Sorry forgot to upload image......

Hi all,

Just an amendment to the earlier speel about problems related to the Trax editor and NLA in Maya.

I previously outlined why Trax was not quite useable for complex animation in an earlier post. the jist of the problem for me was that I found it hard if not impossible to adjust f curves after moving around, scaling, cycling and splitting clips. I have found a nice workaround for just these problems.

read on......

figure 1.

shows the trax editor with a couple of poses (subcharacter nodes as well). I use this to block out the timing for the animation (great for seeing followthrough and secondary actions, etc..). I often get rid of the blends between the poses and just watch the poses 'pop' between each other as the blends can be a bit distracting when trying to 'map' out the timing of an animation.


Figure 2.

shows 'merged' poses into clips (select two or more poses and then edit>merge. (notice the removal of the blends between the poses before merging). This creates only keys in the new clip from the previous poses, interperlation is by default linear or stepped. You will also notice a couple of extra keys in the new clip, I just delete them if not needed.

figure 3.

shows a clip with the keys activated and now ready to adjust either in the timeline or graph editor. I also select all the keys in a clip and make them 'flat' tangents to begin with.

This technique has allowed me to:

block out my poses
build clips (where my animation actually is f curve wise)
and begin to layer my animation in a non destructive/non linear manner with perfect access to my f curves at all times.


So yes trax works great now........

re Jim