Quick and Easy Animation in Maya! Smart Layer Script Reveal
https://borovikmotion.gumroad.com/l/s...
Tutorials: • Smart Layer In-Depth Tutorial 01: Introduc...
Hi, my name is Slava and I'm a senior technical animator with a total experience in the game industry more than 11 years. Seeing the complexity of working with animation for games inspired me to create my own toolkit for animators, and I'm happy to present you Smart Layer - a tool where I put all my knowledge of working in game animation gathered over the years.
The tool partially repeats the adjustment blending technique, but at the same time introduces new innovative approaches, pushing it beyond its limits. With the transformation algorithm, you can easily rotate animations without the feet sliding, create wall walks, circle walks, and more. The spline from layer technique makes curved adjustment easier than ever before - no need to fight with curves or locators, you just put character in the animation layer exactly where you want, press one button, and it's done! Even huge motion capture takes can be adjusted in seconds!
Smart Layer is a script for Autodesk Maya that allows you to adjust animation in a very easy and quick way. Usually, we adjust animation with animation layers. But with this approach, each change results in a ton of routine work, controlling the poses, managing keys and timings to avoid issues like feet sliding, wobbliness, etc. Smart Layer eliminates these issues, and work that before could take hours to do - now can be done in seconds. That makes it perfect for tasks like mocap cleanup, game animation, cinematics/movies layouts.
Main applications:
proportionally "shift" the animation, and avoid feet sliding
proportionally rotate the animation, and avoid feet sliding
make animation follow a spline, proportionally, without feet sliding
create variations of the same animation, but with different poses (like the same character stop animation can end with 10 different idles)
create strafe animations from movement-forward
create animations for different directions, using only forward animation (character starts, attacks, abilities, etc.)
create movement-in-circle animations from movement-forward
adjust individual controls and keep the original animation flow
The script doesn't care about the rig type, would it be a biped or quadruped, or spider, or centipede, or any other custom creature, it works for everything.
How it works:
1) add animation controls to the animation layer
2) in layer, create keyframes with necessary adjustments, and run the script
3) the script will do the math, and create a new animation layer, where your adjustments will be applied in a "proportionate" way, preserving the original animation's flow, but with a new poses.
The script is in Beta, bugs and feature requests here:
https://trello.com/b/doArYTKr/smart-l...
Tested in Maya:
2020.4, 2022.5, 2023.3, 2024.2, 2025 (Windows 10);
2022.5, 2023.3, 2024.2, 2025 (Mac OS Monterey 12.4)
Tested on rigs: Advanced Skeleton, mGear, Azri, Pickle Rig*, HIK**, and others.
*Pickle Rig is a custom rig for Maya, made in a simple, "traditional" way, using regular transforms and standard components.
**HIK requires the "Run Simulation" option to be enabled, to process rotations correctly.
***When processing a large number of controls - use "Run Simulation" option (parallel evaluation works faster)
SCRIPT REQUIRES CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET
00:00 demo
02:00 linear offset
02:49 applying pose
04:30 side walk from walk forward
05:32 rotate animation
06:18 magic
07:12 rotating a stupid dance animation
08:26 adjustment by spline
09:04 directional attacks
10:53 movement in circle