Let me start off by saying I know basically nothing about Maya and very little about modelling programs in general - so please go easy on the technical stuff unless you’re really clear with what I need to click etc… Thanks!
Anyway, so I’ve had a model made for me in Maya and the modeller (who I unfortunately can’t contact now) has made it with 18 poly meshes / separate body parts. This results in 18 draw calls within Unity and as I’m running this game on iOS I need it to be only one draw call like it should be! (It is all UV mapped and has one texture file and one material for the entire character)
When I open the initial model in Maya and press play it is 18 meshes and animates correctly. However as I want to only have it as one draw call I selected all the poly meshes that make up the character and clicked Mesh → Combine. But now when I click play, the only thing that animates are red lines (maybe bones?) whereas the actual model of the character stays still.
How do I keep the animation and also keep the character as one draw call in Unity?
Select all 18 model pieces and put them on origGeo Layer.
Duplicate them (ctrl + d).
With all of them selected go to Polygon menu go to Mesh -> Combine.
Go to Edit -> Delete by Type -> History.
Put new geometry on newGeo Layer.
Here comes tricky part since you don’t use Maya and you haven’t rigged the character.
You must select all Joints that all 18 parts are bound to. There are two ways that it could be bound initially:
If only root Joint of skeleton was selected (which selects all child joints) and then it was bind with Skin -> Bind -> Smooth Bind (click on square) – Bind to Joint hierarchy.
If Joints was selected one by on (holding Shift) then it was bound with Skin -> Bind -> Smooth Bind (click on square) – Bind to Selected joints.
Hide origGeo Layer.
Make sure you are in the bind pose! (Initial pose).
Switch to Animation in top left dropdown box.
Select all relevant Joints, also SHIFT select new geometry go to LOOK AT #7.
Now your new geometry is bound to skeleton.
Hide newGeo Layer and unhide origGeo Layer.
Select all 18 pieces and hide origGeo Layer.
Unhide newGeo Layer and Shift select new geometry.
Go to Skin -> Edit Smooth Skin -> Copy Skin Weights, click on sqare.
Parameters should be at their default:
First radio button checked – Closest point on surface.
Influence association 1 – Closest Joint.
Rest should be none.