Non-destructive Retargeting of MOCAP Animation in Maya
This courses teaches you how to easily drive any biped custom rig with MOCAP data through Maya's Human IK system and speed up the animation without any major pipeline change or extensive technical knowledge needed. Software Required: Maya 2016.
What you'll learn
This course, Non-destructive Retargeting of MOCAP Animation in Maya, will help CG artists (both animators and generalists) who want to have their characters driven by MOCAP in a simple and effective way. First, you will learn how to evaluate a custom character rig from a MOCAP retargeting standpoint and how to set up Maya's Human IK system to communicate to your custom rig. Then, you will learn how to import any bipedal MOCAP animation clip and apply that motion to your character in just a few easy steps. Finally, you will learn several tricks on how to speed up the animation process without the need of extensive technical knowledge while working within pipelines lacking MOCAP support and you will increase your productivity in realistic character animation. By the end of this course, you'll know how to drive virtually any bipedal custom rig using motion capture data, relying only on Maya native tool and Human IK system. Software Required: Maya 2016.
Table of contents
- Project Outline and T-pose Preparation 5m
- HIK Skeleton Definition of the Arms and Commonly Recurring Issues 4m
- Complete the Human IK Skeleton Definition 3m
- Custom Rig Definition for the Main Controls 3m
- Rig Definition Troubleshooting and Skeleton Definition Tweaking 3m
- Common Issues with Custom Rigs Within the HIK 3m
- Placing Dummy Effectors for Knees and Elbows 5m
- Problematic Retargeting Test: Character Sets Issues 4m
- Character Sets Removal and Retargeting Check 4m
- Successful MOCAP Retargeting on Watchman Rig 4m
- Evaluating Rig Toes Before Retargeting via Nodes 3m
- Retargeting Toe Animation via Node Editor 5m
- Finger Rig Evaluation 4m
- Manual Finger Animation Retargeting Completion 3m
- Collecting Data to Build a Script to Automate Finger Retargeting 5m
- Blocking Out the Retargeting Script 5m
- Finger Connector Script Completion 4m
- Left Hand Fingers Retargeting Through Connector Script 2m
- Right Hand Fingers Retargeting Through Another Connector Script 6m
- Right Hand Connector Script Breakdown 3m
- Retargeting Fingers on Singer Rig via Custom Script 3m
- Custom Script Usage and First Half Setup 3m
- Custom Script Setup Completion and Retargeting 6m
- Singer Rig Finger Retargeting Postmortem Evaluation 2m
About the author
Amedeo Beretta has over 12 years experience on VFX and full CGI features, series, ADs and video games. He started off as a generalist, developing skills in 3D modelling, texturing, rigging, shading, rendering, and compositing and specializing in character animation. This experience, supported by an art and cinema oriented academic background, allowed him to contribute to a variety of projects. His credits include Paul, John Carter, and Planet 51 and feature work performed at award-winning comp... more