8

Working with Euler Cur ves on Biped Animation 863
Extreme tangents on a Euler rotation curve
Using Euler animations with Layer s,
Motion M ixer, and Motion Flow
Both Euler tangents and quaternion TCB data
are stored in each keyf r ame. Therefore, even
if y ou are using the Euler XYZ con troller, you
can st il l change the profile of your cur ves using
quaternion/TCB control values (on the
Key Info
rollout (page 2–809)
).
If you add a new layer to an Euler cont rolled
biped part, that layer is converted into quaternion
untilitiscollapsedbackwiththeoriginallayer.
On collapse, the cu rve changes back into Euler
following the same conversion rules stated earlier.
When clips containing Euler animations are
brought into the Motion Mixer, Euler tangents
are preserved in the blending process. However,
once they are mixed together in a
mixdow n
(page 3–1067)
, the resulting animation becomes
quaternion.
Tip: When creating a mixdown, you can preserve
your Euler tangents by turning on A Keyf rame
Per Frame in the
Mixer Preferences dialog (page
2–601)
.
MotionFlowfollowsthesamerulesastheMotion
Mixer. I f clips brought into Motion Flow contain
Euleranimations,theirtangentsarepreserved.
However, creating an unified motion results in a
quaternion animation.
Tip: Euler tangents c an be preserved w hen creating
a unified motion by tur n ing on A Keyframe Per
Frame in the Unify Options dialog (by clicking
CreateUnifiedMotioninthe
Motion Flow Scripts
Group (page 2–900)
).
Tur n on A Keyframe Per Frame to preser ve Euler tangents.
Copy-Pa sting Data between Euler and
Quaterni on Cu r v es
When you copy a track and paste it onto another,
itstype(Eulerorquaternion)ispastedaswell.
This sometimes results in animations switching
from quaternion to E uler and vice-versa.
Euler tangents of copied poses or postures are
never copied. If you copy an Euler track and paste
it onto any type of track with Auto Key turned on,
the current TCB or tangent values (depending
on the type of track onto which you pasting) are
ignored and instead set to Default .
Following the same rule, pasting a pose or posture
on a Euler tr ack with Auto Key turned on doesn’t
tra nsfer the TCB values of the copied track. If a
new key is created before pasting the track, the
resulting tangent is set to Default.