Exporting reference tweaks

The tweaks you’ve made to the zombie shuffle have not actually changed the original zombie animation. Instead, the changes reside in the current scene file as reference edits.

To view reference edits

1. In the Outliner, select zombieShuffleRN.
2. -click and select Reference > List Edits from the menu that appears.

   Maya displays a list of the node and attribute values that have changed since the zombie file was referenced.

   

   From this you can see that the zombieShuffle file still contains the original, unaltered zombie walk, while the current scene referencing zombieShuffle contains only the tweaks you’ve made since.

3. Close the List Reference Edits window.

You can export the reference edits in the current scene for use in your graveyard scene.

To export the reference edits

1. In the Outliner, select zombieShuffleRN.
2. -click, and select Reference > Export to Offline File.

   The File Browser window appears.

3. Under Options, do the following:
   • In the Target Option section, set Export nodes to Connected to referenced file for selection.
   • In the Reference Options section, turn on Include setAttr edits.
   Note

   This tutorial assumes you are using the default Maya File Browser. If these options do not appear in the File Browser, change back to the default browser by selecting Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences, and then going to the Files/Projects section and setting the File Dialog option to Maya Default.

4. Name the file armTweak1, and then click Export to Offline File.

   Maya creates an edits file containing your animation tweaks.

Now you are ready to apply the tweaked animation to zombies in the graveyard file.

To prepare for the next part of the tutorial, re-open the graveyard3.ma scene (File > Open Scene). You do not need to save the current scene.