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
- Create the rigid body’s dynamic animation.
- 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.
- Select Edit > Keys > Bake Simulation to display the options window.
- If you are baking rigid bodies that exist in a hierarchy, turn on the setting for . If the rigid bodies are not in a hierarchy, turn on .
- For the setting, turn on .
This creates keys only for the attributes you select in the . You’ll select the attributes in a subsequent step.
- For , turn on one of the following:
- to convert the entire frame range.
- to specify a and .
- For the 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.
- Turn on .
- Select the Translate and attributes in the .
This selects the and attributes of all selected rigid bodies.
- Click .
Maya creates the keys.
TipUse the 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.