There are a few ways that you can “gently nudge” a character’s walk cycle into another direction in the scene. If you are anything like Animator Paul Creamer, you might have an irrational dislike of path animation – so that’s out. Thankfully Maya has just the tool for this. Its called the Redirect, and as the name might suggest, it is meant for redirecting character animation. Paul Creamer offers a quick little demonstration of how you can use Redirects in Maya.
Redirects are not just for walk cycles though. You can use them to alter where a character lands, which direction the character is facing, or how the character is oriented after a jump animation. You can even use them for non-character animation, such as dynamics, expressions, etc. A Redirect gives you another top level control that allows you to key new positions and orientations at any point during an object’s animation.
