The Pose Editor is where you can create pose space deformations for skinned characters and save them as blend shapes. It provides a pose interpolation system that reads joint transformations in order to drive blend shape weights.
For more information on using the Pose Editor, see Create pose space deformations.
To open the Pose Editor:
See the table below this image for information on each part of the Pose Editor:
Adjust the Pose Editor layout |
You can adjust the layout of the Pose panel:
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1 - Menu commands |
See below for a list of all menu commands in the Pose Editor. |
2 - Create Pose Interpolator |
Select a skinned character's joint you want to track for pose interpolation and click this icon to create a Pose Interpolator (PI) node. You can also right-click in an empty area of the Pose Editor and choose Create Pose Interpolator. If you want to set options before creating the Pose Interpolator node, choose > . |
3 - Pose Interpolators panel |
Lists the Pose Interpolator nodes you have created for the joints on a character's skin mesh. Select a Pose Interpolator node to display all poses created for this node in the Poses panel on the right. By default, the PI node name is the joint name with a "_poseInterpolator" suffix. Right-click a Pose Interpolator node and choose Rename to give it a new name. Drag and drop the Pose Interpolator nodes in the tree to change their order. You can also drag one Pose Interpolator node and drop it onto another one to group them, or drag a Pose Interpolator node into an empty area to remove it from the group. Right-click a Pose Interpolator node name to open a contextual menu with these commands: Select Drivers, Show Advanced Settings, Show Driver Settings, Attributes (opens the Attribute Editor for the pose interpolator), Export, Group, Mirror, Rename, and Delete. Group : Select PI nodes in the panel, then click this icon to create a group containing them. You can create any number of subgroups. Click the Delete icon in this panel, or right-click a Pose Interpolator node name and select Delete to delete the selected Pose Interpolator node(s) or group(s) of Pose Interpolator nodes . |
4 - Add Pose |
Rotate and/or move the joint with an associated Pose Interpolator node to the desired pose you want to track. Then select the Pose Interpolator node and click this button to create a pose using the automatic settings. Poses have associated corrective blend shapes that you create in order to deform the skin mesh. The offsets of vertices from the skin in its original state are saved in each pose.
The new pose's Weight is set to 1 and its Edit button is automatically activated (turns red) so that you can immediately deform the skin mesh for this corrective shape. You can also choose Add Pose Options and create a pose. > to open the |
5 - Pose panel/Pose Name |
Poses created for the selected Pose Interpolator (PI) node are displayed in this panel. By default, the pose name will be the driverName_rx_ry_rz, where driverName is the name of the joint and rx/ry/rz are the rotation values of the pose. Right-click a pose name and choose Rename to give it a new name. Right-click a pose name to open a contextual menu with these commands: Go to Pose, Update Pose, Auto-adjust Gaussian Falloff if Gaussian is selected as the Interpolation in the Advanced Settings, Edit, Duplicate Pose Shape, Update Pose Shape, Attributes (opens the Attribute Editor for the pose), Show Advanced Settings, Export, Mirror, Rename, and Delete. Click the Delete icon in this panel, or right-click a pose name and select Delete to delete the selected pose(s). |
6 - Active/Not Active |
Click the circle to toggle the activation of the effect of the poses on the character's skin mesh. You can also select multiple items and click the circle for one of them to toggle the active state for all of them. Weighting and editing are disabled when the pose is not active. |
7 - Type |
Type of pose: Swing and Twist, Swing Only, or Twist Only - see Add Pose Options. |
8 - Weight |
The influence of this pose on the skin mesh. Drag the slider to set the weight (influence) of that pose to a value between 0 (no influence) and 1 (100% influence), or enter a value in the Weight text box. When you rotate the joint, the weight value of the poses will update from 0 to 1 depending on how close the joint is to the stored pose. |
9 - Edit |
Click the Edit button, or right-click a pose name and select Edit, to enter edit mode for this pose. Modify the skin mesh with the Sculpting tools, or select components on the skin mesh and modify them with the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools. When you're done, click the Edit button again to save your changes to this pose and exit Edit mode. You can enter Edit mode for only one pose at a time and its Weight value must not be 0. |
10 - Advanced Settings (left side) |
Lets you control the interpolation of the poses. This panel is displayed when you select Show Advanced Settings. See below for more information. or right-click a Pose name and choose |
11 - Driver Settings |
Lets you edit joint for the selected pose interpolator. This panel is displayed when you select Show Driver Settings. See below for more information. or right-click a Pose Interpolator node name and choose |
12 - Advanced Settings (right side) |
Displays blend shapes connected to a selected pose, and lets you adjust the interpolation falloff. This panel is displayed when you select Show Advanced Settings. See below for more information. or right-click a Pose name and choose |
As with other menus in Maya, you can click on a menu's dotted lines to detach it from the menu bar, and middle-click a menu name to repeat the last command you chose from it.
Any pose shapes associated to the pose interpolator's poses are saved in shape (*.shp) files (see Import and export blend shapes) in the same directory as the .pose file with a matching prefix.
Select to select whether or not to use Neutral poses for the Pose Interpolator you will create. For best results, you should select this option because a neutral pose ensures that no other poses added to this Pose Interpolator node will be activated when the joint is at this neutral pose. However, if you're working with joints that driven by controllers, you don't want to create the neutral poses immediately - see Use controller-driven joints with pose space deformations for more information.
Select to open Add Pose Options where you can select the Pose Type (Swing, Swing and Twist, or Twist).
Select to select whether or not to Rename the pose.
Select to open the Mirror Options to set the symmetry axis.
Regularization: Since the Pose Editor uses a linear regression curve-fitting algorithm, there are cases when the interpolation between poses is too “jaggy” or undesirable. This can sometimes occur with a high amount of poses. Increasing this value can smooth out this interpolation. A good regularization value is usually somewhere between 0.01 and 1.0.