MotionBuilder Tutorials

We'll begin the course by first animating a stand-in object, which will give us an idea of where our character will be placed through our shots. We'll then work with cameras, adding camera animation, and learn how use MotionBuilder's Camera Switcher for camera cuts. Finally, we'll learn how to retarget animation, how to add particles, and lights until we have completed pre-visualizing our story! By the end of this course, you will learn how to use MotionBuilder to pre-visualize your ideas, to work more efficiently and creatively, so that more of your time and effort can be spend on polishing and finalizing your scenes!

We'll start by learning how to clean up and optimize a motion captured-driven skeleton inside of Maya. We'll then learn how to Characterize the skeleton for retargeting within MotionBuilder. Afterwards, we'll explore the inter-operability between MotionBuilder and Maya and discuss how to work with their new Send To feature for transporting files back and forth between the two applications in a fraction of the time. We'll learn the retargeting process in MotionBuilder and also learn how to work with its Control Rig and Animation Layering systems to finesse performances. Finally, we'll send the animation back to Maya to finalize our scene. By the end of this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the tools in both Maya and MotionBuilder to polish, enhance, and retarget your character animations in half the time it would normally take.

In this course you will learn how to build a walk cycle in MotionBuilder. One step at a time, we’ll dissect the body mechanics of a walk. We’ll learn the key positions of a walk, we’ll learn how to use MotionBuilder's Pose Controls to build a cycle in a fraction of the time it would normally take. We'll learn how to create seamless cycles, explore ways to add convincing follow-through and weight, and also learn a technique for translating a cycle forward through space. In the end, you'll understand how to produce a walk that is natural, and that has a little personality.

In this series of lessons, we'll learn the foundations of working inside of MotionBuilder. We'll begin by familiarizing ourselves with MotionBuilder's interface and how to load in files and other assets. We'll learn how to move objects in 3d space and learn how to work with its Transport Controls for playing back animation. We'll learn about its keyframing tools, like the Key Controls and Fcurves window, for creating, polishing, and cycling animation. We'll then discuss Characterization, which is the process of making your characters ready for animation and retargeting. We'll learn how to work with its advanced Control Rig and how to use its Pose Controls to build performances faster. From there, we will learn how to work with its robust animation layering system, how to set up cameras, and how to create real-time movies for previews. This course will provide you with the solid foundation you need to comfortably integrate MotionBuilder into your production pipeline to create animation faster and easier.

We'll begin this project by creating and learning the basics of the FBIK rig. We'll then move into how we can use the tools built into the rig to animate quicker such as using pinning to lock a hand or foot to a location, using FK/IK blending to create nice arcing motion, using Auxiliary Pivots and effectors to create multiple control points and have the rig affect itself and using the floor contact system to prevent the feet and hands from going through the floor. This series of lessons will illustrate how to use the rig to create appealing animation and some of the time-saving features of the rig. By learning the basics of the rig and how to use these advanced features, we can save time while creating complex character animation.

We'll begin this project by bringing in a correctly formatted skeleton and characterize it. We'll then go into how to manually characterize a skeleton if your naming convention differs from MotionBuilder's. We'll then learn how to characterize a quadruped rig and how to get around specific issues that can crop up while working with quadrupeds. This series of lessons will take us through the process of bringing in your external skeletons and creating the FBIK rig on top of them so you can use the power of MotionBuilder on your own characters.

In this series of lessons we'll learn how import motion capture data and edit it inside of MotionBuilder. We'll begin this project by taking a single motion capture clip and putting it onto a character using the Story Window. Then, we will extend this to using multiple clips on the same character and how we can create a seamless blend between the two clips using the ghosting, blending, and matching features of the Story window. We will then take the mocap data and plot it down to keyframes so we can edit it in the f-curve window. Finally, we'll learn how to format external BVH mocap data to work with MotionBuilder.

This project will give us a quick primer to physics in MotionBuilder and get you on your way to simulating hard body dynamics in no time. This course will teach you how to use rigid body objects and how to make them active and passive as well as active only at collisions. We will also learn how to properly set-up ragdolls, which enable rigid bodies on characters, and the best ways to utilize ragdolls with rigid bodies for some knock out animation.

In this series of lessons we will learn the basics of working inside MotionBuilder starting from a blank slate. We'll begin this project by getting acquainted with the user interface of MotionBuilder and how to quickly bring in external files. We'll move on the moving objects around in 3d space and playing back animation. Then we'll the get into the guts of MotionBuilder and learn how to create, edit, and render an animation. We will learn some of the time-saving animation tools such as poses and trajectories. This series of lessons are a great catapult to using MotionBuilder inside your animation pipeline. With a fuller understanding of MotionBuilder and its capabilities, we can create animations quicker and easier.