Game Character Development with Maya

While working in Maya, your scene file will slowly grow in size. This isn't just due to elements left over as you work; residual nodes from imported scenes can remain, too, slowing down your workflow and increasing file sizes.

What we want to do now is a final major clean up of the scene, removing anything that is no longer of use. Both rigs are almost identical, so we'll concentrate mainly on Kila. Along the way, I'll point out places where the workflow may differ when you work through these steps on Grae.

Load in the file called Kila_Skinned.mb (for Grae, load Grae_Skinned.mb).

NOTE

Be sure to save your scene before running the Optimize Scene Size tool in step 1. This tool is not undoable, so it's wise to have a backup just in case the command deletes something you need.

1.

Go to File > Optimize Scene Size and open the options (Figure 15.1). This tool will scan the scene and delete any unused objects and nodes.

Figure 15.1. The Optimize Scene Size options

2.

Enable all the options. Click on Optimize, and the scene will quickly be optimized.

3.

You no longer need the image planes, so remove them next, by going to Edit > Delete All by Type > Image Planes.

4.

Look at the Layer Editor. There are no longer any image planes in the scene, so delete the ImagePlanes layer by right-clicking it and selecting Delete.

5.

Because the visibility of the layers is now controlled with the LOD group, there isn't much point in having separate layers for each of Kila's LODs. Delete all but the first layer and rename this to Kila. (For Grae, remember that he has one more LOD than Kila.)

6.

Use the Outliner to select the KilaLOD group. Place it in the Kila layer, setting it to Reference when you're done so that nobody can select the character mesh.

7.

If two characters were in the same scene, their skeleton layers might be easily confused. To avoid this, rename the Kila layer to Kila_BaseSkel. (Create a similar layer name for Grae.) Turn off its visibility and set its display type to Reference.

The scenes are now clean and tidy, with nothing remaining that is not relevant to the character or their rigs.

TIP

If you want the scene to be completely clean, leaving just the objects needed, you can use File > Save Selected. Simply select the objects you wish to keep and save them out into a separate file. This will strip out anything not required by the scene.

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