MB problems

#1

My company is thinking about using MB for processing MoCap and doing some other animation tasks, so they bought me a station of MB7.5 to test it and see what I think before we buy more copies. Now, I can’t seem to find any means to customize the keyboard config/hotkeys. Is it true that you can’t do that? If so, I think its totally ridiculous in this day and age for a high-end art application like this to force you to learn their controls. I think that its neat that they put in pseudo-max and pseudo-maya set-ups…but even those are quite notably different from the real configuration of those other applications. I want to be able to open a menu, have a big list of commands, and be able to assign whatever button I want to any of them.

And why in god’s green earth does shift-right clicking in the viewport cause the viewport to zoom out as you rotate it?! And only out? It doesn’t zoom in…it just constantly zooms out as you try to rotate the view. And the little buttons to rotate the view are the worst idea ever…Lightwave had these and they sucked. It kills all flow and momentum you have going when you have to constantly click on a tiny little button at the edge of the screen just to move or rotate the camera.

So far my first impressions of this program are very very low. I know this app has some powerful features that I’d love to try out, so someone please help me see the light.

#2

there has never really been a way to customize keys in MB as far as I know (since 4.03 ) and going by the improvements and upgrades the program has gotten since leaving Kaydaras hands I wouldn’t count on it in anything short a a full version release ( and that being the major addition/improvment).

Yes shift right-click gives a parabolic rotation. Regular orbit (like the upper left icon) is shift+ctrl left click. I’m going by the classic MB key layout btw. Give it a chance.

quick nav guide : LMB = left mouse button RMB = right mouse button

shift LMB = move camera parrallel to screen
shift RMB = parabolic camera move
ctrl LMB = camera zoom
ctrl RMB = camera truck
shift ctrl LMB = camera orbit
shift ctrl RMB = look around (pivots on camera axis)

hope this helps.

#3

It’s true that you can’t remap keys, and I agree that that sucks, but as with any app it doesn’t take all that long to get familiar with the hotkeys.

About the viewports: Ignore those little buttons at the top, I only ever use them if I only have my mouse hand free cause i’m eating a sandwhich or something. Also I find it alot easier to just ignore the right mouse button for viewport navigation, and just concentrate on combinations of the left mouse button with shift, ctrl, and shift + ctrl, to zoom, track and orbit. As I say, it doesn’t take you long to get used to it. You’ll also probably use T, R and S for translation, rotation and scale quite a lot, and you might well find you use Ctrl-W, Ctrl-E, Ctrl-R and Ctrl-F for switching views, plus Ctrl-1 and Ctrl-2 for switching between one and two viewports. Besides that you’ll used Ctrl-A to cycle between normal, x-ray and models only views, and really that’s about all you’ll have to worry about for hotkeys.

As for the program as a whole: I wouldn’t let early annoyances like keyboard mapping put you off, cause in the big picture that’s such a tiny issue. Personally I think Motionbuilder does what it’s meant to do pretty well and that’s deal with mocap data. If you use a combination of Vicon and Motionbuilder it’s fairly straightforward to get stuff cleaned up once you’ve worked out a decent pipeline. There seems to be few alternatives that deal with mocap quite as well.

What I will say is that Motionbuilder seems set up to augment an animation pipeline, not replace it, so you’ll almost certainly also want Maya, Max or XSI to handle your rigging, weighting, plus any facial stuff, but chances are you’ll be modelling in one of these programs anyway, so i’d imagine that’s not a big deal. Another big frustration is that it’s really tough to customize as you’ve already found out, and while Motionbuilder does have Python scripting, it isn’t anywhere near as accessable as MEL or Maxscript. As such you’re likely to just be using the tools that come with the program, which are certainly enough to do the job, but no doubt you’ll come across some situation where you’re like “man, I really wish I could just automate this process”.

As I say, if you give it a chance, read the documentation and learn how it all works then it can be a really useful tool. If you go through all that and you still hate it then see what other alternatives are open to you, or just don’t use mocap and keyframe everything in Max/Maya/XSI. :slight_smile:

#4

Well, while you cannot customize keys, MotionBuilder does have multiple Keyboard configurations available. Check the help to see where they’re located (they vary between the Win and Mac versions).

#5

Thanks for the comments guys. I haven’t given up on it yet, I just was really turned off by the utter lack of customization. And yes, as I already said, I know about the pre-set key configs. They just aren’t really that much like their respective applications.

We aren’t planning on replacing 3ds as our primary tool, we just need a way of processing mocap data.

#6

FYI-

If you go in the installation folder

*\Autodesk\MotionBuilder75\bin\config\Keyboard\

You will have all the keyboard settings preset.

You duplicate one, and edit it. You can change all the shortcuts the way you want.

One thing important, in the text file, don’t forget to change the [Config] Name of the Keyboard layout. This will be the name that will be shown in MotionBuilder in Settings\Keyboard Configuration.

Hope this help.

#7

That’s a great tip Martin, thanks.

While you’re listening, stuff that Motionbuilder could really use for future releases…

  1. An undo function that actually undoes what you’ve just done. This seems to be the number one grievance that Motionbuilder users level at the software yet nothing ever seems to get done about it.
  2. Actions/Macros. Python scripting is way too complex for animators to deal with and you don’t want to have to go to a tools programmer every time you want to automate a quick process.
  3. Better foot planting. Auxiliary effectors are useful to have but they’re way too much hassle to work with for them to be a decent solution for planting feet.
  4. Better finger control. The way Character Studio deals with hands/fingers is much much easier to work with (imo).

I’m sure I could think up plenty more but these are like the real pressing issues that desperately need sorting out before you guys start worrying about coming up with new features.

#8

Oh, Thank you Mr. Pigeon! That’s what I’m talkin 'bout.

#9

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