Non-destructive Retargeting of MOCAP Animation in Maya

Pluralsight

Course Summary

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.

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Course Description

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.

Course Description

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.

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Course Syllabus

Course Overview
- 2m 2s

—Course Overview 2m 2s

Retargeting of MOCAP Animation to Custom Humanoid Rigs in Maya
- 8m 50s

—Project Outline and MOCAP Clip Evaluation 3m 56s
—Rigs Evaluation 4m 54s

Preparing and Troubleshooting Watchman Rig for Retargeting
- 39m 35s

—Project Outline and T-pose Preparation 4m 46s
—HIK Skeleton Definition of the Arms and Commonly Recurring Issues 4m 17s
—Complete the Human IK Skeleton Definition 3m 23s
—Custom Rig Definition for the Main Controls 3m 19s
—Rig Definition Troubleshooting and Skeleton Definition Tweaking 3m 28s
—Common Issues with Custom Rigs Within the HIK 2m 48s
—Placing Dummy Effectors for Knees and Elbows 5m 29s
—Problematic Retargeting Test: Character Sets Issues 4m 17s
—Character Sets Removal and Retargeting Check 4m 1s
—Successful MOCAP Retargeting on Watchman Rig 3m 42s

Baking the Animation and Transferring It to Your Scene
- 15m 43s

—Bake the Animation and Exporting It Using ATOM 4m 45s
—Import and Assess the Animation into Your Animated Scene 3m 17s
—Troubleshoot the Imported Animation with Animation Layers: Arms 3m 53s
—Troubleshoot the Imported Animation with Animation Layers: Feet 3m 47s

Retargeting the Lawyer Rig
- 17m 40s

—T-pose Preparation for the Lawyer Rig 6m 13s
—Lawyer Rig Custom Skeleton Definition and IK Effectors Prep 4m 56s
—Lawyer Rig Custom Rig Definition 4m 1s
—IK Pops, Importing a Non-characterized Mocap Clip 2m 29s

Preparing Animation Data Coming from Non-characterized MOCAP Clips
- 17m 9s

—Human IK Skeleton Definition for Arbitrary MOCAP Clip 5m 15s
—Sharing One Skeleton Definition Using FBX File Format 2m 52s
—Saving an HIK Skeleton Definition to an External File 5m 35s
—Loading an HIK Skeleton onto a Non-characterized Skeleton 3m 26s

Retargeting Toe and Finger Animations
- 53m 25s

—Evaluating Rig Toes Before Retargeting via Nodes 2m 44s
—Retargeting Toe Animation via Node Editor 5m 16s
—Finger Rig Evaluation 3m 47s
—Manual Finger Animation Retargeting Completion 2m 35s
—Collecting Data to Build a Script to Automate Finger Retargeting 4m 35s
—Blocking Out the Retargeting Script 5m 5s
—Finger Connector Script Completion 3m 34s
—Left Hand Fingers Retargeting Through Connector Script 2m 15s
—Right Hand Fingers Retargeting Through Another Connector Script 6m 14s
—Right Hand Connector Script Breakdown 3m 29s
—Retargeting Fingers on Singer Rig via Custom Script 2m 47s
—Custom Script Usage and First Half Setup 3m 26s
—Custom Script Setup Completion and Retargeting 5m 41s
—Singer Rig Finger Retargeting Postmortem Evaluation 1m 52s

Sharing Animation via HIK Definitions Tweaking Lawyer Animation
- 15m 47s

—Bake and Export Your Lawyer Animation 4m 40s
—Share Animation Between Two Characterized Custom Rigs 2m 20s
—Import Your Lawyer Animation into a Scene and Reposition the Rig 3m 59s
—Tweak the Animation Through Animation Layers 4m 46s

Postmortem Assessment of Your Project
- 10m 13s

—Main Catches of Working with Human IK Mocap Animation Retargeting 3m 36s
—Pivots and Why It May Not Be a Good Idea to Change Them 3m 4s
—Areas of Improvement 3m 32s