Bake retargeted animation to the target character

Depending on where you are in your retargeting workflow, you can bake the retargeted animation either to the target character’s skeleton, Control rig, or Custom rig.

Typically, you bake animation to the target character’s Control rig when you no longer need the link to your source character or, for example, if you want to export the rig to MotionBuilder. (See Send HumanIK rigs to MotionBuilder.)

You can bake animation to the target skeleton when you finish making all adjustments to the retargeted animation and are satisfied with the results.

To bake retargeted animation to the target character

1. In the Character Controls, select the character you want to bake to in the Character menu.
2. Click , then select one of the options that appear in the Bake menu. See Bake options in the Character Controls.

   The retargeted animation plays in the scene as Maya bakes to either the target skeleton, Control rig, or Custom rig. For each frame of the retargeted animation, Maya sets one key on each effector or joint.

   Important

   If you added the Control rig to an animation layer during retargeting, the layered animation overrides the baked animation. Mute or delete the layers to view the result of the baked animation on the Control rig.

3. (Optional) If you are finished working with the source character, you can delete it from the scene.