Exporting .fbx Mocap in .bvh format

#1

I am at a loss here…turning to anyone with some insight.

I am using a 3D Suit to capture motion data. After several weeks of properly attaching the sensors to their correct node placements, I have managed to rig a good .bvh skeleton with the bone structure I require.

I am able to live capture my animations in .fbx format as well as play back the associated anim once plotted to the skeleton.

Here is my stumbling block…

I need to be able to save these anims in .bvh not .fbx. Whenever I plot the anim to the .bvh skeleton and chose export as .bvh, Motionbuilder 7.5 asks me to choose a character.

How in the heck do I select the current character in the scene? I have tried highlighting, selecting the hip nothing seems to work. I’m sure there is a dropdown SOMEWHERE that I am not selecting correctly.

Here is my workflow:

  1. I set up my scene with my “dumbed down” .bvh character. (No fingers/toes/facials)

  2. I connect my suit to the character and begin my capture.

  3. I save my new anim as an .fbx file.

  4. I open a new scene with my .bvh-based character and plot the anim to the skeleton for playback.

  5. I get a good playback and choose export (.bvh) and get the “Select Character” popup.

Any guidance would certainly be appreciated. I am not a Motionbuilder Pro. I prefer to do my editing/skinning in Poser as it has been my tool of trade for many years. Thats one of the reasons I work in .bvh and not .fbx. I have searched every tutorial I can find on this issue with limited results.

#2

What I did was double click in the character node selector window blank space, that selects all of the characters effectors then export to bvh.

When exporting to .bvh it thows an error if any nodes have blank spaces in thier names, so naming conventions must be followed.

The problem I’m having is importing .bvh into Blender, Importation works fine but my animation does not translate in global space, “he walks in place”. I have yet to figure that one out.

#3

I figured this out on my own…

Select the character hip in scene then go to Navigator, right click on the character hip and “Select Branches”. it works :slight_smile:

#4

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.