Use the APEX Rig Pose SOP to pose the driven controls and store the poses as an animation clip:

1. On the Electra test geometry, set Output to APEX Character. This outputs Electra as a character in a character folder structure that’s comprised of a set of character elements (skeleton, shape, rig). You can view the character folder structure in the rig tree view:

   /
   -- Base.rig
   -- Base.shp
   -- Base.skel
   ...
   

   The character that is piped into the APEX Rig Pose SOP must have a rig.

2. On the APEX Rig Pose SOP:

   • Set Source Type to APEX Character.

   • Set Rig and Skeleton to Electra’s rig and skeleton in the character folder structure, in our example, /Base.rig and /Base.skel.

3. Enter the animate state - select the APEX Rig Pose SOP, turn on its display flag, and click Animate on the left toolbar or press Enter over the viewport.

4. Add poses on a new animation layer. Each layer becomes an animation clip that can be driven/played back by the set driven keys rig component. You can add animation layers through the APEX Rig Pose SOP parameter editor or in the standalone animation layers pane (at the top of a pane, click the New Tab icon and select New Pane Tab Type ▸ Animation ▸ APEX Animation Layers).

   IMPORTANT

   Poses must be added to an animation layer for the set driven keys component to play back the animation. Poses added on the base layer cannot be driven by the set driven keys component.

   Pose the character’s controls and set keyframes at the two ends of the animation frame range.

   • Set a key at the start frame of the animation. This is the pose at the driver’s minimum value.

   • Set a key at the end frame of the animation. This is the pose at the driver’s maximum value.

   • You can key additional in-between frames to shape how the pose interpolates across the driver’s range.

   The animation layer name and start/end frames are used by the set driven keys component to read back the animation clips authored on the APEX Rig Pose SOP.

   Note

   To have access to controls in the animate state, the controls need to be promoted. If a control (or a transform component of the control) isn’t already available in the animate state, specify the TransformObject nodes to promote in the APEX Rig Pose SOP’s Translate, Rotate, and Scale parameters. For example, to be able to translate Electra’s head control, select the head control in the viewport and click beside the Translate parameter.

   In this example, we create animation on two animation layers, dance and head:

   A new folder for each animation layer is created in the character folder structure under /riganimation/default.clip. We can see the following in the rig tree view:

   /
   -- Base.rig
   -- Base.shp
   -- Base.skel
   ...
   -- riganimation/
       -- default.clip/
           dance/
           head/
   

   The poses you author in the APEX Rig Pose SOP are not applied to the character - the APEX Rig Pose SOP simply stores them as channel primitives in the character for the set driven keys component to use later.

The set driven keys rig component reads the animation clips created by the APEX Rig Pose SOP and connects them to driver controls:

1. On the APEX AutoRig Component SOP, set Component Source to Set Driven Keys.

2. Enter the animate state on the APEX AutoRig Component SOP - select the APEX AutoRig Component SOP, turn on its display flag, and click Animate on the left toolbar or press Enter over the viewport.

3. Add a Setups multiparm entry for each animation clip you want to drive. Click for add multiple setups. In our example, we create two Setups, one for the dance animation and another for the head rotation animation.

4. For the dance animation multiparm entry, set the following in the Settings tab:

   • Set Animation Layer to the animation layer created in the APEX Rig Pose SOP that contains the dance animation, dance.

   • Set Start Frame and End Frame to the animation start and end frames. In our example, the dance animation goes from frames 1 to 24, so we set Start Frame to 1 and End Frame to 24.

   • Turn on T, R, and S to specify the channels that are animated (translate, rotate, scale).

   • Set Clip Path to the .clip in the character folder structure that contains the dance animation, in our example, riganimation/default.clip/.

5. In the Driven tab, set Nodes to the TransformObject nodes to drive. This field accepts APEX path patterns, so you can specify the tags on the node, for example, #<tag>. In our example, we can leave Nodes at the default of “*”.

6. We want the left foot to drive the animation. In the Driver tab:

   • Set the Driver parameter to the control that drives the animation - click beside Driver, select the left foot control in the viewport, and press Enter over the viewport. The Driver parameter is automatically populated with the control name.

   • Specify the specific channel that drives the animation by appending the channel to the driver’s name with a colon. In our example, we want the vertical position of the left foot to drive the dance animation, so we set Driver to L_footAnkle_ik:ty.

     Note

     If the Driver parameter is not set to an existing control and channel, the set driven keys component creates a slider in the component’s menu that drives the animation:

     • If you don’t append a channel to the control name, a slider set to the name of the Driver is created in the component’s menu. For example, if you set Driver to L_footAnkle_ik, a slider named L_footAnkle_ik is created in the component’s menu. In this case, the left foot control doesn’t actually drive the animation; a slider named L_footAnkle_ik drives the animation.

     • If you set Driver to a control name that doesn’t already exist, a slider with the specified name is created in the component’s menu.

     • If you leave Driver empty, a slider with the Animation Layer name is created in the component’s menu.

   • Set Fit Min and Fit Max to the driver values that map to the Start Frame and End Frame of the clip. We set Fit Min to 0 and Fit Max to 0.25.

7. If you haven’t added a multiparm entry for the head rotation animation, click beside Setups.

8. For the head rotation animation multiparm entry, set the following in the Settings tab:

   • Set Animation Layer to head.

   • In our example, the head rotation animation goes from frames 1 to 24, so we set Start Frame to 1 and End Frame to 24.

9. We want to drive the head animation with the left hand rotation, so in the Driver tab:

   • Set Driver to the rotation channel of the left hand control, L_armTarget_ik:rx.

   • Set Fit Min to 0 and Fit Max to -180.

     Note

     If multiple animation layers drive the same control, the layer listed lower down in the set driven keys component takes precedence. In this example, the head rotation animation overrides the head poses from the dancing animation because the head animation layer is listed lower in the Setups multiparm.

10. To test the set driven keys functionality:

    • Enter the animate state on the APEX AutoRig Component SOP.

    • Select the driver control (or open the menu to access the slider) and change its value. As the driver moves between Fit Min and Fit Max, the driven nodes play back the poses authored in the APEX Rig Pose SOP.