Correct way to manage animation workflows in Maya LT with multiple animations

[Anonymous]

This is probably a stupid question but I am new to Maya and my googlefu is apperently lacking on this specific subject.

What is the correct way to manage multiple animations?(eg - walk, run, jump, crawl, etc) Do I use a seperate copy of my rigged mesh for each animation? Create seperate skeletons in the same file? Is there an object I can create in the scene that defines an individual animation that I've just missed? I would like to be able to export them individually, or at least in a way the the UE4 engine can interrupt as individual animations from an .fbx export out of Maya LT.

I understand the animation process in general. Developing a single animation is well documented just about everywhere you look. Either no one has addressed workflow management of multiple animations in LT or I've just completely spaced out and missed it.

If a HowTo or Video is out there already on this specific topic, a link would be great. I can do the rest.

Thanks!

JI

[MatthewDoyleArt · Accepted solution]

Hi JI,

Animation workflow depends very much on your target goal. You can export all animations in a single FBX file, or as separate FBX files. You can certainly use separate rigged meshes for each animation, but this is not a recommended workflow. Better to have a single rigged mesh with all the animations on it at different keyframes. You could have separate files for each animation as well.

Maya LT's FBX export is not currently able to export specific frames of animation without baking them down though there are some cool features coming soon that will address this.

[KristinDalzell]

I just wanted to update this thread to mention that this workflow is now added to the Maya LT Help - how to export multiple clips with the new Game Exporter tool. Great questions.

 http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYALT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-31148EE5-CAA8-48F2-9E51-3C9712EE8A14

[Anonymous]

Very cool. Thanks for the update.