After you’ve defined character sets, you can leverage Maya’s animation features to animate them at the character level.
Defining character sets enables you to animate characters as a single entity rather than as a group of separate objects. For your convenience, all the attributes relevant for the character’s animation can be available together in one place. For example, animators can set keys and breakdowns on characters instead of on the various objects that make up a character. This enables Maya to provide animators with a more intuitive approach to animating characters. Further, you can set a character as the current character set, identifying it as the character you want to focus on and animate.
Keyframing character sets
As with any animatable object in Maya, you can set keys and breakdowns on character sets. For more information on animation, including setting keys and breakdowns, see Set keys and Set Breakdowns.
Creating expressions for character sets
You can create expressions for character sets, or for the objects that make up a character set. Expressions provide an excellent way to incorporate automatic or overlapping, secondary actions into a character’s behavior. For example, you could create an expression that acts on smooth skin influence objects behind a character’s chest or belly, making the character seem to breathe. For more information on expressions, see Animation expressions.
Using motion capture for character sets
You can impart motion to your character sets by using motion capture data. For more information on capturing, filtering, and using motion capture data, see Motion Capture Animation.