MAYA user with anim questions about XSI

[freakmoomin]

Hi

The company im currently working for is swapping over from LW to XSI in the coming weeks. However im a MAYA user and have recently downloaded the 30 day XSI trial to have a look before the switch.

These are just little things to most people but being an Animator i dont use many tools and use the basic stuff ALL the time and am just hoping somebody can help to keep my MAYA workflow.

ok these are a little hard to explain but here goes (im using MAYA qwerty mode):


1. Graph/Animation editor

When i select a key to manipulate, i cant just go and pull around the incoming/outgoing handles for it, i need to select the key then select the handle, then if i want to manipulate the other handle i need to select that first and then move. I know this seems like a tiny issue but its 3 clicks of a mouse instead of one.......also i dont have this problem in normal XSI mode, only in QWERTY......

another thing that is a little annoying is the inability to deselect things, if i have a key selected, the only way to deselect it is to select another key? i cant just select empty space to deselect it? is this normal?


2. channel box/keying panel

I use the channel box in maya all the time and was glad to see XSI had an equivelent, but it doesnt seem to be as good.

My main issue is that in MAYA i can select a channel in the channel box (lets say finger curl), and i can middle click anywhere in a view/perspective window and slide the "invisible" slider to see real time results of the finger curl.

In XSI if i try to do the same thing for one i cant use the "invisable" slider feature, i need to actually middle click on the input box (which is extremely fiddely). but to make matters worse is that i dont get any real time feed back? the rig doesnt update untill i let the slider go in the channel box, so in effect i need to guess how much to slide.....


Again i know to most people these things prob seem trivial, but its the features i use a thousand times a day, so any feedback would be welcomed.


Thanks

Kevin

[SebasProulx]

If you want to move handles on unselected key, go in "View" (in the animation editor) and toggle on "slopes on unselected keys" (handle are called slope in XSI) . This way ,you only have to select the f-curve, and then, you will be able to move the handles.

They only other way to unselect keys would be to use "ctrl" (to toggle) or "shift+ctrl" ( to toggle off ) . I'm affraid you can't select an empty space to unselect.

For you other question, I don't think there is any invisible slider feauture. For the update probleme, I think if you just use the left mouse button, it should work well.

I hope I helped you, good luck!

[thiago]

backspace in curve editor will activate the "select curve tool"
Select a few curves, press "M" and you'll be able to move keys around without the need to select it first. (It's exactly the same shortcut for tweak mode in the viewport, and the interaction is pretty similar)

Still on this mode, LMB is a free move, MMB is translate vertically, RMB is horizontally.

If you are seeing slopes (see the previous post), the "M" will let you manipulate it too without any selection.

there are some preferences and improvements... take a look on this article http://www.xsi-blog.com/archives/178

[scaron]

i would say try using the xsi default interaction model... since you wont be going back and forth anyways.

in the keying panel, in both xsi and qwerty modes... you LEFT mouse press and hold in the middle of the slider. then move left or right. if you LEFT mouse press and hold while moving up and down you get multi edit marching ant thingy ma bobber

for the fcurve editor others have pointed it out already but i would just say check the preferences and tweak them till you like it.

[thiago]

Hi


My main issue is that in MAYA i can select a channel in the channel box (lets say finger curl), and i can middle click anywhere in a view/perspective window and slide the "invisible" slider to see real time results of the finger curl.



in XSI you select the parameter you want in the channel box, press F4 and middle click anywhere. *edit. It works with the mouse over the explorer too... so if you want you can have the explorer as a parameter/interaction as well.

exactly the same virtual slider in maya

[thiago]

Hi

another thing that is a little annoying is the inability to deselect things, if i have a key selected, the only way to deselect it is to select another key? i cant just select empty space to deselect it? is this normal?

Kevin

go to file>keyboard mapping select the group "FCurve Editor" then find the "Deselect All Keys" command. Assign a shortcut to it.
Now you can deselect keys at keypress, at least. :)

[freakmoomin]

Hey guys

Thanks for the replies, my questions have been answered :-)

XSI seems like a decent package all in all (from an Animation viewpoint), i can do pretty much everything that i can do with maya but the thing that concerns me is that there always seems to be an extra button to push in order to do it (having to press "m" to toggle between slopes and keys, having a hot key to deselect and having to press F4 to activate virtual sliders).

Dont get me wrong its a thousand times better than LW :-) but it does remind me a little of it, as in there always seems to be another menu or another window to do every function. Maya just seems a little more compact as in everything is always a rightclick away or very easy to access.

I would be wrong to want it to be exactly like another package and ill just need to get used to the little quirks i suppose, and also using it more than a couple of days will prob help :-)

but thanks again for your help

Kev

[Nightwalker]

Switching is always a bit dificult, my advice would be to instead of trying to reproduce your worlkflow exactly, spend some time understanding how xsi works, you'l see it makes sense and it's fast.

And as you are an animator try Thiago's tool:

http://community.softimage.com/showthread.php?t=249&page=6

;)

[thiago]

Hey guys
having to press "m" to toggle between slopes and keys, having a hot key to deselect and having to press F4 to activate virtual sliders


You don't need to press "m" to toggle between anything. "M" is just a a free move tool, you don't really select because this tool is just to move things around.
I use Maya too and the exactly same behavior is just the "select" as it is in maya.
You select the key, middle click holding shift will determinate the direction.

About the virtual slider... XSI hasn't it as default because the functionality is that every button of your mouse is one axis. So instead of mark parameters and drag a virtual slider, you can activate "move" or "rotate" and have all the tree axis on your mouse...
I agree that a good feature request would be "auto activate virtual sliders after mark parameters".
But well each software has it own workflow.. I would love Maya to have "middle click" in menus too... :P

But anyway, I'm sure you can work almost in the same way... with some little differences here and there... but as soon as you are more comfortable with XSI you'll get used to it.
If not just post here and we'll try to help ya :)

cheers

[scaron]

if your in the keying panel and want to slide just one parameter, just left click mouse click the value and drag. no f4 needs to be pressed if you operating on 1 parameter. see right there in that green circle

ps if you hold your control, ctrl alt and shift keys while doing so you get different increments

[freakmoomin]

Hi Again

Ive been having a look at the animation layering features (very very cool)......

The only prob i have is after i have a couple of animation layers and i try and merge them, XSI seems to add lots of redundant keys in?

With an animation of 3 keys in one layer and 3 keys in another layer (both on the same frames) after i merge them it seems to have 12 keys.......

anybody know how i can stop it adding in more keys?

Thanks again :-)

Kev

[DAVID:-D]

Hi Again

Ive been having a look at the animation layering features (very very cool)......

The only prob i have is after i have a couple of animation layers and i try and merge them, XSI seems to add lots of redundant keys in?

With an animation of 3 keys in one layer and 3 keys in another layer (both on the same frames) after i merge them it seems to have 12 keys.......

anybody know how i can stop it adding in more keys?

Thanks again :-)

Kev

U cant. The reason why it makes more keyframes is to keep animation curves same, what cant perhaps be possible just with those existing original keys.

I made the test with linear interpolation, and it did keep same number of keyframes after merge.

[thiago]

I would like to know too...
In fact I just noticed that after a while working with layers because I was always working with layers on mocap data, so I didn't notice the number of keys :P

What you can do is fit the curve after merge. Select the curve in the animation editor after merge layers and hit Curves>Fit.
it will ressample the fcurve taking it redundant keys. You have options for that on curve>curve processing options.

You don't really need to merge layers if you are using the mixer together.
open the mixer (alt+0) and you'll see that layers are in fact clips in the mixer. So you can still work with that as a clip... Animating the layer weight for example.

[freakmoomin]

Hey

Yeah well i dont really need to merge the clips i suppose, i can just keep them seperate....

The simple test i done really shouldnt have made any extra keys? I only had translation on one layer and rotation on another so i wasnt even merging onto the same channels and it still created keys all over the place.......

ANYWAY on to todays questions :-)

Selecting things is basically annoying me... if i have two items i want to select close to each other i basically have to change from the translate/misc tools to the select tool to allow me to select it......it seems to be making a no go area the whole size of the tool and i cant select things even although they are no where near the arrows of the tool....(again i know this is petty stuff but it really distupts the workflow)


Another question about the Animation editor aswell. Im having trouble snapping to whole frames when moving keys? the only way i can seem to do this is to start the middle click EXACTLY on a whole number and then drag.......The keys are snapping but more often than not they start snapping onto fractions of the numbers? This is driving me nuts as ive defo selected the snapping option and also set the time to 1.

Any help would be apprecitated

Thanks again

Kev

[thiago]

seems that merge layers want to "plot" the entire fCurve... it wasn't a problem with mocap but sure it is with keyframe animation. Anyway, don't merge it for now :P ha!


Selecting things is basically annoying me... if i have two items i want to select close to each other i basically have to change from the translate/misc tools to the select tool to allow me to select it......it seems to be making a no go area the whole size of the tool and i cant select things even although they are no where near the arrows of the tool....(again i know this is petty stuff but it really distupts the workflow)

What you want is that the "click outside manipulator" work as a selection tool. So in the MCP you go Transform>transform preferences>tool then Click Outside Manipulator you change for "select tool"


Another question about the Animation editor aswell. Im having trouble snapping to whole frames when moving keys? the only way i can seem to do this is to start the middle click EXACTLY on a whole number and then drag.......The keys are snapping but more often than not they start snapping onto fractions of the numbers? This is driving me nuts as ive defo selected the snapping option and also set the time to 1.

you want "snap to keyframes", so in the animation editor or in the dope sheet, you click "Edit>auto snap to keyframes (discrete time)"
In the Animation editor you can also turn on other snaping options like "snap to slopes" or "snap to grid".

[freakmoomin]

Thanks a lot man

Still cant get the selections to work the way i want, but the snapping onto frames works a treat :-)

I really hope XSI adds some options for the way it works with selections and deselections (in the animation editor especially), only my opinion but the Maya graph editor is just a lot nicer to use.

Its really weird, but XSI feels like the bastard child of MAYA and LW :-) sometimes its like MAYA and sometimes it reminds me of LW :-)

Cheers again

Kev

[scaron]

except its not... because its blood is from softimage|3d :)

[thiago]

Still cant get the selections to work the way i want
For me it works as maya works, doesn't it?
the spacebar in the animation editor will cycle between "curve selection" and "selection".
If you are in selection, just select points and drag with MMB to move keys, hold shift will constraint to X or Y... this is all like Maya works.


Its really weird, but XSI feels like the bastard child of MAYA and LW :-) sometimes its like MAYA and sometimes it reminds me of LW :-)


lol in fact it doesn't