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.