I want to share a rig between several character meshes to avoid animating them separately or trying to copy painted weights in maya every time I update a master rig with a new series of animations. Is there a way I can use one rig as a master rig on several meshes? I assume they would still need the exact same rig (like instances) in them so weight values exist.
Got any ideas, can this be done in Unity or in Maya?
From a Maya point of view, it should be possible. If the master rig file is simply the skeleton and the rig, have that file referenced in separate maya files (each with its own model). You would bring in the rig reference, skin and weight each model to the skeleton once, and if you do anything to the rig it will update to all the files.
At that point, you can export to unity however, either through fbx exporting or baking the skeleton keys down and just dropping the maya file in.
It probably would also be a good idea to have another file inbetween the whole process. A master rig file with the skeleton rigged, an animation file with the referenced rig animated, and then that animation file referenced into each model. Just be careful when you make severe rig updates so as not to cause problems with your animation.
Make a separate Maya file completely empty.
Reference in your rig.
Reference in your mesh.
Skin it.
Now you can make changes to your rig and just reload the reference at any time. (if you edit bones you will have to reskin those)
And,… if there are changes to the mesh, you can reload the reference.
So if you use perforce or alienbrain, the modelers can work on the model, update it, and the riggers can update the rig separately and just reload the references in Maya.
btw… use .animExport for the animations,… i had the best luck with that.