Character Mapper

To open the Character Mapper, select Character > Character Mapper (from the Animation menu set).

The Character Mapper window lets you map animation from one character (source) to another (target) character. Use the Character Mapper to establish a relationship between a source and target character’s nodes or attributes so that you can import and export or copy and paste animation clips between the mapped characters in the Trax Editor.

There are four different ways you can view a character’s mapped and unmapped nodes or attributes in the Character Mapper: Alphabetical, Hierarchical, Display Node Names, and Display Channel Names views. See Show menu. These views can help you better navigate long node or attribute lists (hierarchical or alphabetical) and isolate specific nodes (Display Node Names view) or animation channels (Display Channel Names view).

The Character Mapper is most useful when you want to map animation from one similar character to another. For example, mapping the animation from the translateX channel of one biped character to the translateZ channel of another biped character.

Show menu

Alphabetical: Lists the nodes or attributes in the Mapped and Unmapped columns alphabetically, starting with A.
Hierarchical: Lists the nodes or attributes in the Mapped and Unmapped columns by their hierarchical relationships. This means that the nodes or attributes are displayed in parent-child order starting from the root. This option is on by default.
Display Node Names: Displays all the character set’s nodes in the Mapped and Unmapped columns. This option lets you map animation from source to target character nodes. The node view format is as follows:

SourceJoint -----> TargetJoint
Display Channel Names: Displays all the character set’s keyable channels in the Mapped and Unmapped columns. Use this option if you need to map animation from certain source character channels to specific target character channels. For example, use this option if you want to map the animation on the X rotation channel for the source character’s left shoulder to the Z rotation channel of the target character’s left shoulder. The channel view format is as follows:

SourceNode.SourceChannel -----> TargetNode.TargetChannel

Edit Menu

Unmap: Breaks the link between the node or attribute pair selected in the Mapped column.
Unmap All: Breaks all the links between the nodes or attributes of the source and target characters that are currently loaded in the Character Mapper. These links or relationships between the nodes or attributes of the source and target characters are displayed in the Mapped column.
Clear All: Clears the current contents of the Unmapped and Mapped columns.
Refresh: Refreshes the Mapped and Unmapped columns to display the most recent (current) version of their contents.
Map based on node names: Maps the source and target characters by their node or attribute names. Select this menu item when both your source and target character’s node or attribute names are the same. For example:

lshoulder -----> lshoulder

lelbow -----> lelbow

lhand -----> lhand
Map based on hierarchy: Maps the source and target characters by their hierarchical structures. Select this menu item when you want to automatically map the various node hierarchies in your character.

There are two ways you can map your animation based on the hierarchies of the Source and Target characters:

You can automatically map all the nodes and attributes of the source and target characters. If no nodes or attributes are selected in the Unmapped columns, the Character Mapper will search for the root of the Source and Target characters and will then traverse and map their hierarchies accordingly.
You can automatically map the nodes or attributes of a specified segment of the character’s hierarchy (for example, limb to limb). You specify which segment you want to map by selecting a single Source and a single Target node or attribute at the top of the segment’s hierarchy. The Character Mapper will then map down the segment of each character’s hierarchy based on the nodes or attributes you selected.

See Map one character to another.

Map based on order: Maps the source and target characters by the hierarchical order (descending) of their nodes or attributes. Select this menu item when both your source and target character’s nodes or attributes have the same basic hierarchy. For example:

joint3 -----> 3joint

joint2 -----> 2joint

joint1 -----> 1joint

Fields

From:: Displays the name of the source character. The source character set contains the animation data that is remapped to the target character set’s skeleton.
To:: Displays the name of the target character. The target character set’s skeleton receives the remapped animation data from the source character set.

Buttons

Load Source button: Loads all the node or attribute names from the selected character into the Left (source) column.
Load Target button: Loads all the node or attribute names from the selected character into the Right (target) column.
Map button: Creates a correspondence between the animation from the selected source node or attribute (left Unmapped column) to the target node or attribute (right Unmapped column). For example, if you want to map node1 from the source character to node2 of the target character, the node pair or relationship would appear in the Mapped column as the following:

node1 -----> node2
Close button: Closes the Character Mapper window.

Columns

Mapped column: Displays all the node or attribute relationships between the source and target character sets. Once you link nodes or attributes by clicking on them in the source (left) and target (right) Unmapped columns, the linked pairs appear in the Mapped column.
Unmapped columns: The left unmapped column lists all the nodes or attributes from the source character set’s skeleton, and the right unmapped column lists all the nodes or attributes from the target character set’s skeleton. To link pairs of nodes or attributes, see Map one character to another.

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