MB needs Walkcycle tool

[LFGabel]

Good idea. Go to kaydara.com and let them know... They're quite responsive to their users.

Are you using poses, mocap, or both?

[DrAdamDinosaur]

I think theres a lot motion builder needs before a "feature" like this. For instance: unlimited number of arms and legs coming off a character and the ability to setup hot keys and UI colours.

[LFGabel]

I can understand multiple limbs... and hot keys I believe are implemented in MB5...

But a coloured UI is more important than a walk generator?

:shrug:

[DrAdamDinosaur]

ok, you got me there, that was just a personal want:D. A walk cycle tool would be ok but at the moment you can just make an extreme, a passing position and a breakdown or two and put them all in the pose window and then, using the mirror feature, past them fo frames and you basically have a walk cycle half done.

I still stand by the fact that there are plenty of things that kaydara have left out that could be mega useful, but things are getting better.

[cornel H.]

jeah, I mean most character animation packages have walkcyle tools. look at characer studio's footsteps, messiah 4, and so on. A walcycle is so repetitive to create and it consists of more than just poses, it also armswings and such, Kayadara should think about their users and they could make lifew easier for them ...

[LFGabel]

Just like DrAdamDinosaur said, I used poses in MB4 to get a walk cycle going.

However, MB5 may be a bit easier as you can take parts of mocap and add your own "tweaks" to it, making new walks, then you can save out a new repeatable mocap clip....

I think that's how it will work.

[DrAdamDinosaur]

yeah, things are a lot better in MB5 but I think that kaydara are really limiting their users to realistic purposes. People who want to do cartoony characters with 4 arms/ legs or two heads or tails would have a tough time animating in MB. Personally I have a crab character with two arms and six legs that I would love to get into MB but i can't characterize it.

cornel H : you can do every aspect of a walk using poses. You make each pose with the legs, arms, shoulders, hips, head and spine positioned and then make the poses. Because you only have 5 poses or so you have plenty of room to get in and personalise each walk cycle.

[LFGabel]

Originally posted by DrAdamDinosaur
yeah, things are a lot better in MB5 but I think that kaydara are really limiting their users to realistic purposes. People who want to do cartoony characters with 4 arms/ legs or two heads or tails would have a tough time animating in MB. Personally I have a crab character with two arms and six legs that I would love to get into MB but i can't characterize it.

I agree.. Their GUI is built around biped characters. I don't see any nice way to maintain their GUI design and still incorporate more than 2 arms/legs...

Knowing Kaydara, if they do decide to implement it, it will look nice and easy...

I guess you could try an rig it yourself...? ALthough I don't think pose controls work with anything except bipeds/quadrupeds.

[DrAdamDinosaur]

It would even be nice to be able to characterize different parts of hte model under different characters (one for each set of legs). It would mean a lot of switching in hte character control menu but at least it would do the job. It would be truely awesome if a patch came out addressing these issues.

I think it would also be great if we could load a picture of our character into the character controls window and position the little circles on it. Better than looking at the surfer all the time.

[cornel H.]

I agree, the surfer dude makes me sick ...

[Gwot]

You can swap it if you like. Just goto your MB\bin\system folder and replace 'character-picture.tif' with your own image. Just make sure you back up the original. =]
It would be cool if you could just pick your own picture from a list within MB though.

I'd sooner see something like a walk cycle generator added as a plugin. I'd much prefer to see more rapid bone setup and rigging utilities. MB has some very powerful features that require a lot of work if you want to create a rig as decent as the characterize rig. Given the choice to cut down on my animation work, or my setup work I'd take the latter, since animating is the fun part - walk cycles out the wazoo or not. =]

[DrAdamDinosaur]

I would rather be able to select a picture that gets displayed in the character controls window and then that pic becomes associated with that "Character" so any time you change character you change picture. This is also better for a visual check to make sure you are on hte fight character before perfoeming an operation.

Also, I agree with you, I peronally would liek better rigging/setup tools before improving hte animation tools. I've said all this above so I won't repeat myself. Someone should really write a letter to kaydara:)

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