Hello- looking for a bit of advice on how I can duplicate a character of a shark I've modeled. I'd like to use the same character many times within one scene- each instance animated uniquely within the Trax Editor. So far all of the resources and documentation I have found involves using different characters in the same scene. At this point I have a character created with a joint system smooth bound to polygonal geometry- the joint system and movement controlled by 2 spline IK handles in the tail. I've also created a series of clips to animate- all of this works properly. I've exhausted all resources available to me as to how I can leverage this single modeled character to create a swarm of sharks within a single scene. There are a number of areas I've covered in an effort to resolve this. My first effort was simply to duplicate the entire set of elements for the character I created, as I do not wish to paint weights 30 times over as well as all the other legwork that would be involved. For this I tried to use "Duplicate Special" with "Duplicate Input Graph" checked in the options box. My intention was to convert this newly created shark into another character, and then to repeat the process to fill the scene with multiple sharks. This did not work- the Spline IK Handles on the original rig completely jacked out and the joint system did not translate properly. I tried a million other things as well.. without making this a long drawn out post, it seems as though a simple solution HAS to be out there! Could anyone direct my attention to a method that allows me to (using the shark I have in place) create an array of sharks that I may animate non-uniformly to create the scene (I cannot use particle instancing)? It is importantly for me to be able to control the animation in its entirety in one scene if possible, so I may tailor how these sharks move in relation to one another. Any helpful hints/links, etc would be greatly appreciated- thanks in advance!
