I'm trying to test out Houdini for some animation blending and the like. Currently, I have a rigged character in an FBX, and then a couple of animations bound to the skeleton in separate FBXs.

The character imports successfully, awesome! Then it seems that trying to import the animations, import entirely separate skeletons with the animations on it.

Ok, I figure that's fine, I'll try to create a some anim clips to transfer the animations into Animation Layers. But I seem to have to select the Parameters, or get them into a Channel Group. Create Nested Channel Groups doesn't work since the skeleton comes from separate FBX files and doesn't have the proper exposed parameters. And there doesn't seem to be another way to particularly simply select the parameters with keys on them.

Am I approaching this the correct way? Is there any good way to select the channels I have data on?

Thanks,
Indy

I was just watching guillaume fradin's videos [vimeo.com] on BVH import. In his video he separates the skeleton from the animation. This allows you to swap animations by choosing alternate CHOP Networks via a Switch node.

He is dealing with mocap data via BVH but perhaps there is something in the video to help you with your FBX workflow.

Don't all the FBX channels already import into a CHOP node? I haven't tried this in a while now. You can also right-click on the object subnet and open the Scope Channels dialog to scope all the descendent animated channels. Then you can create a channel group out of them.

Thanks Enivob, those videos have been super interesting even if not helping my exact problem.

edward, It doesn't seem that FBX channels import into a CHOP, however the Scope Channels dialog seems to be useful!