have a look at it.

cheers

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Thu Aug 05, 2010 11:18 pm

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-05T22:27:33+01:00

Robobuilder's reply is that no one has complained about bugs with the software hence no software updates.
Little do they understand that in a world of free everything, what matters is novelty.

After seeing the software go no where for so long now, and the robot is sold at only 1 place here in the states, it makes a person wonder did I invest in a platform that's just simply going no where.

None the less Iv seen plenty of cool stuff here and this really does seem to be the largest community left for this guy that I can find. I have a bunch of visual changes that I want to make to my 3 Robobuilders, as well as some upgrades like metal gears.

Robobuilder is very popular in Korea used extensively in schools and after-school robot clubs. The company is very small and I'm assuming that releasing a new major release for the software is a big investment. Ofcourse open-sourcing the thing would help their business but maybe not so in Korea.

Me too. Did you know there are 3D models of robobuilder available for download - perhaps we could collaborate if you can "wire the model" up and link it with a Physical model (Physx perhaps) - rather as Limor and his team of minions (sorry students) are doing with ActuatedCharacter.

If there are 3D models of robobuilder (with skeletal animation data to identify location of servo axis) then please link or upload and let me and my minions animate the puppet.

Statistics: Posted by limor — Thu Aug 05, 2010 10:27 pm

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-05T17:37:25+01:00

Basically what happened is that the latest RB that I purchased had a motion file on it that I wanted to transfer over to my other two RB's. I did not have the original motion file on my computer.

The firmware on the RBC with this motion file seemed to have never been updated as it was still at 1.something. When I upgraded the firmware all of the motions that are activated with the number buttons on the remote were gone.

I went online last night digging around the Robobuilder website and actually managed to find this file again. The problem I had now is that the RBC is still registered to whomever registered it when they first got it. So when I try to upload the motion file to that particular RBC it said serials don't match. So its not letting me upload it.

Not sure what the point of locking it down like that was, seems like a silly implementation on Robobuilder's part.[/img]

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Thu Aug 05, 2010 5:37 pm

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-05T09:07:38+01:00

I think I misunderstood, so do you not have the original RBM file ?

The motion files are downloaded into flash and are generally not affected by upgrades to the standard firmware (or using my DCMP.hex), but if you have software that overwrite the flash (like Basic.hex) you will loose any downloaded motions (but you should have the original file).

As far as I know there is no way of retrieving a motion from the flash with out writing your own software (it would be possible). If you want access to the built in motions then there is a file available with them all in

cheers

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:07 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-05T02:36:10+01:00

So it would seem that upgrading the RBC kills all the motion files on the bot, I seemed to have lost the motion file that I wanted to put on the rest of them.

Should have known better I suppose.

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:36 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-04T09:51:43+01:00

Hi Rift,

First - thanks i-bot for your kind comments wrt to my library.

As far as what I want the bots to do. Well I had a few basic motions that I think I can put together in motionbuilder without a problem. I guess my biggest question would be is there a way to make the bots roam autonomously based of your own designed walking gate? Using the distance sensor to avoid things

Have a look at robobuilderlib - http://code.google.com/p/robobuilderlib/ pepep has built a fantastic example of this in Lisp with the library.

Iv also seen some videos of the bot responding to sound.

Yes this is quite possible - I'm also working at adding FFT to robobuilderlib next release. Having bot dormant is much harder but you can power off the servos easily - by using breakmode. The CPU is probably possible with a wake up on interrupt, would require low level code of course.

As a 3D animator I really liked the idea of the key frame style animation

Me too. Did you know there are 3D models of robobuilder available for download - perhaps we could collaborate if you can "wire the model" up and link it with a Physical model (Physx perhaps) - rather as Limor and his team of minions (sorry students) are doing with ActuatedCharacter.

Oh yeah lastly does anyone know of a way to transfer a motion file that is one one RBC to the computer and then to another RBC? I received an RBC with a motion file that I would like to put on the rest of my RBCs.

Two options spring to mind - the RBC files can be edited in a good text editor - so I think you can hack out the serial number - or edit for each robot. Alternatively you could edit the firmware and make all 3 robots have the same serial number. This can be done using my Baisc firmware - see examples on the project page. I actually don't use RBM files - but convert them to csv files - makes them easier to manipulate and load into programs. The latest new feature on robobuilderlib to load directly the csv file into a matrix and then play that out.

cheers

Statistics: Posted by l3v3rz — Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:51 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-08-04T07:45:05+01:00

Hey there first off apologies for not getting back sooner Iv actually been extremely busy setting up a CnC mill. This mill will be used quite a bit in a bunch of my different robot projects including making some changes to Robobuilder.

Limor thanks for passing my question along although I'm fairly certain of the answer already.

One of the big things that attracted me to this platform was the servos and especially the way they looked. I really hate the boxy square look of most humanoids on the market today. With the Robobuilder this wasn't the case. As a lot of what I will be using these bots for is visual so the look was important in the bigger picture.

As a 3D animator I really liked the idea of the key frame style animation that kits like this and Bioloid use (although the Bioloid software is much more refined and streamlined). The great thing about it is that it removed the often difficult task of programing these great kits. With the software included they really gave you a getup and go setup. I'm still extremely new to Robotics in general and have been dabbling with some Lynxmotion arms BoeBot and these Robobuilders, and I'm even in the process of tearing apart a Roomba. But one of the biggest hurdles for me is learning to program these guys to do the things you want. For someone new like me its quite a daunting and seemingly endless task.

After seeing the software go no where for so long now, and the robot is sold at only 1 place here in the states, it makes a person wonder did I invest in a platform that's just simply going no where.

None the less Iv seen plenty of cool stuff here and this really does seem to be the largest community left for this guy that I can find. I have a bunch of visual changes that I want to make to my 3 Robobuilders, as well as some upgrades like metal gears.

As far as what I want the bots to do. Well I had a few basic motions that I think I can put together in motionbuilder without a problem. I guess my biggest question would be is there a way to make the bots roam autonomously based of your own designed walking gate? Using the distance sensor to avoid things.

Iv also seen some videos of the bot responding to sound. These seemed to be using actionbuilder. Would there be a way to have the bot sit dormant, and then activated by sound without running the software constantly? Or would it be best to run the software but with wireless through something like bluetooth?

This post is getting pretty long already and I don't want to give you guys a novel to read but these are just some of the ideas floating around in my head.

Oh yeah lastly does anyone know of a way to transfer a motion file that is one one RBC to the computer and then to another RBC? I received an RBC with a motion file that I would like to put on the rest of my RBCs.

Thanks again!

Statistics: Posted by Rift — Wed Aug 04, 2010 7:45 am

Has motionbuilder been abandoned?

2010-07-31T08:44:23+01:00

i've passed the question to Robobuilder but in my opinion in order to really be able to support and develop this kind of "standard" robotic software, it must be open-source so that other developers can add functionality. opensource on its own is not even enough. the software needs to be developed in a way that will easily allow people to add code.

Statistics: Posted by limor — Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:44 am