Copying animation from one object to another

In this example, we'll create a script that will copy all of the animation data on one object to one or more additional objects, which could be useful to duplicate motion across a range of objects.

Getting ready

For the script to work, you'll need an object with some keyframes set. Either create some simple animation or skip ahead to the example on creating keyframes with script, later in this chapter.

How to do it...

Create a new script and add the following code:

import maya.cmds as cmds

def getAttName(fullname):
    parts = fullname.split('.')
    return parts[-1]

def copyKeyframes():
    objs = cmds.ls(selection=True)

    if (len(objs) < 2):
        cmds.error("Please select at least two objects")

    sourceObj = objs[0]

    animAttributes = cmds.listAnimatable(sourceObj);

    for attribute in animAttributes:

        numKeyframes = cmds.keyframe(attribute, query=True, keyframeCount=True)

        if (numKeyframes > 0):

          ...