Maya Rendering Guides

Working with Poses

Creating distinctive poses for a character that can be reloaded on cue can be a useful technique both for pre-animation and during the animation process. Using poses, you can quickly go to any number of predefined character configurations, which can save time during the rigging process and also during animation if your character commonly returns to certain positions during animation.

Let's begin with simple "characters" made from a couple of geometric primitives, which, for the purposes of our initial work, will function well as substitutes for more complex characters.

1. Create a sphere named thingl and a cube named thing2. (Any model will do for these characters, so feel free to substitute something else if you prefer.)
2. Select thingl and make it a Maya character by choosing Character * Create Character Set □. In the option box, choose Edit * Reset Settings and click the Create Character Set button. This will create a character, named character1, with keyable translation and rotation channels. Select thing2 and create a second character, character2.
3. Set characterl as the working character set by choosing it from the Character pop-up menu at the bottom right of the Timeline.
4. The easiest way to create a pose is to use the Trax Editor. Open the Trax Editor by choosing Window * Animation Editors * Trax Editor. To load the characters, select the geometry for each character (or select the character in the Character pop-up menu), and choose List * Load Selected Characters from the Trax Editor window. As Figure 10.3 shows, characterl and character2 are listed in the Timeline, where poses and animation clips will appear once you have created them. The twirl-down menu left of each character name is currently empty because no clips or poses are associated with either character. You navigate the Trax Editor in the same way that you navigate most Maya windows: to zoom in or out, press Alt+RM. To scroll through the Timeline, press Alt+MM.
5. Set characterl as the current character using the Character pop-up menu. If you want to see the character in the Channel Box (to see which channels are keyable, for example), you can select the character in the Outliner.

Figure 10.3 The Trax Editor window

1. In the Trax Editor window, choose Create * Pose □. Name the pose Beginning and click the Create Pose button. You will not see any difference in the scene or Trax Editor window, but Maya has saved the current state (translation and rotation) of the sphere—characterl—as a clip to be used.
2. To load the pose into the Trax Editor, choose Library * Insert Pose * Beginning from the Trax Editor menu set. As Figure 10.4 shows, the pose will be loaded into the Trax Editor under characterl. (Twirl down the triangle next to the characterl name to see the clip if you don't already.) Additionally, on the left side of the Trax Editor window, three buttons will appear. The leftmost lets you lock and unlock the clip (making it unselectable if locked). The middle button is the solo button, which, when selected, makes the current clip or pose the only active one. The rightmost button is the mute button, which turns off animation for a given pose or clip.
3. Now create a second pose for characterl. Move the sphere to another position in the scene window (there is no need to change to a different time in the Timeline), and in the Trax Editor window, choose Create * Pose □. In the option box, name the pose Ending and click the Create Pose button.

Figure 10.3 The Trax Editor window

Figure 10.4 The Trax Editor showing a new clip

Figure 10.5 Inserting a second pose in the Trax Editor

1. Load the new clip by choosing Library * Insert Pose * Ending. The new pose will appear in the Timeline below the beginning pose, as in Figure 10.5.
2. You will notice no changes to the position of the sphere, since the top pose is still controlling its position. Click the mute button next to the beginning clip (the rightmost button in the left pane) and the sphere will "pop" to the position defined by the ending clip. You can also drag the poses around in the Timeline to make the sphere hop from place to place as the Timeline is updated. We will discuss the Timeline more thoroughly in the next section.

CLIP INSTANCES IN THE TRAX EDITOR

When you place a pose or a clip into a track in the Trax Editor, you are creating an instance of the source clip stored in the Visor (choose Window * General Editors * Visor). When you drag the Beginning clip, for example, into a track, it is called Beginning! (or 2 or so on), not just Beginning. Because of this instance relationship, you can make any changes you want to an individual pose or clip in a track without affecting the source clip's values. On the other hand, if you adjust the source clip's settings (via the Attribute Editor), all instances of the clip in the tracks are updated to reflect those changes.

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