How To Mirror An Animation In Maya 2016

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In this How-to, we utilise the Alive Link Plugin to connect Unreal Engine to Maya, which enables usa to control our Skeletal Mesh and animations inside Maya while live previewing them on a rendered Skeletal Mesh in Unreal Engine in real-fourth dimension.

Using the Live Link Plugin tin can speed up your animation workflow as you no longer demand to export your content and import it into Unreal Engine to see how information technology looks. You tin can at present work directly inside Maya, and through Live Link, preview what it will wait like inside the Engine in real-fourth dimension.  In this How-to, we go through the process of getting Live Link set up for Maya, and control a Skeletal Mesh animation in Maya while previewing information technology in Unreal Engine.

For this guide we are using the Blueprint Third Person Template Project and Maya 2017.

Live Link works with other versions of Maya and other DDC tools. For more than information, please refer to the Live Link Plugin documentation pages.

ane - Enabling the Live Link Plugin

1. Within your project, from the Card Bar under Edit, select Plugins.

   

2. Under the Animation section, click Enabled for Alive Link, and Yes on the confirmation window, then restart the Editor.

   

   This volition enable the Alive Link plugin, which tin be used to connect to external DDC tools. In order for your DDC tool to connect to Unreal Engine, you will need to enable the respective plugin. For this How-to, we are focusing on Maya, and need to enable the plugin inside Maya.

3. Download the MayaLiveLink Lawmaking Plugin files from the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

   

   Unless you've tweaked your install locations, these files volition likely be installed to: C:\Program Files\Ballsy Games\UE_4.25\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace\MayaLiveLink.

4. Copy the folder for your version of Maya, then navigation to your Maya installation folder, and paste it in the plug-ins folder.

   

   There are pre-built binaries for Maya versions 2016-2019, for this guide nosotros are using Maya 2017.

In the next stride, we volition enable the Live Link plugin inside of Maya, and open the Maya Alive Link UI window. This enables you to see the connexion status to a running version of the Unreal Engine Editor.

2 - Enabling Maya Live Link

1. Open Maya, then under Windows and Settings/Preferences, select Plug-in Director.

   

2. Click the Browse button, and then navigate to the copied MayaLiveLink folder, then add the .mll file.

   

3. Repeat the previous step and add the .py file from the Plug-in Manager.

   

   Once added, yous will run into the plugins within the Plug-in Manager as Loaded.

4. In the MEL console in the lower-left of Maya, enter MayaLiveLinkUI then printing Enter.

   

   The MEL console command is case-sensitive, and then you will demand to enter information technology every bit specified in the stride above.

   This will open the Maya Live Link UI Connexion Condition window.

   

   In the upper-right of the window, the connexion status is displayed to betoken if you are continued to a running version of the Unreal Engine Editor. You lot tin use the lower window to name and add/remove Subjects that you wish to stream to Unreal Engine, which we volition practise subsequently in this guide.

For at present, we are not connected, however in the side by side stride we will constitute a connection to Unreal Engine. We volition too export an animation asset and Skeletal Mesh that nosotros can employ to work with in Maya, then add it equally a Subject to stream back to Unreal Engine for live previewing.

3 - Establishing a Connection to Unreal Engine

1. In Maya, select an object (i.eastward. a cube, sphere, etc.) and select "Add Option in Maya Live Link UI." This will help UE recognize the newly enabled plug in.

2. Within the Unreal Engine Editor, from the Menu Bar under Window, select Live Link.

   

3. In the Live Link window, click the Source button, then under Bulletin Charabanc Source, select your Maya Live Link source and click Ok.

   

   If y'all return to Maya, the Maya Live Link Connectedness Status window will update to reflect the new connection status.

   

   Now that nosotros are continued, we need a Subject field to preview and test the connection.

4. Within Unreal Engine, in the Content/Mannequin/Animations folder, open the ThirdPersonRun asset.

5. From the Toolbar, click Export Asset and select Preview Mesh.

   

6. Select Yes to consign the Skeletal Mesh, enable Export Preview Mesh, choose an export location, then select Consign at the FBX Consign Options window.

   

7. Inside Maya, under File select Import, and import the FBX asset from the previous step.

   

8. Switch to Animation mode, and and so select the Root bone for the character.

   

9. In the Maya Live Link UI window, click the Add Selecton button.

   

   This volition add the selection (or selections) equally the Field of study to stream to Unreal Engine.

   

   The plugin knows that this is a joint hierarchy and labels the Subject field as a Character. The name Root is the proper noun of the Subject area which y'all tin can alter in the text entry box. This proper noun will be the Subject proper noun reflected inside Unreal Engine. By default, the Stream Type will be ready based on the type data beingness streamed. You lot tin change this to stream over the information you lot want inside the Stream Type setting.

If you have more than one Network Adapater in your machine and want to specify which i to recieve data from, you will demand to specify the Unicast Endpoint in your Project Settings.

Maya is at present set up to stream our Subject to the Unreal Engine Editor. In the adjacent pace, we volition fix Unreal Engine to receive the streamed Bailiwick then that we can start to live preview the content from Maya inside Unreal Engine.

4 - Live Link Preview Controller

1. Within Unreal Engine, nether the Content/Mannequin/Character/Mesh folder, open the SK_Mannequin nugget.

2. Click the Preview Scene Settings tab, and and so under Preview Controller, select Live Link Preview Controller.

   

3. Nether Alive Link Subject Name, click the driblet-downwards menu, and select root.

   

   The viewport will update and the character will enter the pose that the character is using inside Maya.

4. Enable the Enable Camera Sync choice.

   

   This will sync Unreal Engine's camera to the terminal viewport camera used inside Maya. Anytime yous move the camera in Maya, Unreal Engine's photographic camera volition update to match.

5. Get to your Editor Preferences, and under Performance, disable the Use Less CPU when in Background option.

   

   This selection throttles background performance on the Editor and stops the Editor from rendering while Maya has focus, which will preclude us from seeing the updates in real fourth dimension.

   If you want the Editor to proceed evaluating while you lot are idle, you can also adjust the Valid Engine Time in the Alive Link Connection window to give you more than fourth dimension before the Editor stops evaluating.

6. Render to Maya and scrub the blitheness, or motion the camera in the viewport.

For this example, nosotros are using the Live Link Preview Controller, nonetheless yous can also stream data through the Live Link Component attached to an Actor.

five - End Result

Equally you lot scrub the animation in Maya or move the camera, the character and camera movement in Unreal Engine will update to lucifer what you lot see in Maya. A typical workflow would exist to writer your content in Maya, export the Skeletal Mesh and import information technology into Unreal Engine, follow the connectedness setup steps outlined in this guide to found a connection, then preview animations authored in Maya on the Alive Link Field of study in Unreal Engine.

You tin also make changes to your animations and those will be reflected in existent-time inside Unreal Engine on the Alive Link Subject.

Higher up, we re-cardinal the position of the caput so the character is looking around while running, and see what information technology would look like within Unreal Engine. While this is a simplistic case of how to utilize the Alive Link Plugin, in that location are many more than advantages to this feature which you can discover on the Alive Link Plugin documentation folio.

If yous are using the Maya Alive Link Plugin prior to 4.23, when driving a photographic camera through Blueprint, it may not have the correct transform. You can fix this by adding an Add Relative Rotation node set to 0, 180, 90 every bit indicated below.

Source: https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/live-link-stream-maya-to-unreal-engine

Posted by: keeleycopichatte59.blogspot.com

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