Hi all,

re gazzamatazz (I think thats how you spell it),

In Maya you have what called a character node, ie. keyable set of attributes that are keyed together when that character node is selected.

You also have what is called Sub character nodes which allow you to key your 'Main' character and your subcharacter nodes receive keys also, but you can, say after 'blocking' out your animation with the 'Main character node' then set keys on just your 'Sub' character nodes and vise a versa. This means that you can layer animation and also add keys to subcharacter nodes without adding keys to your main character node.

An eg:

You key your character (consisting of torso, pelvis........)

then you key your sub character node for say, head
and another sub character node for say feet, arms, hands etc....

The beauty of this approach is that you don't have extra keys messing up your f curves where you don't want them, but you get the functionality and workflow of the Mayan character nodes.

re Jim