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PREPARED CHARACTERS – Complete Rigs

These characters are ready for animation in Maya using the DMD Motion Library datasets.
Rigs are provided for both keyframe (IK) and motion-capture (MC) workflows. See below for Guidelines on Animating with these rigs.

Nathan Rig Simple, untextured, realistic male rig. Size: 5 MB, Textured: No, Fingers: No Download here: Nathan.zip

Alison Rig Realistic human female character. Size: 17 MB, Textured: Yes, Fingers: Yes, 5 Download here: Alison.zip

Heidi Rig Realistic human female character lab assistant rig. Size: 12 MB, Textured: Yes, Fingers: Yes, 5 Download here: Heidi.zip

Saber Rig Anime style female knight character from the Fate Stay Night series. Size: 11 MB, Textured: Yes, Fingers: Yes, 5 Download here: Saber.zip

Rin Rig Anime style female character from the Fate Stay Night series. Size: 11 MB, Textured: Yes, Fingers: Yes, 5 Download here: Rin.zip

XJ-9 Rig Sci-fi robot character rig. Size: 161 MB, Textured: Yes, Fingers: Yes, 3 Download here: XJ9.zip

GUIDELINES ON ANIMATING

We have develop a novel, efficient workflow for teaching animation in the undergraduate classroom. Each character above comes with an IK rig, MC rig, textures and photos. Use the IK rig for a more classical keyframe animation workflow.

Here are the steps for using Motion Capture (MC) rigs, which can usually be completed in less than 5 minutes:
Steps:
1. Download a prepared rig (.zip), from the list above. Get Started Quickly: Rin.zip
2. Download a motion target (.mb), from below. Get Started Quickly: DMD_Motion_Target.mb
3. Download motion data (.fbx), from the DMD Motion Library. Get Started Quickly: Sample motion, zdmdn_plie_arabesque.fbx
4. Download our backdrop if you want to add a basic environment. Get Started Quickly: Backdrop.mb
5. Open the mc_rig.mb file that comes with the rig in Maya. (do not drap-drop or import this file)
6. With the rig open, drag-drop the motion target.mb file into the Maya viewport.
7. Open the HIK panel (Windows -> Animation Editors -> HumanIK)
8. Select the Character: as the rig, e.g. Nathan. Set the Source: to the motion target.
9. Open the Time Editor (Windows -> Animation Editors -> Time Editor
10. With the time editor open, drag-drop the motion data.fbx into the Time Editor.
11. Animate! Press play and the character should perform the motion.
12. For a basic environment, drag-drop the backdrop.mb into the Viewport.
13. To get high quality rendering enable Arnold Render for GPU raytracing.

MOTION TARGETS

Motion Targets are used in conjunction with Rigs to animate characters with motion data. Each motion targets represents a particular motion capture hardware system, such as CMU’s Vicon system or DMD’s Noitom system. The motion target is a base skeleton for the given hardware.

DMD Motion Target	DMD_Motion_Target.mb
CMU Motion Target	CMU_Motion_Target.mb