Non-Linear Animation: Animating with the Trax Editor in Maya 4.5 and 5
By Brian J. Immel
Converting keyframes into Poses and Clips in the Trax Editor
1. First thing we need to do is to create a Character Set. A Character Set is a list of attributes that we will be using on the character throughout the entire project. If we do not create a Character Set, then all of our following hard work will be for nothing.
2. To open the Trax editor, go to Window > Animation Editors > Trax Editor.
What is the Trax Editor?
- The Trax Editor is kinda like the Graph Editor. Instead of view and editing Animation curves, you have Clips and poses to play with.
- If you are familiar with After Effects of Premiere, you will find using the Trax Editor very simple. You can build layers of animation data, scale animation timing, loop animations, and blend Clips and Poses.
3. Poses
- A Pose is a single frame (data set) of information to position the character’s attributes. You have unlimited options as to how to set up your Poses (and Clips) for your character. The most common usage of a Pose is to position the entire character’s body into the stance you want to use again and again. Another way is to pose parts of the character and create segmented Poses. Example: posing the arms, hands, torso, legs, and head separately and making a Pose for each of them. Using the latter method, you can mix and match several Poses to create many stances very quickly.
- To create a Pose, position your character as you need and set a key.
- Select all keyed attributes.
- In the Trax Editor, go to Create > Pose option box.
- You should name the Pose to what it is. After building several Poses (and Clips for that matter), it will become increasingly difficult to manage several Poses if you do not properly label them.
- This will make a single pose of the character with the selected attributes.
- Creating Poses is just one of many ways to build NL animation. Personally, I don’t create too many poses but rather many motions or groupings of motions.
Exercise: Bowing Pose
1. Lets do a little exercise where we create a bow pose, a neutral stance and a short cycle from these two poses. Open the default pose.mb file.
2. Pose the character in a neutral position and create a pose. Name it Neutral_pose.
3. Pose the character in a bowing position and create a pose. Name it Bow_pose.
4. In the Trax Editor, place a copy of the Neutral_pose at frame 1.
5. At frame 5, place a copy of the Bow_pose.
6. At frame 15, place another copy of the Bow_pose.
8. Finally, at frame 20, place another copy of the Neutral_pose. Scrub through the Time Slider to see the results.
4. Clips
- A Clip is a series of frames (data set) of information to animate the character’s attributes over time. Like Poses, you have all sorts of options to create a Clip. As I said before, there two common processes for making and using Clips. The most widely used method is to animate the entire character. A better method is converting segments of the character’s motions into separate Clips so you can layer and mix multiple Clips.
- There are many ways to create clips. The most common way is to create Clips from two or more Poses or segments of animation. Regardless of which way you make a Clip, you should open up the option box.
Options
1. To make a Clip, go to Create > Clip option box or hit the Create Clip button in the Trax Editor Shelf .
2. As for the options, you can disable Leave Keys in Timeline (off by default) if you don’t need to use that data anymore.
3. However, if you are planning making a slight variation of the character’s position, leave turn this option on and Pose away.
4. I normally leave Put Clip in Trax Editor and Visor turned on. I like to make sure that when I make the Clip, everything works as I expect it to.
5. Using the Time Range can be tricky depending on what you are trying to accomplish.
- Selected
You can select just the keys you want to be included in the Clip. - Time Slider
You can include all the keys that are currently visible in the Time Slider. - Animation Curve
You can use just the selected Animation Curves to build the Clip. - Start/End
You can manually set the keyframe range to build the Clip.
6. Don’t worry about Subcharacters or Time Warp for now.
7. Always Include Hierarchy!
Exercise: Create a Clip from the Poses exercise
- Open default pose.mb. Make sure the Oscar character is selected in the Character Set.
- Pose the character into the poses we want to create for this exercise: starting stance (default when the file opens), relaxed stance, deep bow, and a different relaxed stance.
- Select all the control nodes when Oscar is in the starting stance and go to Animate > Create Pose option box. Name this pose default_stance. Hit Create Pose to build the pose. Under Character Poses in the Visor, you will find a pose called default_stance. Lets leave it there for now and continue on with the next pose.
- Next, lets build the first relaxed stance. Pose Oscar in any pose as you see fit as this stance asks for.
- Select all the control nodes on Oscar and create a pose named relaxed_stanceA.
- Pose Oscar into the deep bow position. Remember to arch the back and the head as well.
- Select all the control nodes on Oscar and create a pose named deep_bow.
- Finally, pose Oscar in another relaxed stance.
- Select all the control nodes on Oscar and create a pose named relaxed_stanceB.
- In the Trax Editor, place the poses according to illustration below and set up the blends between each pose.
- Select all the poses and go to Edit > Merge Clip option box in the Trax Editor. Name the merged clip StandingABowingStandingB. Hit Merge Clip to create one clip out of all those poses.
