Resetting Your Actor

Once your character is rigged and parented together underneath a null object that is a child of a model node, you can set a reference pose for the skeleton and rig by selecting the null as a branch and clicking Skeleton > Store Skeleton Pose. XSI will store an animation source in your models mixer folder. The source will consider the lengths of bones, the preferred axis as well as the transformations of all objects within the hierarchy. Control Objects Transformations will also be included in this reference pose. They will be keyed according to their own local transformation.

You can rename your source in an explorer so it is easy to pick out amidst other sources, or you can name the source upon first creating the skeleton pose. I tend to build various reference poses for my characters, most generally an entire body ref pose, as well as arm reference poses, or hand reference poses. Sometimes when animating, the hand will garble when I've got a really nice performance going for the rest of the body, and I only want to reset the hands. Having a hands only reset can be a great timesaver. To store a local reference pose for your hands, you would select your hands skeleton hierarchy from the root of the wrist, and apply the same Skeleton>store skeleton pose as you did for the entire body.

Once your sources are built and stored, you can reset that particular area or pose of your character by selecting the mixer animation source file in your explorer and then clicking Skeleton> Apply Skeleton Pose.

You can speed up this reset process by turning the sequence of commands into a button on your own custom toolbar.

Open an existing toolbar, or create your own by clicking view>custom toolbars>new toolbar. Open the scripting pane and history log. Clear your logs by clicking on edit>clear history log and edit>clear script editor. In your explorer click on the animation source you wish to use to reset your character. Click on Skeleton> Apply Skeleton Pose. Your character will reset, but more importantly look at the two lines of dialogue generated in your scripting history log:

SelectObj "Mixer.StoredStaticPose"

ApplyAction

Select the two lines of code, and drag and drop them onto your toolbar. Create a name for your new tool, and make sure that you save your script giving it a name that will mean something to you in a month. Applying an action doesn't actually store a keyframe for the character, it only resets the pose. As soon as you drag your timeslider, the character will revert to the keyframe values it had before the skeleton pose was applied. All you need to do then is adjust the pose and re-key it (See keying tutorial for more info on keying)

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By Adam Sale