maya In this lesson, you learned some fundamental techniques for using the nonlinear animation tools in Trax.

Animation Lesson 4: Beyond the lesson

In this lesson, you learned some fundamental techniques for using the nonlinear animation tools in Trax.
You learned how to:

 Key animation sequences for use as nonlinear clips in Trax.
Clips can contain minimal or many animated attributes. You can create clips from existing
animation or key animation specifically for use in clips. You should consider what attributes you
need represented in a clip when you key the animation before you decide to use nonlinear
animation in your work. In this way, a clip can be used to control a specific attribute.

 Create clips from your animation sequences for use in the Trax Editor.
When you create a clip, a character set is created if one does not already exist. You can load and
work with multiple character sets in the Trax Editor. To select different character sets when
working in Trax you can use the Select Current Character drop-down menu. Clips can also be
arranged, scaled, and moved as groups. For more information see Move clips and Track view area
in the Maya Help.

 Use the Trax editor to position, re-arrange, cycle, and scale clips in order to create and modify
animation sequences in the scene.
If a character animates or scales in a manner you had not expected when working in Trax, you
may want to check to see if the clips overlap or are arranged in a manner that doesn't provide the
expected results. In addition, a clip containing motion that is intended to be appended to another
clip's motion must have its Offset attribute set to Relative, and Absolute Rotations set to On (in
most instances). There are many other tasks you can perform with clips in the Trax Editor that are
beyond the scope of this lesson. For more information see Nonlinear animation components in Trax
in the Maya Help.
 Use the Trax Editor to work with motion capture data.
The Trax Editor is useful when working with motion capture data. Since motion capture data
usually contains a lot of keyframe information, the Trax Editor can be useful for creating, modify,
and extending the motion data provided. Cycling and redirecting motion are two methods that can
be used to get more from your motion capture data. For more information see the section on
Motion Capture Animation in the Maya Help.

 Redirect the motion for a character using the Redirect tool.
You can use redirection controls to redirect any type of motion in Maya (Keyframe, motion
capture, expressions, dynamics, and so on) For more information and additional examples on
redirection see How do I redirect the motion of an animated character? in the Maya Help.

 Trim clips in the Trax Editor.
You can trim a clip either before or after the current time indicator discarding the remainder of the
clip in the process. You can also split a clip into two parts. The original source clip is not affected.
For more information see Split clips in the Maya Help.

Blending clips

You can blend the animation between clips. Blends allow you to create smooth transitions and mixes
between different motions. A blend can be applied between any two clips that overlap entirely, partially,
or not at all. The best results are obtained when blending between similar motions. In some situations, a
blend can be used to correct jump cuts. For more information see Create and edit blends in the Maya
Help.

Key into clip
You can set keyframes to alter the animation within a clip. This process is called Keying into a clip. When
you key into a clip, keyframes are placed at the current time on all the animation curves in the selected
clip. For more information see Key into a clip in the Maya Help.

Time Warps

Time Warps let you change the timing of a clip without modifying the clip's animation curves. You modify
the Time Warp by editing the animation curve that controls the warp. Time Warps can also be used to
reverse the animation in a clip. For more information see Create and edit time warps in the Maya Help.
Visor and Outliner

Both the Visor and Outliner can be used to access clips. The Visor provides a graphical interface to
access other resources (clips, poses, shaders, textures, brushes etc.) in your scene. The Outliner
displays clips in a textual manner, and is a bit more compact.
Audio clips

You can display and play multiple audio files in Trax allowing you to synchronize your motion clips to
specific audio events (sound effects, musical notes, drum beats etc.) in the audio file. Once you import
an audio file into Trax, you can then move and rename the audio clip. For more information see Work with
audio in the Maya Help.