Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
When doing a lot of scenes with a lot of different Maya files, this works
really well since if a change is made to the original referenced rig file
(adjustments to skin weights for example), the change will automatically
be propagated to all the Maya scenes that the model is referenced in. In
this game situation though, we will be putting all the animation into one
file; so saving a backup will be just as easy without working through new
interfaces.
Step 2:
Hide things that won't be animated. In our current rig it's really
just the leg joints. To hide them, select AC_L_Hip and press Ctrl-H or
Display>Hide>Hide Selection. Repeat this for AC_R_Hip.
Tips and Tricks
These can always be made visible again later. Take a look in the Outliner,
and the joints that have been hidden are grayed out. If those are selected
(in the Outliner) they can be shown again via Display>Show>Show
Selection.
Step 3:
Make sure joints and curves are selectable and the mesh is not
selectable. Do this with the selection masks we have looked at before.
Your collection of masks should look like
Figure 10.42
.
Figure 10.42
Making sure that joints are selectable but the poly mesh is not.
Why?
When animating, it greatly speeds the process if objects that are
animatable are easily selectable. We will be animating the mesh via the
joints so we don't want to be able to grab hold of the mesh itself; thus we
make surfaces unselectable. However, we do want to be able to quickly
select joints (drawn as circles in our current rig) and the handles for the
feet (which are curves).
Warnings and Pitfalls
Keyframes are stored
on a per-object basis.
This means that each
joint that is moved must
have its own keyframe.
Forgetting to set
keyframes means that
Maya forgets that pose at
that particular time and
thus you have no pose to
reference when the next
keyframe is set, and thus
no animation.
Step 4:
Pose the character to start an idle animation cycle. First, click
frame 1 in the Time Slider (the list of numbers at the bottom of the screen).
Then, begin to pose Aegis. The key here is that after each joint is rotated,
or each foot handle is moved or rotated, press S on the keyboard to set the
keyframe (
Figure 10.43
).
Step 5:
Make sure there is a keyframe for every animatable object (this
means all the joints and the foot controllers, even if they hasn't been
posed). Do this by expanding the entire skeleton and selecting all the
joints (select AC_Root and then Shift-select the very last joint (in mine it
was AC_R_ThumbEnd). Press S. Do this for the feet handles as well. Keep
the selection that you've made in the Outliner for the next step.
