One trick you can try is to set keyframes at time = 0 and value = 0 on the constrained node rotations while your animated character is in rest pose, assuming you can find a version where it starts there. The kinematics stack in XSI will try to zero out the controls to their keyframes first, then apply the constraints. It can serve as a handy fix for times when the rigger forgot to lock down tangents.
Meanwhile, I disagree about turning on XSI's up vectors by default. There are far too many situations when y isn't going to be up at the moment a constraint is set. You just need to find rigging talent that's a bit more anal retentive about locking proper axes.
On a side note, most evolved pipelines I've seen use some sort of caching mechanism to move data from animation to rendering, and for many excellent reasons. The animator checks the cached performance before forwarding it to the lighting department, so the performance should be locked.
Even better than caching your node SRT performances would be to shape cache the geometry performances into action clips. Your lighting scenes would be much lighter in terms of node count without the pesky rig getting in the way. The best part is that if the animator makes changes, he simply passes you the new Mixer with cached shapes in place. You get to keep your existing lighting override setup in place.
-Brad
> -------Original Message-------
> Plotting is a great idea and I wish it were that simple. If only there
> were some way for me to tell every animator on the planet how and when
> to use that beautiful little plot button, my duties as a rendering TD
> would be much easier.
>
> Again, I realize I could programatically plot everything in the scene
> before I hit the render button, but I'll still have plotted animation
> that's different from what the animator thought they were sending me.
> Thanks for the suggestion, though, Carl.
>
> -Andy
>
> Carl Callewaert wrote:
>
> > plot it :-) now you are sure it will not change its animation
> >
> > carl
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Jones" <andy(at)thefront.com>
> > To: <xsi(at)Softimage.COM>
> > Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 10:25 PM
> > Subject: Idea for constraints
> >
> >
> >> Has anyone else ever gotten a scene that uses a direction constraint
> >> or a path constraint that doesn't have the up vector activated? Then
> >> you try to render passes, and the animation is different every time?
> >> It's really annoying because you don't know there's a problem until
> >> you actually try to render. This has nailed me on several occasions,
> >> one time with a 20-pass 1000 frame shot with final gathering. The
> >> idea I have is that direction constraints and path constraints should
> >> have the up vector constraint active by default. That way, the worst
> >> case scenario is that the animator thinks the animation looks weird
> >> and realizes he/she has to change the up vector settings. Right now
> >> the worst case scenario is that I get a scene that I think has been
> >> properly animated, and some hidded constraint somewhere is
> >> non-deterministic and costs me a buttload of render time. I know
> >> there are a million ways to deal with this problem via scripting or
> >> whatever, so I don't get screwed again, but is there any compelling
> >> reason not to activate the up vectors by default?
> >>
> >> Also, I think scaling should be disabled by default on the pose
> >> constraint. Just because that's how I use it 98% of the time.
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >> -Andy
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