Whats the best way to export data to Maya?

[dperianen]

Hi

I've been looking into different methods of exporting Mo Cap data directly into Maya. I'm aiming to cut Motion Builder out completely and just deal with the data. The only method of importing into Maya seems to be via .BVH and .CV3 export formats. I've recently upgraded to the 1.5000 version of Arena which contains a new FBX exporter feature. This feature sounds ideal but for some reason Maya 2010 and 2011 does not find any data within the FBX however locators plus animation imports fine in Motionbuilder. How can an FBX only open in Motionbuilder and not Maya?
I'm still brain storming for solutions and i'll post updates on this thread.

Cheers

[DonBurroni]

Hi you should see data in maya from the FBX file, make sure when you import, you have 'add and update scene elements'.

You may just have it on update, so only the animation is imported, so you would need the marker-set already in the maya scene.

Hope that helps

[smalldot]

Hello

Is there any chance that Maya plugin will work for Arena 1.5.0??

thanks a lot

[DonBurroni]

yes, but you must set the maya importer to, 'Add and update', (or add to scene)

your data will import just fine, (you are only importing the animation curves and not the optical data,)

All the best
Burroni

[Seth Steiling]

[quote=Laura]Hello

Is there any chance that Maya plugin will work for Arena 1.5.0??

thanks a lot [/quote]
ARENA 1.5 introduced support for FBX export, so as Don is recommending, this should be a good option for you. If you'd like to go straight into Maya with mocap data, I would recommend FBX as the ideal format.

However, we do not at this time have a plugin for Maya. So, you would get your data in by loading a file saved out from ARENA, not by streaming live from ARENA to Maya and saving in Maya.

[smalldot]

ok, thanks a lot for your answer

[iwansuryo]

Are there anybody have specific experience on retargeting mocap data from Optitrack in Maya 2011 with humanIK ? I need to know the detail workflow because human IK is very very useful for processing mocap data on any kind of character without the need for Motion Builder.

I hope that the result of this new workflow could be presented in the sample application or tutorial because I will never buy Motion Builder for animation project and want to concentrate just on Maya.

Maybe you can illustrate the ideal bone structure and naming convention for successful retargeting workflow on HumanIK.

Thank you very much. I will buy Optitrack soon if this roadmap can be done perfectly and our production house can be maintain our tradition on Maya centric animation project.

Iwan Suryolaksono

[DonBurroni]

It works with HumanIk this robot has a human IK rig, but I did used motionbuilder to do the retarget, Robot
It�s the same tools in maya, if you pull up the HumanIK menu set, it has a retargeting panel, (the first one,) just drag your bones to the corresponding HumanIk bone, and you�re in business,


Hope that helps,
Burroni