Editing Animation Targets (Maya)

This section details the process for editing (adding/removing/replacing) the animation targets for a character. An animation target is an attribute for which keyframe data is generated. This may be:

• weights on blendshape nodes

• translation, rotation, or scale attributes on joints or any other transform nodes

• custom attributes on any node

Characters can have two animation levels, each with its own set of animation targets. Prior to editing animation targets, make sure you’re on the intended level. See Using Animation Levels.

Animation target editor

With the correct Maya scene and Character Control File loaded, click Edit > Edit animation targets. This will open a window where you can see an outliner containing existing animation targets.

The outliner contains a hierarchical view of the animated nodes in the scene, terminating in attributes. Next to each attribute is a square icon: for attributes that are being driven by SGX, the icon is blue; for those that are not being driven by SGX, the icon is red. The filter at the top of the window can be used to search for specific nodes or attributes.

Note that if a node in the list cannot be found in the current Maya scene, it appears with this icon :

Unfound nodes in the target list can result from nodes being deleted from the scene, renamed, or moved to a different namespace. Unfound nodes can be either deleted or renamed (see Removing nodes, Replacing nodes and Setting node namespace).

Editing the targetted nodes

Adding nodes

To add nodes to the target list:

1. Select one or more nodes in the Maya Outliner or Viewport.

2. Click Add.

   

Once added, the nodes will appear in the target list.

Removing nodes

To remove nodes from the target list:

1. Select one or more nodes in the target list.

2. Click Remove.

   

The removed nodes should immediately disappear from the list.

Replacing nodes

Replacing nodes is useful to repair mistakes or adapt to changes in the rig such as name changes, which can lead to unfound nodes. To replace a node in the target list with a different node in the rig:

1. Select the node in the target list.

2. Select the node in the scene that you want to replace it with.

3. Click Replace.

   

Setting node namespace

When nodes are added to the target list, they may carry a namespace. If the namespace assignments have changed in the scene, this may lead to the node not being found. For example, the following two nodes are not found in the namespace “Head”:

To change the namespace:

1. Select one or more nodes in the target list whose namespace you wish to change.

2. Select a node in the Maya scene which carries the namespace you want to apply to the selected targets.

3. Click Set Namespace.

   

Editing the targetted attributes

After adding a node to the node list, its attributes are not automatically animation targets. This depends on the status you assign to each attribute. Attributes may be set to either free, meaning they are free variables controlled by SGX, or constant, meaning they have constant values that cannot be altered by SGX.

In order to change the status of an attribute:

1. Navigate to the node and select the channels that you want to edit the status of.

   

2. In order to include the selected attributes as animation targets, set the Attributes dropdown to FREE and click Apply. The selected attributes will now be marked in blue.

   

   On the other hand, in order to exclude the selected attributes from the animation targets, set the Attributes dropodwn to CONST, and click Apply. The selected attributes will now be marked in red.

   

Note that it is possible to edit attribute states by selecting one or more nodes in the list rather than selecting the attributes directly. The changes will apply to all attributes of the selected nodes that are not excluded by the filter.

Finishing editing

When you are finished editing the animation targets, hit Done to make the changes permanent, or Cancel to discard the changes.

When adding or removing animation targets, pay close attention to any changes in the neutral pose. It may need to be reset depending on which targets were added or removed.