Exporting Actor as fbx or txt

#1

Hi All,
AM pretty new to Motion Builder, but worked a lot with Max and Maya.

Suppose I donot have a skeleton from Maya or Max, but I created an “Actor” in MB and I calibrated it to a raw mocap C3D file, so that the actor is performing as per the raw C3D data. How can I export this actor as an FBX or any other format that I can import in Max or Maya?

any help greatly appreciated

thanks

#2

As far as I know, that is not possible. Or at least not with any of the FBX importers I’ve tried.

#3

Hi,

U have to create a new skeleton in MB which will be your character, then retarget animation from actor to character. In this way, It will be possible to save animation to fbx format.
There is another way for quicker creation a skeleton from actor. I have attached plugin, put it into your MB\plugins directory. After you launch MB, you can find it from the main menu -> Open Reality -> Tools -> MoCap Advance.
Select your actor’s Pelvis and then click on “Bake Skeleton” button, it will create skeleton from actor, which you can make a character.

Hope this helps.

#4

Hi Neil,

Many thanks for the explanation, and the plugin.
But unfortunately, am not able to find Open Reality -> Tools -> MoCap Advance within the main menu. I dont get a OpenReality menu, though I have placed your plugin (MoCapAdvance.dll) in
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\MotionBuilder75 Ext2\bin\plugins

Possibly its compiled for another version of MB?

I’m manually trying to do as you suggested, but I have another Question:
I did manually create a skeleton, placing the joints exactly where the Actor joints are, and in character definition Mapping list, I assigned each part of the body.
Now I say characterize.
Then in CHaracter Settings, I use input type as “Actor Input”, and the Input source automatically shows Actor Calib, which is my default actor name.

When I click on Input Type “Active”, my skeleton does move as per the Actor, but then, its not exactly following the actor. I want the skeleton joints to be exactly where the actor joints are, I donot want any additional solving, which I suppose is kicked in through FBIK.

Now the Question :
How do I make my skeleton exactly follow the actor. I suppose that If I get this done, then I could simply plot it, and then export my skeleton.
Do I need to parent constrain the skeleton joints to the actor joints? If yes, then am not able to drag and drop the Actor joint into the "Source " block.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks again

#5

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