Greetings
Quick question (hopefully)
If one needs to split their animation across multiple files, what is the best way of making sure that a character’s starting position in one file matches their ending position in another for continuity? I was just thinking of scripting something, i.e. storing the filename and path for a reference file, and copying across the last key for each of a set of tracks on file open to time 0 for example.
(I just want to make sure I’m not missing something easier using animation loading, or re-inventing the wheel)
Cheers
Mikie
Starting with the first file, delete all the keys but the last, slide last key to frame 0, save as next file?
makes sense for initial set up. How about later on, once you have useful animation in both files, and need to be non-destructive?
Previously I’ve pulled in xrefs, copied across the keys I needed from xref Objects, to the ones in my scene then deleted the xref Objects.
Seemed to work pretty well, but maybe not very elegant?
Have you tried the save load animation tool?
I recently looked into at it, as I’m looking for some other methods to get animation data into our PLC based control system. (besides our own format) The exported format looks pretty easy to play with.
I guess the workflow would need to be something along the lines of export last frame of animation on file save of first file, on file open of the second file check for an existing .xaf and load that animation to frame 0.
Or write your own XML file with the data in it.
Thanks Paul
Sounds like scripting a solution is the right way to go anyway, and I’m not missing anything obvious.
As a side note: I currently serialize motion data to XML, and write that to SQL Anywhere databases to get data to our control system. In future I’d like to do all the motion interpolation at the PLC level rather then in 3ds Max. Which is why I started looking at how 3ds saves off bezier curves for instance.
PLC – Programmable logic controller. In our case, Siemens Industrial Automation stuff.