Houdini 22.0 Nodes Geometry nodes

APEX Animation from Skeleton geometry node

Adds animation from a source skeleton to an animation scene.

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Since 21.0

This node takes the animation on a source skeleton and calculates the animation parameters for a target skeleton in an animation scene. It outputs the input scene with the new animation as well as the updated skeleton and skin geometry. See animation workflow for examples of how to use this node.

Parameters

Character

Rig Path

The path to the rig whose animation to update.

Skeleton Path

The path to the skeleton geometry whose animation to update.

Bind Pose

The method of binding the skeleton joints to their corresponding control TransformObject nodes.

Rig Default Values

Uses the rig default values to compute the binding transforms for all the TransformObject nodes on the rig.

Active Clip

Uses the active clip from the animation scene. This allows you to have a different binding pose for IK pole vector controls that don’t match the exact location of the mapped skeleton joints.

Mapping Property

When Map Using is set to Mapping Property, this uses the mapping_xform property if it is present on the control’s TransformObject node. The mapping_xform property can be created by the APEX Map Character SOP.

Mapping

Map Using

The method used to map the rig controls to the skeleton joints.

Mapping Property

Maps based on the Mapping Property Name.

Match by Name

Matches controls and joints with the same name.

Match by Xform

Matches controls and joints based on proximity. The Tolerance determines how close the control and joint need to be for them to be considered for mapping.

Note

All the mapped controls are keyed in the output animation.

Mapping Property Name

When Map Using is set to Mapping Property, this is the name of the mapping property that maps joints on the skeleton to its driven controls. This property is stored in the properties dictionary on the controls (TransformObject nodes), and can be created by the APEX Map Character SOP.

Tolerance

When Map Using is set to Match by Xform, only control-joint pairs with a distance less than this value are considered for mapping.

Frame

Frame Range Mode

The method used to define the frame range.

Frame Range

Use the Frame Range values.

Current Frame

Use the current frame. This adds a time dependency to the node and playback will become slow. Use this mode to preview the result when changing values on upstream nodes.

Clip Info

Use the frame range stored on the clipinfo detail attribute from the input Source Skeleton.

Frame Range

When Frame Range Mode is set to Frame Range, this is the range of input frames to evaluate.

Frame Pattern

The set of frames to set keys on in the output animation. Use Houdini’s group syntax to specify the set of frames. For example, 1-100:2 ^10-20 sets keys on every other frame from frames 1 to 100 except between frames 10 and 20.

Animation Clip

Clip Name

The name to give the animation clip containing the new channel primitives. A .clip extension is added to the name if it’s not already included.

Layer Name

When turned on, stores the animation on a new animation layer with the specified name. When turned off, stores the animation on the base layer.

Controls

An APEX path pattern that specifies the rig’s controls whose channels to update (the rig is specified in Rig Path). This limits the channels that are added to the animation clip from the input geometry.

Replace Existing Animation

When turned on, the new channels replace the existing animation clip. When turned off, the existing channels are kept unless they are overridden by a new channel.

Guide

Show Controls Guide

When turned on, shows the controls for the target Rig Path in the viewport. The controls are not interactive and are only used for visualization.

Inputs

Scene

The animation scene.

Source Skeleton

The source skeleton with the animation.

Outputs

Scene

The animation scene with the updated animation.

Output Skeleton

The skeleton with the updated animation.

See also

Geometry nodes