Sharing Actions between Models
One of the great things about actions is that you can use them again and again. You can create an action for one model and then use it again to animate another model in the same or another scene. You can even use the same action for different objects within the same model.
Actions are associated with the models in your scene, which provide a way of organizing the objects in a scene. Think of models as a mini scene for different structures in your scene, whether they be human characters, animals, airplanes—anything that has many elements that need to be kept together.
Models are the only type of elements in which you can store actions. If you select an object that is not a model and store an action, it is stored in the parent model if you have created one or in the Scene_Root otherwise.
You should always place your objects within a model so that you can have a model-level (as opposed to scene-level) mixer for your character. Each model has only one mixer so if you want to share animation between objects, they must be in different models.
To create a model, select the objects you want to be part of the model and choose Create > Model from the Model toolbar.
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You should always put objects in a model before you save action sources for them. However, what happens if you already created an action source for an animated object before putting it into a model? Easy! You create the model with the animated object in it, then copy the action sources from the Scene_Root’s Mixer to the new model’s Mixer—see the next section, Copying Action Sources between Models. |
For more information in general about models and the animation mixer, see Models and the Mixer.
Copying Action Sources between Models
If you want to share an action source between models in the same scene, you can drag-and-drop one from the Sources > model folder at the scene level or the model’s Mixer > Sources > Animation folder in the explorer onto the mixer of the new model. This makes a copy of that action source for the model.
Since models have a unique namespace, the names of the items in both characters will be the same if you duplicated them, so you won’t need to use templates. If names differ, templates will help you.
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To find out other ways of copying actions between models and scenes, see How Do You Share the Animation?. |
To copy an action source to another model in the same scene
1. In the animation mixer, open the model to which you want to copy the action. To do this, select the model or one of its children then click the Update button in the mixer.
2. In the explorer, use the Sources/Clips filter and expand the Sources folder to find the other model’s sources. You can also open the model’s Mixer > Sources > Animation > Model folder.
3. Drag the desired action source from the explorer onto a track in the target model’s mixer. This creates a copy of the action source in the other model’s Sources folder.
4. If there is no match for some of the objects and parameter names in the source, the Action Connection Resolution dialog box opens—see Resolving Unconnectable Parameters.
5. Once the action has been copied, you can instantiate additional clips by right-clicking an animation track and selecting the source name from the Load Source menu.
To copy compound sources between models
• Ctrl+drag the compound action source from the model’s Mixer > Sources > Animation or from the scene-level Source folder to a track in the other model’s mixer.
You can choose to make a copy of the source for the new model or share the same one.
Sharing actions is possible because each model has its own namespace. This means that each object in a single model’s hierarchy must have a unique name, but objects in different models can have the same name. For example, if an action contains animation for one model’s left_arm, you can apply the action to another model and it automatically connects to the second model’s left_arm.
If your models contain elements with different naming schemes, such as L_ARM and LeftArm, you can use connection-mapping templates to specify the proper connections. Connection-mapping templates map the object and parameter names stored in an action to the objects and parameters available in a model. For more information, see Connection Mapping Templates.
Whether or not you use connection templates, if you create an action clip and the source contains object and parameter names that cannot be matched to anything in the current model, the Action Connection Resolution dialog box opens you can then resolve any name-matching problems.
Resolving Unconnectable Parameters
Whether or not you use connection templates, if you create an action clip and the source contains object and parameter names that cannot be matched to anything in the current model, the Action Connection Resolution dialog box opens in which you can resolve any name-matching problems.
For example, if an action source contains animation for an object called “torus” and there is no such object in the current model, the following would appear when you try to instantiate an action clip based on that source:
Use this dialog box to resolve the unconnectable parameters by specifying the existing parameters they should connect to (such as to another object’s posx, posy, and posz parameters). Once you have specified parameters, you can validate the replacements before connecting the animation.
For complete information about the options in this dialog box, see Action Connection Resolution Dialog Box or click the Help button in this dialog box.
Example: Different Naming Conventions
The naming conventions used for Jaiqua and the Club-bot are different—not all the parts of each character correspond. Softimage matches those elements which it recognizes and displays a connection resolution map that lists the discrepancies. This map lets you fix the unmatched elements.
The first several entries are looking for the center of gravity of the Jaiqua figure. Each one is prefixed by the abbreviation “CG”; however, in the Club-bot character, the center of gravity is abbreviated “COG.” As well, the left and right components of the characters are different: one has the prefix of “L_” and “R_”, the other a prefix of “L” and “R”.
1. In the Find and Replace fields in the mapping template box, enter CG and COG and click the Replace button. The correct associations appear in the Connect To column.
2. Do the following additional replacements:
L_ replaced by L
R_ replaced by R
3. Click the Validate button, then click Connect.
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5