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View Full Version : grouping in maya, unsafe?

drawallday
10-02-2009, 04:54 PM
I've been grouping up skeleton and its body meshes together. Someone told me just recently that it is never a good idea to do this. The skeleton and meshes should never be grouped. I was bit surprised about that. I thought it would be ok as long the group node is default without any value changes etc (except for special/few cases).

Any thoughts? Please discuss.
stewartjones
10-02-2009, 06:30 PM
No problems in my opinion. You might run into double transformations at time but that's pretty easy to fix...
drawallday
10-05-2009, 10:47 AM
stewartjones, thanks for the reply.
mberglund
10-05-2009, 10:34 PM
a group is a transform node with no shape node. by grouping something you are simply just giving it a parent. That is not harmful.
drawallday
10-06-2009, 07:29 PM
Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with grouping the skeleton root and body mesh... etc (properly).
uiron
10-07-2009, 09:09 AM
in fact, normally your rig MUST have a hierarchy both for organizing stuff for the sake of order (meshes group, controls group, utility groups, all that grouped together as a character group).

for example, my rigs generaly follow structure:


char name
setup
utility stuff here: ik/fk switch setup utilities,
intermediate transforms, helper curves, ik handles, etc
rootJoint
..and the rest of char's hierarchy
controls
left_side
right_side
middle
facial
geometry
all character geometry goes here


it's just up to you on how you think it's best to organize stuff in your rig.
drawallday
10-07-2009, 11:47 AM
Urion, that looks effective.
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