Verge3D for Maya: Animation — Soft8Soft
Description: Find out how to create and control animation in Verge3D for Maya. Whole-object, skeletal, blend shapes and procedural animation types explained.

# Animation / Maya

This page contains the information about Maya's animation types which can be used with Verge3D, as well as supported playback options and means to control the animation interactively.

- Setting Up in Maya
  - Whole-Object Animation
  - Skeletal Animation
  - Blend Shape Animation
  - Material Animation
  - Procedural Animation
- Playback Options
  - Verge3D Global Animation Settings
  - Verge3D Per-Object Animation Settings
  - Frame Rate
- Animation Control with Puzzles

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## Setting Up in Maya

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### Whole-Object Animation

Animation keyframes can be added in standard way in Maya, by using the Key → Set Key menu in the Animation mode set or pressing S on the keyboard.

For performance reasons we recommend setting keys separately, only for channels which are required to be animated, e.g:

- Translate: using Key → Set Key on Translate menu or Shift-W hotkey.
- Rotate: using Key → Set Key on Rotate menu or Shift-E hotkey.
- Scale: using Key → Set Key on Scale menu or Shift-R hotkey.

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### Skeletal Animation

An object can be animated in Verge3D by using Maya's skeletons. Verge3D support maximum 4 weights per joint (4 most influential weights are selected, others are ignored).

Skeletons can be animated directly by setting transformation keys on joints or by utilizing auxiliary controllers such as IK handles/effectors. To animate bones indirectly, enable Skeleton Root and Custom Frame Range property on their common parent object and set proper From/To as frame values. See below for more info.

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### Blend Shape Animation

You can add blend shapes to an object in standard ways in Maya and then animate their weights using keyframes.

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### Material Animation

To use keyframed material animation, simply set key on any material parameter.

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### Procedural Animation

Instead of playing back some animation which was pre-made in Maya, you can use Puzzles or JavaScript to modify coordinates or some other parameters with time. Particularly, the animate param puzzle (based on the Tween.js library) is a convenient way to create your own animation on the fly.

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## Playback Options

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### Verge3D Global Animation Settings

By using the Animation section of Verge3D Export Settings you can assign global animation parameters which will affect all animatable objects in your scene.

Export Animations
  export scene animations to be used in Verge3D.
Export Within Playback Range
  by default Verge3D exporter honors per-object animation keyframe ranges. Enabling this option will force exporter to honor global playback range.
Keyframes Start with 0
  edit exported animation keyframes so they always start with frame 0.

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### Verge3D Per-Object Animation Settings

Each object in Maya is assigned with Verge3D-specific settings, including the settings for animation playback.

Animation settings:

Auto Start
  Whether this object's animation will start after the scene is loaded.
Loop Mode
  Playback mode: Repeat - plays from the start to the end and repeats, Once - plays one time and stops, Ping Pong - plays from the start to the end and then in reverse.
Repeat Infinitely
  Whether this object's animation will be played all over again. Valid only for Repeat and Ping Pong modes.
Repeat Count
  How many times the animation will be played. Valid only for Repeat and Ping Pong modes if Repeat Infinitely is disabled.
Offset
  How many frames will be skipped before the animation starts.
Custom Frame Range
  Enable and specify From/To values to override object's keyframe ranges or global animation timeline. Activating this property will force an object to be animated even if it does not have any keyframes. This is useful to bake indirect animation such as IK handles/effectors affecting joints movements.
Skeleton Root
  Consider object a skeleton root, e.g make all child bones inherit animation parameters from that object.

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### Frame Rate

The frame rate value (default - 24 fps) which affect the playback speed can be changed using the Playback options panel, located next to the Range Slider.

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## Animation Control with Puzzles

You can use animation puzzles for playing back a pre-made animation (click on the link for more details).

Animation can also be implemented with other visual scripting blocks - see Camera and Time puzzles.

## Got Questions?

Feel free to ask on the forums!