Export animation from control rig? Help!

[Anonymous]

Hi there!

I've been using Maya for nearly a month now and I'm finishing up an animation for a character using IK rigs. I've accidentally deleted the history by "Edit > Delete All by Type > History" and somehow the save file was overwritten. This caused my rig and skin to detach. Autosave was not turned on and there is no way I can access an older version of the file.

As you can imagine, this has frustrated me plenty since this was a week's work.

I still have the animation on the control rig, so I was wondering is there any possible way I can somehow copy this animation over to a new import? I was very satisfied with the results from my animation and I really do not want to start all over again. Thanks guys!

[rooseveltrrp]

I think you can try a few approaches here. First would be to attach your skeleton back to your mesh. I am assuming the skeleton is still linked to your current character/control rig. In that case, you could use Bake / Plot to Skeleton. This would copy all the control rig data to your character's skeleton.

But if you have only the control rig with animation data. Then you'd have to reimport your mesh with the skeleton, characterize it and set the animation source to your previous control rig or the character.

If you post a video or the project, it would be easier to debug. I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for the info! I only have the control rig with the animation data. I have a video of it here if it helps. I can definitely reimport the new mesh and all, but after that I'm not sure exactly how I would go about fixing this. Mind if you can walk me through the process? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the rush, guys, I just want to finish this up asap so I can really get started with other scenes. Still having trouble with the rig. 😞

[kirbysteele · Accepted solution]

Hello mariotravel,

This sounds like quite a tricky situation. Delete history can be a risky endeavor with rigged characters sometimes. If you want rebind the mesh to the skeleton as the previous poster suggested here is one way you could make that happen.

1. You need to get the paint weights from the original file, so either find the team fortress model on your machine or download a fresh copy.
2. In maya 2016, they added the feature of exporting and importing skin weights using an xml document instead of having to use separate image files for every joint. This seems to be very fast, effective and accurate. So, open up the original file with the rig and select the skinned mesh. Once selected export the weights from this mesh using the rigging menu set Deform>Export Weights. You can just put the xml file on the desktop for easy retrieval.
3. (Optional) If there are multiple separate meshes like the head is separate from the body or the bullet vest is separate, then repeat step 2 and name all the different exported weight files appropriately so you can know what goes with what.
4. Next open your animation file that you want to fix, and find the frame in your animation that best matches the mesh's pose. If you remember the frame you were on when you deleted history then that would be perfect. Then bind the mesh (or meshes) to the skeleton using Skin>Bind Skin.
5. Now select your mesh and imort the skin weights using Deform>Import Weights and find the xml document that you exported from the original source file.
6. Sometimes there are pieces of a rig that are just parent constrained like a hat so you will need to use parent constraints and make sure that the maintain offset is checked.
7. The eyeballs usually not skinned and an easy way to get them in place is to use a parent constraint but this time make sure that the maintain offset is turned off. This way the eyeball will move into place on top of the eye joint. You can use the different offsets for rotation if you are finding that the eyeball is oriented the wrong direction.

This is a bit tricky, and really relies on the fact that you are able to find the frame when the delete history happened.

A different approach would be to copy the animation from the old file to a new file. Just reference in your animated file into a fresh copy of the team fortress guy using the reference editor located under File>Reference Editor. Once your animated file is in the fresh copy here is what you do:

1. Select a control on the old file
2. Highlight all the frames you want to copy by holding shift and clicking and dragging on the timeline
3. Right click the newly highlighted red area
4. Select copy
5. Select the same control on the fresh rig and click on the timeline where your selection started for the old rig
6. Right click on that frame and choose Paste>Paste
7. Repeat for all animated controls.
8. You can do multiple controls at the same time, but you have to remember the order you selected the old animated controls and do the same order on the new controls otherwise the pasting will be mixed up. I will usually do groups like all the spine controls, then all the left arm controls, then all the right arm controls etc.

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much! I couldn't get the Exporting/Importing Weight Maps method to work, so I had to resort to the last method and I successfully transferred the animation over. You guys just saved me so much time!

Thanks you!