Animation Rig Preparation

Our sim rig works by connecting the animation cache. We have created new geometry which only exists in our rig. We need this geometry to be present in the animation cache. The way I approach this is too add it directly to the animation rig.

The geometry you add to the animation rig shouldn’t in anyway interfere with the stability of the rig. Placing a group under the main group works well, out of sight, out of mind. The idea to have this new cfx geo exactly follow the shorts from the animation performance, selecting the same bind joints and transferring skin weight information will help you.

This new passive group also contains a locator. This is constrained to show the position in the world where the animation begins. This can either be constrained to the main global or the hips. Some experimentation is needed as some animators may use different controls to position the animation. I created a couple of sets, one for the animation geometry and the other for the cfx objects. An additional suffix of _CFX helps differentiate from the animation exports.

The name of the locator can be anything you want, I make mine cfx_cntRoot_LOC.