Go to: Related nodes. Attributes.
Maya uses animation clips as the building block of its non-linear
animation system, "Trax". An animation clip allows the user to
bundle a set of animation curves independent of time so that they
can be reused multiple times, with different timing than the
original clip.
Character sets are integral to Maya's use of clips, since a clip
contains whatever attributes of the character were animated when
the clip was created. For more information on character sets, refer
to the character node documentation. Clips in maya can be of two
types: source clips and scheduled clips. Scheduled clips are also
referred to as instanced clips. In the Maya UI, source clips are
visible in the Visor while scheduled clips are visible in Trax. A
source clip maintains the animation curves for the clip. A
scheduled clip contains data about the placement of an instance of
a source clip in the Maya timeline. In this context, an "instance"
means that the animation curves from the source clip are shared by
the scheduled clip. Scheduled clips never contain their own
animation curves, they always refer to a source clip's curves. For
example, if you create a clip called "run" in maya that lasts from
frames 1-20, a source clip node will be created with a start of 1,
a duration of 19, and dependency graph connections to all of the
animation curves that make up the "run". If you then place an
instance of the run clip at frame 5 and another instance of the run
clip at frame 20, you have 2 scheduled clips: one with a start
frame of 5 and one with a start frame of 20. As mentioned in the
previous paragraph, only a single set of animation curves exist for
the run regardless of the number of times the run is scheduled.
Trax also allows you to create "blends" between clips, which enable
you to control the transition between the clips. A blend is
represented in the dependency graph by an "animBlendInOut" node,
which uses an animation curve to determine the transition type. In
the dependency graph, when a character has animation clips, the
character node will always be connected to a "clipLibrary" node and
a "clipScheduler" node. The clipLibrary node is connected to all of
the source clips and their animation curves. The clipScheduler node
is connected to the scheduled clips and blends. It is the
clipScheduler that computes the final animation by looking at the
placement and overlap of the clips and feeding the attribute data
back into the character set.
Node name |
Parents |
MFn type |
Compatible function sets |
animClip |
dependNode |
kClip |
kBase
kNamedObject
kDependencyNode
kClip |
Related nodes
character, clipScheduler, clipLibrary, animBlend, animBlendInOut
Attributes (24)
absoluteChannel, absoluteRotations, channelOffset, clip, clipInstance,
cycle, duration, enable,
hold, offset,
pose, postCycle, preCycle, scale,
sourceEnd, sourceStart, start,
startFrame, startPercent, startTrim, timeWarp, timeWarpEnable, weight, weightStyle
Long name (short name) |
Type |
Default |
Flags |
|
enable
(ea ) |
bool |
1 |
|
|
absoluteChannel
(ac ) |
bool |
false |
|
|
channelOffset
(co ) |
double |
0.0 |
|
|
startFrame
(sf ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
scale
(sc ) |
double |
1.0 |
|
|
hold
(h ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
preCycle
(cb ) |
double |
0.0 |
|
|
postCycle
(ca ) |
double |
0.0 |
|
|
weight
(w ) |
double |
1.0 |
|
|
weightStyle
(ws ) |
enum |
0 |
|
|
pose
(ps ) |
bool |
false |
|
|
sourceStart
(ss ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
sourceEnd
(se ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
clip
(cl ) |
Message |
n/a |
|
|
clipInstance
(ci ) |
bool |
1 |
|
|
timeWarp
(tw ) |
double |
0.0 |
|
|
timeWarpEnable
(twe ) |
bool |
false |
|
|
start
(st ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
duration
(du ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
offset
(o ) |
enum |
0 |
|
|
absoluteRotations
(abro ) |
bool |
false |
|
|
cycle
(cy ) |
double |
1.0 |
|
|
startTrim
(str ) |
time |
0film |
|
|
startPercent
(sp ) |
double |
0.0 |
|