You can convert an active rigid body’s dynamic animation to keys, a process known as baking the simulation. This is useful if you want to adjust an active rigid body’s motion at certain frames by altering keyed values.

To convert an active rigid body’s dynamic animation to keys

1. Create the rigid body’s dynamic animation.
2. Select the active rigid bodies for which you want to bake the simulation. If a rigid body is a hierarchy of objects made into a single rigid body, select the parent transform node of the hierarchy.
3. Select Edit > Keys > Bake Simulation to display the options window.
4. If you are baking rigid bodies that exist in a hierarchy, turn on the Below setting for Hierarchy. If the rigid bodies are not in a hierarchy, turn on Selected.
5. For the Channels setting, turn on From Channel Box.

   This creates keys only for the attributes you select in the Channel Box. You’ll select the attributes in a subsequent step.

6. For Time Range, turn on one of the following:
   • Time Slider to convert the entire frame range.
   • Start/End to specify a Start Time and End Time.
7. For the Sample By option, enter the frame increment by which you want to create keys.

   For example, if you leave it set to the default setting of 1, a key is created at every frame.

8. Turn on Disable Implicit Control.
9. Select the Translate and Rotate attributes in the Channel Box.

   This selects the Translate and Rotate attributes of all selected rigid bodies.

10. Click Bake.

    Maya creates the keys.

    TipUse the Graph Editor to simplify the animation curves created when you bake the simulation. See the Animation guide for details. Simplifying the curves reduces the number of keys, which eases your ability to edit the animation. If you simplify the curve too much, you might alter the motion of the rigid body.

    If you bake the simulation for a rigid body, you no longer need the object’s rigid body node. You can remove such nodes to speed scene processing.