Export Animation Rig Property Editor

Generate a Face Robot mesh (based on shapes) and rig to be exported to a 3D application, such as Autodesk Maya.

To display:

On the Act panel in the Face Robot layout, click the Export tab and choose Animation Export - Linked Shapes.

For more information on the animation export in general, see Exporting Animation Rigs (Shapes).

Samplers

Create	Creates samplers based on the face's animation controls. Samplers are lattice-like forms that help you visualize how the geometry of the face is sampled in each area around the control. See Creating Samplers for more information.
Create ROM	Creates range of motion (ROM) samplers, which are samplers based on the animation control's range of movement in space. The size of the sampler reflects the control's complete range of movement. This is more useful for controls that move over a larger area in space, such as the chin or mouth.
Inspect	Opens up the Sampler Property Editor so that you can edit and test the selected samplers.
Delete	Deletes the selected samplers. If nothing is seleted and you click this button, all samplers are deleted.
Load	Loads an existing sampler preset file (.smp) that is applied to the selected face controls. There is a default.smp file that ships with Face Robot that you can apply. If nothing is selected when you click this button, the sampler preset is applied to all face controls for which a preset exists.
Save	Saves the samplers on the selected face controls in a sampler preset file (.smp). If nothing is seleted when you click this button, the sampler preset file includes presets for all face controls.

Rig

After you've created the samplers on the head, you're ready to build the export rig. See Building the Export Rig for more information.

Build	Builds the export rig in a model named Face Animation Rig.
Delete	Deletes the export rig.
Copy eyes, teeth, and tongue geometry	Includes the eyeballs, teeth, and tongue meshes as part of the export rig.

Shapes

Once you've created the animation rig, you can save the geometrical deformation of the original Face Robot face as shapes and transfer them to the export rig.

See Generating the Shapes for more information.

Create/Update

Creates the shapes based on the Samplers you've created.

If you've changed the samplers after you have built the export rig and generated the shapes, you need to click this button again to update the shapes according to the changes you've made.

Transfer

Start/End Frames	Then range of animation that you want to transfer from the Face Robot head's controls to the rig's controls.
Transfer	Transfers the animation, materials, and corrective shapes to the rig. The animation of the face controls is plotted, creating fcurves that you can later edit in the animation editor.

Export Rig

When you have finished all the previous steps, you're ready to export the animation rig in a .dotxsi file. The dotxsi format is the file format that is used as the default export/import format for Softimage and is also easily imported by Autodesk Maya.

Path	The path and file name that you want to use for the exported .dotxsi file. You can click the (…) button to open a browser and select a path and file name there.
Include Animation	Exports the animation (fcurves) on the controls as part of the rig.
Replace Neutral Poses with Nulls	Removes the neutral pose data on each animation control and replace that data with an actual null. Select this option if you are going to export to Maya and don't want to work with neutral pose data for the animation controls' transformation values. Deselect this option if you're exporting to Softimage because it understands neutral poses. Each animation control has neutral pose data in its Local Kinematics property that defines its transformation values, which can be useful for "zeroing out" the controls. For information on neutral poses, see Creating Neutral Poses for Skeletons.
Export	Exports the animation rig to the .dotxsi file that you have specified.

Hide/Unhide

Face Robot

Toggles the display of the original Face Robot head.

To keep the view uncluttered you may want to hide the original Face Robot head after you have built the animation export rig from it.

Animation Rig

Toggles the display of the animation export rig.

Samplers

Toggles the display of the samplers.

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