Mayastar export .anim

[bbrasta Boa]

Hello.

I'm trying to upload an animation, I did a mocap animation, aplied to the Bento Female, also Bake to control rig, but now when I try to export as a .anim, the animation plays forever in maya, and never end. How long it takes to export? maybe it's a glitch?, I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

[OptimoMaximo]

54 minutes ago, bbrasta Boa said:

How long it takes to export?

It's not instant. The anim exporter has to cycle through every single joint for rotation and position data. Therefore, if you have a long animation that included the max allowed joints (110), it will run through the time line as many (110) times. 

Not only this, you should also remember that the file size is limited to 250KB, so you'd be better off animating and exporting hands and face separately to avoid to hit the size limit. 

You can try to speed up the process by going to your preferences window and switch the evaluation method from the default you find there to one of the other. The options are parallel, serial and dg. Depending on your machine configuration, one will perform better than the others. 

[bbrasta Boa]

Thank you OptimoMaximo, but how can I export hands separately? And then how to mix them again?

[OptimoMaximo]

To mix them again, it's easy enough: the script calls both animations together and they will play together. 

To export them separately, you can select the other joints and put them in an animation layer set as override. The body will then turn back to tpose while the fingers will keep playing the base animation. Do the same with the fingers putting them in another animation layer set as override. You now have the animation split into body and fingers. Do your export by enabling and disabling the appropriate layer. 

Hope this helps! 

[bbrasta Boa]

Thanks again OptimoMaximo, the point I don't understand well is when you talk about that the script will calls the two animations, how can I do that? Is the script a hud? Do I have to create it?

[OptimoMaximo]

It depends on the type of application you're after. The lsl script should be written in such a way that when that specific body animation starts, it also calls the associated hands animation. Whether it needs to be a hud or not, that's up to you and what you wish to create. 

[bbrasta Boa]

Well, what I want to upload is a dance, if I export hands and body together, it exceeds the weight limit. I'm stuck in this step, and I don't know if I have to upload the file separately, or is there any way to mix them before uploading, or once uploaded, they are mixed in some way, other than the hud.

Edited December 28, 2019 by bbrasta Boa

[OptimoMaximo]

Animation files stay as standalone assets, so the mixing has to occur inworld via scripted controls. 

Depending from the length of your animation sequence, you may want to try exporting all together, body and fingers, making sure to reduce the fps in Maya first. This will reduce the number of frames in the final output file, decreasing its size. Just make sure to snap start and end keyframes to a round number if you get them showing as a float and then export. 

Remember that there's always to come to a trade off. "fidelity" and "high quality" come WAY after efficiency for this asset type, which has specific issues and limitations to respect. Reducing fps might even help getting closer to the file size limit, but also your animation needs to be reasonable in length and number of involved joints. Trying to get a 60 seconds long sequence including fingers and face with expressions is most likely to exceed the file size limit unless you work at a very, very low fps, which naturally will degrade the motion smoothness. Animating is no easy task alone, doing it right for SL adds one more layer of complexity. 

[bbrasta Boa]

Thanks again OptimoMaximo

Finally, what would be a low but acceptable amount of fps regarding quality in a dance?  between 15 and 20?

[OptimoMaximo]

Depending on movement speed, 10 or 15 fps should be enough.