referencing different body parts for maya
hello
I am making a character for animation and have made his head in one scene file. I have heard that you should really be referencing things for animation projects so that I can edit the character in his own scene and have his references update in all the animation scenes he is used in.
I was wondering if there is any benefit or drawback to referencing different body parts in this way as well. Could I build and rig and texture the head by itself, and reference it in the scene which has the body, and have it work? Or is it better to have the entire character in one scene? I think I would rather work on the head in isolation to get the blend shapes correct without having the rest of the body in the scene. If I reference the head by itself will it mess up the blend shapes if i combine it with the body mesh? I know blend shapes in 3ds max (morph targets) would be ruined if you did anything to the mesh that changed its vertex count.
I am making a character for animation and have made his head in one scene file. I have heard that you should really be referencing things for animation projects so that I can edit the character in his own scene and have his references update in all the animation scenes he is used in.
I was wondering if there is any benefit or drawback to referencing different body parts in this way as well. Could I build and rig and texture the head by itself, and reference it in the scene which has the body, and have it work? Or is it better to have the entire character in one scene? I think I would rather work on the head in isolation to get the blend shapes correct without having the rest of the body in the scene. If I reference the head by itself will it mess up the blend shapes if i combine it with the body mesh? I know blend shapes in 3ds max (morph targets) would be ruined if you did anything to the mesh that changed its vertex count.
Replies
Just put all the head stuff in one layer, the arms in their own layers, the legs and what not. And just toggle its visibility off when you are not working on what is in a particular layer.