Combining motion clips and keyframes..?

#1

Hello:

Sorry for this newbie question. I tried checking older threads but I guess I need a little more detailed answer to my problem…

I’m using MotionBuilder 7 and I’m kind of new to it, to tell you the truth

I’ve manged to do 2 simple things with MB.

  1. Do some very simple keyframe animations and export.

  2. Applying premade motions from the library by dragging to the story window and sometimes combinging 2 or 3 to make a new longer motion. This I plot ( I use plot whole scene to current take) and then I open in my 3d package (cinema) and render away.

So far so good.

But this time I created my character from scratch (eveything imports good) and wanted to apply some of the library motions, but I want to tweak them a little bit. The arms pass through his sides and he looks a litle slouched, so I KNOW I can plot/bake this motion into keyframes and then add another layer of keyframes to tweak them… but I can’t seem to find the correct steps… :frowning:

I plotted the motion from the story window (using plot whole scene to current take) and then I try to add key frames in a new layer ( I see some green keyframes in the base layer) but the keyframes just won’t take…

When I’ve done keyframe tests ( with no motion capture) the keframes look gray ( different than these green keyframes) and they do take when I add new keyframes to a new animation layer…

Could someone help me out…? :frowning:

If you would just mention the few simple correct steps, I would really apreciate it.
(I’m not an advanced user, and know just a little about takes, skeletons,characters, control rigs, and story)

I checked the tutorials that came with my software and it includes a similiar tutorial. But the thing is that I open a file that already has some animation plotted/baked into it and then you modify the keyframes…

What I want to know is HOW to prepare my animation so that it will be ready for keyframes… All the tutorials I’ve checked start from an already plotted file so I miss that step…

Sorry for the long repetive message, but I tried for like 4 hours and haven’t found the answer.

Thanks for your time :slight_smile:

fjv

#2

Got to go to work right now but i’ll answer your question later this evening (if I get time).

#3

I’ll wait Paitently :slight_smile:

thanks Dan.

fjv

#4

Ok, assuming your character is all characterised up and you have your animation for that character in your story window, you then plot your animation to current take as you have been doing. If I remember correctly that plots the animation to the skeleton. You then mute the animation in the story window to stop that from overriding any extra animation you want to create on top, by pressing the little M icon in the character animation track. You then go into the character settings by going to the Navigator and double clicking on your character name. Click “Plot Character…” and plot to the control rig. You should then be able to animate any changes on a new layer. Once you’re done go back to the character settings window and click “Plot Character…” again, and this time it’ll give you the option to plot back to your Skeleton, baking any animation changes along with it.

I’m explaining this from memory so you’ll have to forgive me if I missed any steps. If you have any issues then reply and i’ll try and sort them out. There’s a tutorial for this kind of thing in the Motionbuilder documentation. I forget what it’s called exactly but it involves the surfer guy doing a spinning kick.

#5

Thanks for the reply Dan:

Sounds like a good start.

I’ll give those steps a try and share my results(hopefully) or more questions if I have… : )

I really appreciate the help

fjv

#6

Hey!

Thanks it worked!

Those were the correct steps

Here’s a small test. Not the final animation but I was able to move body parts over the motion capture layer at last… 200k quicktime file

http://www.velarde.com/tests/afirme.mov

Good luck!

fjv

#7

Looks nice, and fairly smooth.

I like the lighting effect in there to.

#8

Hey, thanks for the comment.

Here’s an updated (more or less final) version:

http://www.velarde.com/tests/afirme1.mov

Its one of many movie intros I gotta do for an interactive CD (programmed in Flash).

It has crappy motion blur but with the the Flash video compression it won’t be noticable… :slight_smile:
Although I do love the new Flash 8 pro, handles video much better than past versions…

Nothing fancy on the character side… just a good old Poser 4 model, but for illustration purposes it serves quite well : )

Talk to you guys later and if I have something intresting to show I’ll post along

fjv

#9

Again looks cool.

the Blurr isn’t to bad, but the camera movement looks a little jerky (or is that art of the camera blurr?)

#10

I added more samples to the camera blur (9) instead of the original 5 and added the music.

I just replaced it (under the same name) , and maybe you saw the one with the nicer camera blur… : )

mmh… I kinda of liked that jerky camera movement…, ja, different tastes I guess

I’ll see if the next ones come out a little better, the first animation is always the one that suffers… : )

Good luck

fjv

#11

I just know i had a problem with motion builder and the camera shifting on me.
If i had of done it right i woulda used a curve and had the camera follow the curve to keep it smooth. But it did it by hand and it looked really choppy, far worse then yours.

I animated a ninja kick flip. when he went to flip i paused the animation, and added in a camera rotate (to try to put in one of those over used Matrix camera pans). It didn’t work out, and took away from the animation.

I was just wondering if you did something the same, or was the blur added in with another program?

#12

I only applied the mocap data to my character in Motionbuilder.

The camera movement, rendering (including motionblur), rigging and setting up the scene (simple modeling) in Cinema 4D.

Will have to try to incorporate Electric Image in my rendering workflow (which has a much better motionblur), now that it accepts fbx data, but for now its Cinema and Motionbuilder…

Good luck

fjv

#13

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