The bugs in MB2011 will make it impossible for me to meet my
deadlines so I’m looking for alternatives. I’ve never used Maya
before but I heard good things about it’s animation capabilities.
Would it be possible to rebuild an animation environment similar to
what I actually have in MB?
The features I’d need are these:
FK/IK character rig, similar to what MB’s “characterize” command
makes. No extra limbs, no facial expressions, just a man.
Animation layers, both normal and additive types.
Create constraints anytime with no effect on already made
animations. (Unless I want to.)
Ability to handle several, separate pieces of animation in a scene.
(Clips, takes, animation sequences, whatever the proper term is.)
Ability to automatically export said takes as separate FBX files,
containing the anim data and the related animated meshes.
Ability to export each animated mesh alone (no other mesh and
no control rig) into separate FBX files.
Can Maya do these things? If so, do you know someone who I
could hire to build the rig and transfer the anims from MB? I’d love
to learn this and Maya in general but at this point I don’t have
the time. I’m so behind schedule that I just want to sit down and
start yanking stuff around.
Because Maya is so open and the way its fundamental architecture is all node based, it is possible to do just about anything in Maya.
My friend, welcome! You’ve just stumbled upon the major animation workflow issue of our time. You are talking about a major pipeline here. Many, many months of work (for a slow-poke like me) and probably full-time support. This is what just about every studio is wrestling with that uses MoBu and Maya. It is an on-going workflow that is constantly in flux as the two packages get updated by Autodesk over time.
Who can do this for you? Just about any senior tech artist has probably dealt with many of the points you’ve mentioned. In these cases I often refer to Brad Clark of @riggingdojo as he is an expert in both packages and is one of the few of us who is self employed and can easily consult and or teach through http://www.riggingdojo.com/.
Yes is the short answer to most of your questions. only about half of it is out of the box.
*asuming you don’t want to deal with the HumanIK system in Maya.
I made sure that the Maya anim layers work like mobu story/anim layers.
constraints can be created on to a layer for the same type of effect described
-clips have to be manged by TRAX and there is only one place that I know using that well:) You can create “clips” using layers set to override, each layer can be a “clip”
-there are lots of batch scripts for dealing with exports.
with python/ mel/ pymel you can deal with all mix match export needs.
What’s up with HumanIK? I quickly characterized my stuff and at
first glance it behaved similar to MB. (Although I failed to locate a
clear indicator of pinning, like that surfer guy picture in MB.)
As for the clips/takes, faking them with layers seems… dunno…
hacky. Mostly because that way handling different clip durations
is not straightforward. I’m sure everything could be worked
around from scripts, but writing them would also take time.
I was told that referencing the master rig in “animation only” files
is common practice, so “one take = one file”. Then I’d need a
batch exporter script to open and export each file automatically
when it comes to that, but that shouldn’t be that big of a task.
On the other hand switching scenes and copying data between
them might be slower than doing the same within a single scene.
And Jason yes, that is my name but I’m not related to that
certain fortune teller nor to the alien invader.
Clips/Layers as hack, yes and no. They are almost interchangeable while the ui is not as “clean” as a non-linear editor, it is possible.
But that said , the huge management of data at once is where Mobu shines and still makes Maya for huge edits , to me very frustrating.
@Batch processing is really not an issue at all with Maya so yes you could do reference anim rig- each ref file is a “take” and you could keep shared poses in a pose lib script several available. or on layers created in your master file.
You can also paste between two open copies of maya but if you can’t get past the bugs ( I am curious what those bugs are, I am sure you have posted them just trying to remember, I could check if they are fixed for you)
Hmm, this “master rig file - anim clip files” method looks better and
better especially with pose libraries.
However when you mentioned copying data between Maya
instances I had an idea: what if I run MB2010 and MB2011 side by
side? So that I use MB2010 most of the time and if I really
need a more advanced layering capability then I do that particular
take in MB2011. When it’s done then I just bake and transfer it
back to the herd. If direct key copy&paste doesn’t work then a
single take FBX export/import would be just as fast.
Because “fast” is what I need right now. MB2011 saves/loads my
scene in around 8 minutes (I whined about that earlier here).
That combined with the random crashes turn my work hours into
a constant (otherwise interesting) game of chicken: do I dare to
work a few more minutes before saving?
If I do and a crash occurs then I’m looking at 8 minutes of loading
plus the time of redoing stuff. But if no crash happens then I get
more job done for the given hour. Or I could play it safe, save now
for the fix cost of 8 minutes. I’m sure an economist could tell me
the optimal strategy for this.
Anyway, I’ll see if the MoBu brothers can work together and if
not then Maya it is.
You won’t be able to copy/paste between mobu, you could
If you need, “more advanced layer” stuff, I would drop down to story mode before i would paste forward to 2011…
You can use the lost/save character animation from the character control and use the fbx converter to send the 2011 files back to 2010.
Not the most ideal and there will be some bumps but it does work.
The converter is just to send animation back and forth, the old file will open in the 2011, then you just send the keyframes back to 2010, you don’t have to open the file, just merge/update the animation.
It is never a good idea to back convert and then “open” that file as a master, even when I am working in the same version, I keep one master file and then just merge update the animation only on to my existing master file, so I can keep my settings and setup the same.
My sad face was due the fact that I have to rebuild and reanimate
all my relation constraints in 2010 in order to get the setup I
currently have in 2011.
And redo constraint anims every time I make something in 2011.
I have no idea how bad this issue could get, so I just jump right
into it and see what happens.
Plan B is that I stick with 2010 and work around the lack of
additive layers somehow.
Plan C is to somehow limit MB’s resource hunger while saving
which makes even web browsing stutter. If I could do some
modeling during saves then no time would be wasted.
Plan D is rebuilding the rig in Maya and restart animating, never
looking at MoBu ever again.
Plan E is selling my PC and becoming a shoemaker.
Anyways, Brad, your help was invaluable, as always.
HHm, well if you did jump into Maya and wanted to have multiple takes in the same scene, rather than a scene per take, Trax is the place to do it. I’d personnaly stick off AnimLayers if you’re doing anything related to time, it’s just not setup to handle it. Also the AnimLayer system is a complete mess behind the scenes if you’re dealing with big data sets. Its great for correction passes, but that’s where it stops.
What you can do with FBX and Maya is to load up a take, use the fbx Update Animations Only options to update an existing skeleton inside Maya, then use the Trax to store the take off before loading another one directly after it. The whole FBX data workflow to Maya rig is something I’ll be covering in an upcoming MasterClass… assuming I get my finger out of my backside and sort it out! I’ll also be covering FBX to Trax blending during that, but it won’t be till Siggraph. Still, any help you want let me know on the Maya front.
Thank you Mark, I’m definitely going to learn Maya at some
point so I’m looking forward to your Master Class.
However for now I’ll go with plan C: animating/modeling
interleaved. Modo 501 holds up surprisingly well while MoBu is
saving. I won’t render or sculpt but the speed is enough for
lowpoly modeling. 8 minutes of animation, 8 minutes of
modeling… variety is the spice of life.
And he who controls the spice… hmmm…
Yes:) talk to Mark, he is a TRAX expert. I did show a work flow for auto creating clips from imported fbx files as a proof of concept in a class a long time ago, I can dig it up.
I have just had so many problems with Character sets that I stayed out of TRAX for a while.
Animlayers do have some speed issues and mel access bugs , either way neither one is going to really do what you want out of the box.
After 2 nights trying to come up with a nice neat workflow within Trax to demo in the MasterClass I’ve come to a shocking conclusion… it’s crap! Or at least without a pipeline that supports it, running Trax native in Maya works beautifully until you need to deal with rotation differences in roots. The Redirect is a waste of time as blending during it just fails miserably. I’d forgotten why we wrote so many tools to deal with it, now on a laptop with no internal tools running, I’m pulling my hair out!
It’s a fix I request at every Alpha and Beta stage and have done for the last 7years now … so near but so far.
Welcome back Mark:) to the land of the rest of us! HAHAHA, I think you now understand my reluctance to recommend it…and would rather lean on anim layers. Maybe your class could be on , “what is wrong with Trax and anim layers and ideas on how to make them work for you” ehh, ehh
Yeah, life is painfull without the pipeline your used too, just snapping nodes or copying keys over filtered hierarchies, what a pain… As for Trax, hhhhmmm, I’ll find a work round to demo, if not I’ll just find 2 or 3 sequences that happen to blend and brush over it like all the other Trax demos do!
As for a whats wrong with the Trax / Anim layers not sure I’d have enough time… actually there’s only 1 thing wrong with trax, and that’s it lack of any ability to offset rotates during clip blending, … if they’d fix that, all would be good and we wouldn’t need toolsuites to by-pass it all.
I would say that character sets are also “what is wrong with trax” as they have not been the most stable or easy to deal with thing on the last few tries with them when changes need to be made.
At least with Assets in Maya they don’t take over your channels… but could work the same as character sets…To Sleep, Perchance to Dream: Ah, There’s the Rub"
After this bit of thread, I think we have scared him back to Mobu for good:) haha. Yikes.
… so near but so far.