What to do when connectors no longer connect?

[TheToonsmith]

Hi,

I've been using DUIK for over a year now, and have been pleased with all the new tools available to me since Bassel has launched. I've been working on my current project for a few months now, and I have several character rigs. I've been happy with their performance up until this week.

My process:

I'm working on a narrative based animated music video. I have hominid rigs for three characters, each with a couple of different angles (front, 3/4, profile, back). The body rigs are pretty standard, I think.

I have used the technique described in the most recent DUIK tutorials on Tuto.com for creating facial controls:

-checkbox control based blinks using transparency rather than slides with multiple image frames
-used this same technique to swap between half a dozen different hand shapes
-also used it for adding or removing costume and transformative features

-icon based controls (similar to joysticks) for eye and eyebrow movement

-slider based controls for moving left or right features individually.

The problem:

None of these custom connector controls that operate in the Effects Control work right now in my actual project file.

Any controls that I've custom built using the Connector no longer function in my project file and I have no idea why. After a few days off, I opened up my file last night and I noticed that any checkbox option (exclusively used for turning transparency on and off for eye blinks, swapping out hand shapes and making accessories appear/disappear) had no effect. All of my checkbox connectors are set to the last option I set last weekend, and nothing will change them.

The icon based controls (similar to joysticks) work just fine.

What I've tried:

I have opened earlier versions of my project file, going back several weeks and it looks like they now have the same issue. As I mentioned, as of last Sunday, I could still use those options.

In my current project file, I've verified that the expressions I created with DUIK are still in place. I'm not familiar enough with the code to know whether anything is different in the expressions.

I have also opened the character rig files. It appears that their functionality hasn't been lost.

I have renamed and saved one of my functioning rig files and imported it into my current project file. It loses the functionality of the custom controls based on the connector, same as the previous imported rigs.

I have installed the latest update to After Effects

I have checked that I indeed am using the latest version of DUIK Bassel, which is the version that I used to build the rig.

Conclusions:

The issue is not with After Effects itself. Opening the character rig file itself shows that they are fully functional.

The issue is not with the versoin of DUIK Bassel. Again, because the character rig file on its own is functional.

There is an issue within my project file.

I'm curious if anyone has encountered a similar issue and what might resolve it. Could it be as simple as creating a new composition project file and Import my current project file or export the scenes individually from my current file to import them into a new file?

Thanks in advance,

Brent

[Duduf]

This seems to be an issue with the naming of your comps. If there's no error generated by the expressions, I'll bet you have several compositions sharing the same name, thus the expression may reference the wrong one...

To fix these, just rename any comp that might have the same name than one of those you're importing, BEFORE the import.

[TheToonsmith]

Thank you! That sounds like what happened, I will try renaming the comps.

[TheToonsmith]

I used the True Comp Duplicator on my source rig file, moved the copy to my scene file and swapped it with the rig in the timeline and now I have my controls back!

Thank you so much! This will make the rest of my weekend much easier