Create and edit blends

You can create a blend between two animation clips that share common attributes and are part of the same character set. A blend creates a smooth transition from the motion of one clip to another. See also Blending clips.

To blend animation clips

1. Select the clips (with one or more common attributes) that you want to blend.
2. Do one of the following:
   • In the Trax Editor toolbar, click Create Blend .
   • In the Trax menu bar, select Create > Blend.
     Note: You can also select Create > Blend > , set the Blend Clip Options that appear, then click Create Blend.

   Maya creates the blend, displayed as a green arrow between the clips.

Tip:

You can match poses between blended clips in order to align the animation sequences. See Match poses and align clips.

For overlapping clips, make adjustments to the clip positions in the track view area so that the animation transitions smoothly from one clip to the other.

Warning: If you move the first clip in a blend to a position where it plays later than the second clip, you will get an undesirable blend as the result. The blend operation is intended for blending a clip that plays first with the clip that plays second.

To edit a blend’s values

1. Select the blend region (the green blend arrow) and open the Attribute Editor (Windows > Attribute Editor).
2. Set the blend’s Weight attribute or Rotation Blend.

To edit a blend’s weighting

1. Select the blend whose curve you want to open in the Graph Editor.
2. Do one of the following:
   • In the Trax toolbar, click Graph Anim Curves .
   • In the Trax menu bar, select View > Graph Anim Curves.

   The Graph Editor appears with the weight curve for the selected animation blend present and framed in its graph view.

   By default, the blend’s weight curve has a range from 0-1 and is linear. See Blend.

   At the first frame where clips overlap, the top clip controls the motion 100% and the bottom clip controls the motion 0%. At the last frame where clips overlap, the bottom clip controls the motion 100% while the top clip controls the motion 0%.

   During playback, the control of the first clip in a blend decreases as the second clip’s control increases.

3. Before you can add keys to the blend weight curve, you must first turn off Time and Value snap in the Graph Editor’s toolbar (Edit > Snap > ).

   Otherwise, Maya will not allow keys on the blend weight curve to have floating point values.

4. Adjust the shape of the curve to alter the percentage of control each clip has during the blend by doing one of the following:
   • Move the keys or the key’s tangents.

   Select the weight curve’s keys or tangents, select the Move Tool from the Maya toolbox, and middle-drag the keys or their tangents to change the shape of the curve. For example, you can reshape the default blend weight curve to make it resemble the following:

   

   With this curve, the first clip in the blend starts with 100% control at the start of the blend, decreases to 0% at the middle, then increases to 100% control at the end of the blend. The bottom clip changes correspondingly from 0% to 100% to 0% control during the blend.

   • Add keys to the blend curve.

   Select the Insert Keys Tool or Add Keys Tool from the Graph Editor Keys menu, and middle-click the curve to add additional keys to the curve. You can then use these new keys to alter the shape of the weight curve.

   • If you want to change the weight curve type, delete the blend and add a new blend of the desired type.
   • If the blend doesn’t provide the exact transition you want, add motion warping to fine tune the transition. See Key on top of clips.

To delete a blend

1. Select the blend that you want to remove. See the above procedure.
2. Press Delete.

Related topics

• Match poses and align blended clips