Curved movement in Motion Builder - very useful

[Domarius]

http://www.metamotion.com/mb_page_assets/3d_paths.html

 

You can create a path from nothing, or you can automatically create one based on the keyframes of whatever body part.

 

SOOO useful, for getting limbs swinging realistically. It was complicating things so much adding all those extra key frames to emulate curved movement.

 

I'll add this to the wiki.

[Domarius]

Actually not having much luck getting it to be usefully applied to limbs. The movement controls go all wacky once I do the keyframe technique, and resorting to plotting the path manually is a bit cumbersome.

[oDDity]

I'm pretty sure they're not designed to work with parts of IK chains, just single objects like it showed in the video.

[Domarius]

Yeah I guess you are right. Man, that's retarded. It's called "Motion builder" and yet making a limb swing in an arc is a huge trial.

[Baddcog]

hmm, max does that by default. turning it off is a bitch to do though, I used to know how.

 

Now at the beginning and end of anims I just put extra frames so the first and last frames match on a curve.

[Domarius]

Actually maybe you can get the same effect using the fcurves window in Motion Builder after all...

[squill]

Actually maybe you can get the same effect using the fcurves window in Motion Builder after all...

 

that's what ive been saying before... the curve/graph editor is your friend

IK doesn't create nice arcs you have to fake them(inbetween the translations) or simply use FK.

 

Actually not having much luck getting it to be usefully applied to limbs. The movement controls go all wacky once I do the keyframe technique, and resorting to plotting the path manually is a bit cumbersome.

 

There are ways to visualize the movements of your limbs to make it easier to see how a movement travels, for instance the legs. I don't know if a similar option is available in MotionBuilder but in maya you can turn on "motion paths" for object or joints which shows the keyframes presented as dots on a curve. In max it's called trajectories.

 

Although i must say i don't use it often.

 

Edit: In motionbuilder i found -> properties menu -> Viewer options -> show trajectories

although i'm not getting any visual feedback when turned on

[Domarius]

Thanks, yeah I remember resorting to fcurves to get them swinging properly, but it's been so long I forgot about it!

[oDDity]

Lol 'resorting' to fcurves? The graph editor is where professional animators do 90% of their work. It's how you stop motions from being mechanical to being organic.

I don't particularly like the one in motionbuilder though.

[Domarius]

Yeah resorting - if this path thing worked for bones it'd be better - the path actually exists in 3D space.