To create a Character Set, click F2 (Animation Mode) then Character > Create Character Set , and give the character set a name. Create the character set such that the All Keyable Except: option is selected. This prevents the addition of normally meaningless attributes being added to a character animation set.

Click Create Character Set and in the bottom right hand corner of the Maya interface you should see appear a red square with a white downwards pointing arrow (below). This indicates that the Ball character set is currently selected.

To add some attributes from an object into a character set simply shift select all the attributes you wish to add from the channel bar and then click;

Character > Add To Character Set

The Character will now have the symbol next to it and if you expand it you will see all the attributes now contained in this character set.

Setting a Character Set Keyframe

With a character set selected all that is required is to click "S" to set a keyframe on the entire set of attributes in the character set.

However with a character set selected individual keyframes can only be set through direct means, for example through the channel bar.

Frequently in animation we have different action centres from which different poses occur at different times. As such it is quite useful to be able to isolate different parts of a character set into functional sections.

For example for a biped, all the attributes that control the whole body could be contained into two functional groups or sub-character sets, the upper body and the lower body. The upper body could control the arms upper torso and head and the lower could control the feet, centre of gravity and the lower torso.

A useful setup would be one where we could set keys on the entire body as well as being able to set keys on select sections of the body.

This is done with Sub-Character Sets. Sub-Character sets are subsets of Character Sets. To create a Sub-Character Set select the Character Set (Ball in our example) and click;

Character > Create Subcharacter Set

Make sure that no objects are selected when you do this or it will automatically take all the meaningful attributes from that object and move them into the newly created subcharacter set.

Create in all two subcharacter sets for each half of the body. Now we need to organise our attributes into each subcharacter set.

First select the subcharacter set (see diagram) then select the attributes particular to each part of the body and click

Character > Add To Character Set

Repeat this for all of the sections of the body that you wish to isolate for animation purposes. You should have something like the image to the right in the outliner.

Setting Keys using Character Sets and Subcharacter Sets

With Subcharacter Sets within Character Sets we now have the choice of either setting keys;

- On the entire body
- Just the top half
- Just the bottom half

When you select the Character Set and click "S" you set keys on all the attributes in all the subcharacter set within the character set.

When you select the Lower subcharacter set and click "S" ONLY the attributes contained in the Lower subcharacter set will be set.

The same applied for the Upper character set.