- In
the Modelling menu set, select
Create > NURBS Primitives > Plane.
A a simple planar surface appears in your scene.
This will be the bottom step of the staircase.
If desired, scale the plane and move its CVs to make the plane look
more like a step.
- Select
the Animation menu set from the drop-down menu in the Maya tool
bar or press F2.
Items in the Maya main menu switch to the Animation menu
set.
- Translate
the step so that one of its narrow edges touches the world origin.
- Press
your keyboard’s (Linux
and Windows) or (Mac
OS X) key to display the step’s pivot point.
- Translate
the pivot point to the world origin.
- Press
the or key
again to exit pivot point mode.
- Rewind
the animation and select
Animate > Set Key to
set a key at the start time.
- Specify
a short playback range for your scene. For example, 24 frames.
- Drag
the Current Time indicator to the
end of the playback range.
- Translate
the step upwards along the Y-axis about 10 units, then set a key.
This creates the end position of the step’s
vertical travel.
- Enter
720 for Rotate Y in the Channel
Box, and set a key (+s).
This creates the end position of the step’s
rotation.
- Rewind
and play the animation to observe the step’s movement.
- Select
the step.
- Select
Animate > Create Animation Snapshot > .
The Animation Snapshot Options window
opens.
- For Time
Range, turn on Time Slider,
then set By Time to 1.
These settings will create snapshot copies of
the animated geometry at a regular intervals for the entire Time
Slider range. The By Time value sets the time
interval when snapshots are taken.
If, instead, you turn on Start/End for
the Time Range option, you can enter
a Start Time and End
Time (time range) for the animated geometry.
- In
the Animation Snapshot Options window,
click the Snapshot button to create the
staircase.
Wait several moments for the operation to complete.
TipYou can escape out of a long Snapshot computation
by pressing the
key.
The original object and animation is unchanged.
In the Outliner, the copies of the
steps exist under a new group, snapshotGroup.