Maya Animation :: Use Same Interactive Skin Capsules For Multiple Characters?
Mar 28, 2013
I'm trying to use the same interactive skin capsules for multiple characters. Because the characters have different geometry I can't simply copy the weights. Is there some way to copy the capsules used for interactive skinning to a new model?
I'm pretty new to the whole rigging and skinning process, so in order to skin my model I've used the Interactive Skin Bind Tool (Skin>Bind Skin>Interactive Skin Bind Tool) which so far hasn't caused any problems. But when I started to modify the weighting on the geometry it appeared that the weights are reversed meaning that when using the Interactive Skin Bind Tool (Skin>Edit Smooth Skin>Interactive Skin Bind) on the left leg, I actually modify the weights on the right leg and vice versa (see image below).
I have a character with animation. Another character is the same(same bones, meshes), but with no animation, 100 times larger in size and I resize the head to make the head looks slimmer. They are saved in different fbx files and I imported them into mb scenes. I select the root bone and "select hierarchy", the export options is shown below. Then select in the same way in the larger character's scene, the importer options is shown below. THE PROBLEM is: after I import the atom, the character becomes shrinked to the same size as the former one and the ratio of head becomes the same as the former one too.
I've a character writing on something (it could be paper, wall, etc). Now I'm looking for a way that attaches brush to his hand for interactive writing on that object.
Don't say I have to sync it manually! it's a close up shot and motion captured movement. Indeed it's really complex movement! Imagine you are painting on a sphere with Maya's texture paint tool.
I am currently trying to bind the skin for a character using a rig created from a Digital Tutors Tutorial. The rig I've build seems to be working fine however when I created the smooth skin bind the thighs collapse when the leg is raised. I've tried fixing it using the interactive skin weight tool but it doesn't seem to make any difference. i have included pictures of a quick render as well as the weight influence of the knee and hip joints.
couple of days ago i finished rigging, positionned my character in a nice pose for a render then closed maya. Foward a couple of days, now when i move my rig the character is not following it, he stays in the same pose as he was like if he was frozen.
In my scene i have a fully rigged character, with a walk cycle animation on him. what i would like to have is a row of characters walking around. (kind of like how you see military soldiers walk around while in group). The part that is giving me the most trouble with this is getting multiple copies of the same character into my scene.
What i have tried and failed with: Grouping my full rig and then duplicating. making instances of my character and messing around with particles. i have made multiple attempts at trying to use duplicate special.
the only thing that seems to kind of work is making a scene with just one character and importing it into my main scene and changing a bunch of stuff around. with the amount of copies i need this workflow just feels really degrading and tiresome.
We're having issues saving and importing skin weights, and mirroring these weights on our character meshes because our characters have some geometry that has been combined into their mesh (like eyebrows, fake spikey hair, eyelashes, etc)
Maya seems to take the UV's for all the combined meshes and stack layer them into the 0-1 space in the UV editor. When we save skin weights for the main mesh, the weighting maps are all messed up and useless for importing because they are based on UV's that are supposed to be clean and dedicated only to the main mesh.
how to save weights and mirror weights for meshes like ours?
Is it at all a good idea to go about to skin multiple objects for your character?...or is it better to make it a single mesh?
if its practicable whats are the "things to do" to go about it in the right direction. ..instanced skin modifier? OR unique skin for each objects?
does it make any difference if i attach the objects? or keeping them separate as far as instanced skin modifier is concerned? (not making single mesh by welding vertices)
specifically speaking about the character i am working on ...it has:
a. head mesh b. a scarf mesh c. hand mesh (till their elbows) d. body/ trenchcoat mesh e. trousers f. shoes mesh g. shoelaces and eyehole rings mesh
NOTE: i at least need the trenchcoat to be a seperate mesh as i want to apply APEX on it later. (the APEX tut on youtube indicates the trenchcoat is a seperate mesh.)
PROBLEM: i tried to use a instanced skin modifier, however the scarf head and trenchcoat and the head where they should be together gets messed up when i check with some basic check poses.
Any way to do the skin conversion to muscle system WITHOUT converting every single joint to a polygon bone object. I'd prefer to manually create the muscle bone objects from only the joints I plan to use for the muscle system, and then do the skin conversion using only those joints already converted. Basically, I only need a few muscles in this system and therefore only need a few polygon bone objects, but as far I can tell, there is only one way to do the skin conversion and it automatically converts every joint that the skin is attached to.
For some reason when I use my Paint Skin weights tool, the mesh does not go into a grey scale type shader. Instead, the textured model is still displayed instead of the black and doesn't display weight values in the greyscale I'm used to.
Did I mess up settings somewhere? I know I'm in Paint Skin Weights tool because I can see the bones when it goes into Xray. I can open other scene files and can view the weights just fine.
Note: I have tried the following fixes: copied the mesh into a new scene, made sure it wasn't a subdiv shape.
so i know if you want two blend shapes to happen at the same time they have to be in the same node.but what if i want 2 separate nodes? say: one for body shape, one for face shape a blink, and an inflated belly, that i want to happen at the same time? I don't want it to be all in one node, but 1 cancels out the other depending on the order.
I am currently working on a game and am pretty new to the world of Maya ( 2D animator gone rogue!), I have some animation that I am cutting and I have noticed something I find strange. There seem to be multiple keys inside one frame ( see pic). I am guessing this is something extremely obvious that I as a new user do not understand, how to edit these keys within the frame?
I´d like to know how to move/displace multiple objects (in this case bricks) like it is done in this animation (at approx. 0:15 sec) [URL].I tried to reconstruct the effect using bigger bricks and tangent constraints, which worked kinda ok but I had to constrain every single brick manually which was rather time consuming and definitely not the approach they must have had used. Is there a way to achieve similar effect (pref. without scripting)?
Trying to animate a rigged model for a class project but I'm running into problems. If I, for example, pick the joint at the top of the hierarchy, in the main view it appears as though everything gets selected. When I try to set a keyframe for the whole model, though, it only gets set on the actual joint I picked, none of the ones below it.
I looked at things via Outliner and see the same problem: I pick a joint there but the ones below it show as unselected in the Outliner window. Right now it appears the only way I can select multiple joints to set a keyframe on them all is to manually expand the tree in Outliner and then explicitly pick each one with command-click or shift-click. If I select an un-expanded joint section in the tree the hidden joints do not get selected, and if I expand the tree and pick a root node the ones below it are not selected.
I have tried this on three different models, including one I rigged myself, and the same behavior is present across all three.
Is this normal behavior for Maya animation? Is there some configuration setting that will change this so I can select an entire skeleton tree via the root node and have all of them accept a keyframe?
I'm running Maya 2011 for the Mac, on OS X Lion, with service pack 1 installed.
I was wondering if there is a way in maya 2013 to import like 20 takes at the same time, work on those 20 takes in one maya file and export them simultaneously just like motion builder and his "export all takes, save one take per file, use take name".
I'm asking this because i am thinking of switching to maya, but this motion builder native feature is just essential to me.
Is there any way to export the entire trax layer with multiple clips as an MA file? I need to swap out a character rig with a new one currently I am able to do this with single clips, but if i have a bunch of clips sequenced on the time line id like to do them all at once if possible?
I am currently designing graphics/renders for a fair our company will be displaying its products.
They have now asked me if its possible to deliver an interactive animation?? They basically would like to show how our system reacts to certain situations e.g. if emergency power button is pressed you can see how motore and generators behave.
What programs I need to get the best results? I am using 3ds max design 2012 and Inventor P.
A: Can I export skinning information from one mesh to another. I have two identical versions of the character except I forgot to weld some verts on the model before skinning. Can I weld the verts and then export > import the skinning data? If so how?
B: I have someone working on some animation for me in CAT, I have since made some minor changes to the CAT rig (increased width of chest bones, that is all). I also changed all the skinning. Is it possible to export the animation data and load it onto an almost identical CAT rig? If so how?
I've ran into an issues with the interactive split tool. Every time I try to create an edge from one place to another it's created at an entirely different point.
Basically, I'll line the dot (excuse my terrible vocab) with one edge, and the other with an edge directly across from it, it'll create a new edge from the first place I specified and end it somewhere else (other than the second point).
Sometimes when i want to add an edge between two others edges, the tool just does not create a new edge and I don't see any error popping. Some other time, it will create an edge but it's not going to place it where I wanted it to be. I would like to know how I could fix this problem and or what should i change in the option box.
I'm tyring to use the 2d Interactive Placment Tool without success. I can see the red box, I can see the arrow cursor and when I click I see the little arrow and box, but when I use the mmb nothing happens. I've seen a video demo and it works there, but when I try it no joy, very frustrating.
I drew a shape with the bezier tool and filled it in with the planar tool resulting in a shape that the Outliner calls a PlanarTrimmedSurfaceShape - I can see the texture, but it's wonky.
Is it possible to create an interactive animation in Edge, publish it, import it into Indesign, export it as an Interavtive PDF while maintaining the animation and interactivity?
The scene is a 100 meter dash. I have animated one biped character and would like to add four more characters, identically dressed but in different lanes.
1) How can I duplicated the character? 2) how can I get the animation to be specific to each lane? 3) Can I vary the speed using Time Warps in Mixer?