does the layersystem even work how it should?

#1

ok, since I posted my problem with layered anims in the other thread,

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=5324209#post5324209

where we were not able to come up with any usefull solution, I am asking a basic question.

do I (mostly working with maya all day long) approach motionbuilder in a wrong way?

well we couldn´t fix the rootbone pose to pose problem. now I encountered another thing which happened before - due to me being new to MB I just wasn´t aware of it.

anim = 100 frames
Base Layer = motion capture (1 key each frame)

I deleted keys 2 to 24 and 76 to 99, then copied f1 to f100 made the curves bezier and set them flat. finally the animation plays like it was intended to in the thread before with the help of poses on a 2nd layer.

now since the character leans too much forward I keyd the hips slightly backwards. funny enough I get jumping again from f100 to f1, so I deleted Layer1 (didn´t merge anything, just emptied the layer) - now tell me how this can possibly happen! Base Layer doesn´t animate the Character like before, but the same as it was with Layer1 on top of it. the curves are still the same in baseLayer - the transition is nice and smooth. so, why does my animation jump then…?? why does a alteration of a layer or even a deleted layer still affect my animation?

sadly but truly I start thinking it´s all easier to script offsets in maya for the rigg then to use MB, which seems to be a software, doing some wicked things somewhere in the backGround, without giving proper feedback.

if anyone would help me with MB, I guess the only thing which could really help me is a tutorial from A to Z on cleaning up motionCaptureData. But - until now, despite there´re a lot of existing tutorials on motionCapture, noone ever seems to to have problems with that sort of things I am messing around. so I am convinced MB is not a crap software but I don´t seem to find the right entry to MotionBuilder.

drop comments if you like.

#2

if you deleted the keys off the layer for only the IK ctrls, you might have missed the FK, yellow skeleton control keyframes… causeing it to still act like layer one is influcing the animaiton … because it is.

FK >IK is always keyframed/synced for every key you set and depending on the IK/FK blend settings (AKA reach values) then you will get either an local or world space animation effect.

make sure your not just picking contorls in the chracter window and killing keys… also it would help if you tried what your doing on a sample file to see if it is your workflow or your chracter.

you can get a sample file from http://www.mocapclub.com/ and also read over some tutorials.

Its good you got the hotfixes, there were issues with hip/chest settings in the chracter contorl window… also because you have not hotfixed it… please turn off chracterization and delete the contorl rig , turn chracterization back on and create a new IK/FK contorl rig to clear out any issues. (make sure your chracter is in T pose)

you can always email me a file with just chracter/skeleton and I might have time to look…

but yes, layers work, mobu is furstrating at times but it is better 99% of the time than hacking tools together in Maya for doing this kind of work… at least untill maya 2009 when you can get layers working.

#3

oh man! I´d like to take courses from you with motionbuilder, haha. funny thing was, rolled back to extension 1 because with ext2 + hotfixes the fcurves editor went extremly buggy. but whatsoever. I kind of start getting my brain wrapped around MB more and more. thx for your enlightening explanations. they are really helpfull.

#4

My suggestions:
[ol]
[li]Test how well the character is working with stock motions… you can test how well it is characterized by applying (dragging) one of the stock motions into the story tab. Try the same motion on your character and one of the characters that come with MBR. If that motion doesn’t get applied correctly, you may have just isolated your issue.[/li][li]If NDA permits, let someone else look at the file or make a video capture of the issue. I’m willing to bet Brad could find that issue in five minutes. Remember, he did offer to check it for you. If he can’t, I’d be willing to look at it.[/li][li]Stop messing with the poses and just try doing the work in the story tab. It’s usually faster. You can always plot back to the scene and edit the fcurves (you can mess with the curves while still working in story, but you have select the clip AND the objects you want to manip and that gets a bit annoying). I find myself using story to do the major looping work and plotting back to the control rig (the timeline) to do the finetuing of the fcurves. * Warning: If you have issues with characterization, they’ll also show up here.[/li][/ol]I agree with Brad. MBR can be frustrating (it got the name MotionDestroyer after a particularly painful week of issues). However, you just have to know a few workarounds and understand how the rig works to make it run well.

Little things like merging all your layers, plotting to/from story tab (even if you aren’t working with it) back to the control rig or skeleton can help get rid of issues when working they come up. Sometimes, I’ve found a need to save the animation out from the character controls window and re-target the animation once i have deleted and recreated the control rig (this can cause offset issues, as well). Closing and re-opening MBR is always one of the first things I try when the app begins acting strangely.

Let us know if you find the issue!

#5

You can… http://stores.lulu.com/animatortoolkit. :smiley:

Good luck!

#6

and I will!

#7

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