Maya/FBX C++ API on Bones and Animation

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone. I am trying to write a file converter / importer for either Maya or the FBX file format. This converter will read in a file that contains some skeleton data in a tree structure, as well as animation data in quaternions. Currently I am still examining the documenation for both Maya and the FBX file format.

In the Maya SDK documentation, creating a bone structure seems simple enough. I just need to call MFnlkJoint for each bone and assign the parents / children accordingly. Am I right to say that?

Secondly, I am not sure how to interpret how Maya handles animations in the SDK. I am not sure what an 'Anim Curve' is. It seems different from the idea of keyframes presented in the Maya GUI.

The animation file format I have to parse consists of keyframes for every joint that moves. If a joint does not move relative to its parent, then it has no keyframes. Every keyframe is guaranteed to be a rotation quaternion, linearly interpolated, relative to its parent.

I am seeking advice on how I can translate this into something that Maya will understand. Which part of OpenMayaAnim lets me assign keyframes, and how does that translate to an Anim Curve?

Attached is a sample of the animation data converted to plaintext. Bone_spine_nub02 does not have any keyframe data because it does not move relative to its parent. Bone_bust01 does and therefore has 48 keyframes.