Hi All,

I have a motionbuilder rig with some custom character extensions and attributes, this rig has a bunch of base animations i want to use as a stepping stone for game animations, the problem i am running in to is when i am loading animations and replacing rigs on different characters the keyframes on character extensions get baked down on to the base layer, or are still there but all the keys contain the same data.

If i change the settings to “Re target” the spacial reference looks to be off and it messes up the animation.

Is there a better way to load animations on to different size characters in order to keep the keyframes on the custom extensions intact?

That kept the keyframes, but since the new character is doesn’t have the same proportions the rig causes some massive stretching when the animation is applied.

Ok, so i have finally narrowed it down…

Looks like i was having two issues, some of the animations i was working with were plotted down to the base layer, those animations pull over mostly ok, with some tweaking. The biggest problem is im trying to find an easy way to edit those animations again on separate layers. Haven’t had a chance to look in to that much, as its not the biggest problem.

The rest of the animations seem to be having the most problems, i have them unplotted in the original file all on layer 1, but i cant get them over to the new rig correctly, even with re targeting the custom foot rig doesn’t seem to be handled correctly when i use retarget so i cant grab the initial pose as an offset. Plotting directly to the control rig still messes up the foot rig...but i just found that assigning as a character input then going retargeting from there seems to work but then i end up with all my keys on the base layer again… im investigating using this as an offset.

Should i be avoiding animation on the base layer? I have been working thinking that the base layer should be avoided this whole time… is that correct?

Ah HA! success!! there were translation keys on the foot control nodes that were exploding the foot rig, all i have to do was remove the keys and move them back to their original position then key them on the an offset layer!!!

mission accomplished!!

aggravating though.. i have to reanimate all the foot controls for some reason when i copy animation directly the main foot control i created no longer has keys on it, it gets baked down to all of the effectors

AH good to know you got it worked out:) strange its baking down… might be a “send to autodesk” for a bug?

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Dojo-Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now:

hmm yeah sort of working, still fighting losing those keys on the foot, break alot of stuff beyond recognition… i emailed you a file if you get a chance i would appreciate a second set of eyes on this, maybe im just missing some tiny step somewhere…