MB Tutorial part 1:Introduction to MB Video Lecture | A Complete Course: Motion Builder - Professional Skills

hello everyone and welcome to another
exciting vtm brought to you by 3d buzz
this time around we're going to be
taking a look at quedaras motionbuilder
formerly known as film box before we
begin I'd like to take a second and
thank kidhar for sponsoring this VT m
and the 3d buzz website you can take a
look at all of the impressive products
they have to offer by visiting their
website at wowt.com now let's take a
second for some introductions first of
all my name is Jason Busby also known to
a lot of you guys out there simply as
buzz and I will be one of your host
tonight walking you through this
incredible application and joining me in
the studio we've got mr. Zac how we
doing tonight Zach doing great buzz how
are you you know not bad at all so
looking forward to this little
motionbuilder vtm oh yeah this has been
awesome just learning this this is good
stuff absolutely so you know the first
thing the people are probably wondering
is what exactly is motionbuilder well
MotionBuilder is a real-time 3d
animation program now what we mean by
real-time is that you can actually take
your characters bring them into motion
builder and you can animate them you can
set up lighting you can set up all your
rigging and all that and you can see all
of the feedback immediately in the
viewer you won't have to wait for your
viewer to update like you do in certain
packages like Maya or max and you also
don't have to wait for a long render
time to get everything out okay so
basically what he's saying is like
you're working inside of Maya right and
you're trying to animate a walk cycle
and you hit play and you go to watch
your feedback in your feedback is slow
slow slow so you next you next you got
to do you got to do a play blast and
then you're going to watch your plate
and that takes time and you know you can
take your models from inside of Maya and
other packages will talk more about that
in a minute and you can bring them into
motion builder and then do your
animation inside of MotionBuilder and
your feedback is going to be real time
in other words when you hit play that's
it I mean that's the real deal then you
can plot that animation back out you can
take it back over to the application
that you use to generate your model to
begin with and then continue on with
texturing lighting rendering etc or of
course you could stay inside of
MotionBuilder as well and do texturing
work with shaders materials and get a
little bit of rendering action going on
from there exactly it might be a good
idea to go ahead and bring up all of the
packages that Qatar's
motionbuilder is compatible with yeah
just Maya and Max yeah that's a good
idea here's here's a few of them feel
the common ones we've got 3ds max we've
got Maya we've got light wave cinema 4
and we also have electric images
universe for so there's a few of them
you can find out more about what's
supported by going over to khodaro calm
and reading about it there now right now
what we're looking at is the motion
builder interface and there's several
different ways that the UI can be laid
out we'll be taking a look at this more
a little bit later on but right now I've
got one of the sample scenes loaded up
and let me go ahead and say this now
because this is going to kind of haunt
us quite a bit throughout this vtm and
other V teams that are going to occur in
the future and that is that even though
motionbuilder is real time and on our
end we get to see it real time you guys
unfortunately will not get to see it
real time just because of you know the
limitations with screen capturing
software etc etc video compression you
guys are going to be looking at about I
don't know about 10 frames per second
while we're going to be watching it at
anywhere from 30 frames per second to I
don't know this scene here with Max's
out somewhere around 75 to 80 frames per
second so we'll get to see it nice and
fluid let me go ahead and give you a
quick example I'll come down here to my
transport controls not going to hit play
and you guys that are now watching this
vtm you're going to see that this is
going to appear choppy so let's watch
this really cool fight scene now to you
it looks choppy but to us guess what
that looks nice and smooth it looks like
these guys are really trying to take
each other out pretty cool eh that's
awesome now this is just one example
what I wanted to do is just go ahead and
have something opened up that shows some
character animation because in the end
that is what motionbuilder is really all
about real-time character animation even
though you're not just limited to
character animation and I've got some
other things that I'm about to open up
some sample files then we'll basically
in this off by pulling up an actual
character from Maya that in this very
vtm a little bit later on we're going to
take a look at boning skinning and then
bringing the character over into
MotionBuilder and how we can actually
characterize it and get it ready to go
for some animation but let's go and take
a look at some of the other things that
motion
builders able to do so we've seen these
3d characters right here check this out
let's go and come up here and it's open
this up now this is going to take just a
second to go ahead and bring this in so
it's kind of pause and jacks or anything
great we can talk about this evening uh
not really let's see you it's almost
done we probably shouldn't get into a
long deep dark conversation because by
the time we get done with it this will
have already loaded up and we'll have
wasted all this time yeah that's all
right so now we're at seventy-five
percent will talk about the percentages
and now we're pretty much done check
that out Zach what do you think wow it
looks it looks like we have pretty much
got a 2d drawing here in front of us
looks like we've inked it out right you
ready for this well first of all
obviously I can come down here and i can
hit play and we're still going to get
real time feedback i miss real time when
I once again this is real time to us in
about ten frames a second to you guys
but oh now more kung fu fighting zach is
very happy now of course now to really
show about you know just how fast this
is I can come down here and even just
jitter with you know unfortunately they
won't even be able to see the jitter
when the playback with their with the VT
m itself but I can jitter down here my
time slider and you gets it's so fast
that you can actually feel what you're
doing with your wrist up here in your
viewer and those of you who might have
tried that like in Maya or magazine you
said absolutely complicated animation
with the skinning and everything else
and then you grab your time slender and
just shake it back and forth and watch
what your 3d package does to you guess
what the time slider doesn't go back and
forth no you get an hourglass I love it
that's you know that's just one of the
things that makes motionbuilder just
absolutely incredible for doing
animation now take a look at this of
course we're looking at this right now
in a drawing type style but if I come in
here is that not cool or what I'm
actually rotating around these guys I
can come in here and just pan them
around if I want to I can go and zoom
out or zoom in so it's just kind of come
over here and I know any 3d package can
move the camera around while you're
standing still but why don't we show
them what you know but you know I was
going to say sure yeah you can but you
know just the simple fact that it looks
like it's been drawn with a pillow I
know in the fewer I mean in the viewport
foremost a viewport a lot here guys just
because our general audience out there
is used to hearing the term view port
from other applications that we do vtm
zone
but we're used to saying it and so I
mean isn't that just absolutely that's
just just as beautiful as just so cool
so let's go ahead and come down here and
hit play and Zach was probably looking
at something like we can actually come
in here and rotate this around while we
maintain real-time feedback as it's
playing of course that's a little
disorientating there but that's pretty
cool all right so yeah you know I can
fight like that can you really oh yeah
you know what we need we need a motion
capture rig ourselves oh yeah it would
look pretty pathetic though would be
looking like you would never mind i
won't even say let me know just let it
i'm saying on your end it'll look pretty
good because i believe that you can do
some pretty cool moves but now i know
what kind of moves i can do i can sit at
a computer and i can type and i just
don't know how well that's going to
translate into fighting material yeah
yeah let me script it I I'll take care
of it all right so anyway my getting my
fingers on the home row so we've we've
taken a look at just you know real
quickly talking about the ability for
this character animation stuff and
real-time feedback but you know we're
not limited to just that you know let's
go ahead and take a look at some
material type things again using just
some of the samples that they have it's
going to come down here and we'll open
up this cool little x-ray thing this is
pretty nifty here oh this is awesome so
here we go loading again so so let's
just talk about this motion capture
studio we're going to be building or
what do you think out back I don't know
need a little bit more but hey here we
go check this out guys pretty neat a
very nice right now but when you first
pull this up it's like so until you
start to rotate around oh wow tumble
your view then you're like wait a minute
now that that's not fair what's going on
here if I come in here let's select this
little x-ray thing right here and let's
move this around and huh is that not
cool or what do we have some animation
on well absolutely let's go ahead and
move this over is that not just too cool
I mean there's just some really neat
things that we can do with here and you
start working with shaders and and
excuse me of lights and materials and we
come down here right now let's say the
shaders and come down here to light a
shader number to start adjusting some of
our transparency that we can control
this of course all real time I mean
there is no wait for it to render or
wait for the effect to occur me
just boom right there let's go ahead and
switch up here this is pretty neat too
if I was going to go ahead and kind of
move over to the side watch this
transparency let's take the poor guy's
body and so we're actually cutting
through that geometry and see this
pretty neat stuff so so that's pretty
cool so you can see that we can do some
neat effects type things when working
with shaders but you know what we've got
other stuff that we can do that's also
pretty cool MotionBuilder focuses quite
a bit that says it over here looking
looking looking we're gonna have to
actually go into open on this one here
so let's see there we go and it's going
to open this up now we will save that
motionbuilder also works fantastic with
motion capture and we're not talking
about just motion capture rigs that may
cost anywhere upwards a hundred thousand
dollars or more we're talking about you
can simply take your keyboard or your
mouse and rig them up with motionbuilder
as input devices for controlling stuff
that's not cool that is awesome and and
you know what it's even more awesome
than that we can also rig up your
microphone if you will and use that for
actually controlling a character talking
on the screen so you can talk into your
mic and my character will actually speak
you god I'm saying that guy so awesome
in fact we will be taking a look in the
next vtm or two will actually take a
look at how we could set that up killer
so let's go and take a look at what this
guy does right now if I want I can just
hit the one key on my keyboard and check
this out because as I move my mouse left
and right let's go ahead and turn over
to the right here now as I push my mouse
forward we're picking up some speed so
I'm doing a little bit of motion capture
here and now i'm going to start pulling
my mouse down you'll notice we're
slowing down and now i can pull it back
and we're going in reverse it's just too
cool I mean ed is off that's absolutely
cool so I'll go ahead press the one key
again and blue it's now stopped okay
it's like we just turned our gas off
basically so let's go ahead and take a
look at another one real quick I'm just
getting too carried away with all these
samples but I mean they're just so cool
let's go ahead and come down here and I
notice you could even use a joystick as
a motion capture absolutely absolutely
so let's go ahead and open up this one
here I got one of those big old 40
button flight sticks now they can get
some serious motion check this out oh
wow little no games now you know I'm
actually playing that right now yes is
not a keyframe animation well
there's uh there's some interesting
things set up here to actually pull this
off and as we see I completely stink
while talking and trying to play an old
game of space invaders if you will but
let's take a look at literally do suck
yeah so if I was to let's eat man let's
see if I come in here and I can actually
select look at that Wow selecting
objects Wow and you were actually
selecting the spear on that thing check
that out huh oh no that's just mean I
mean this is actually it is an actual 3d
scene this is not a little game that
they've put in here now there's quite a
bit going on in this to actually make it
all work and we'll be taking a look at
some of the connections and
relationships to do stuff like this a
little bit later on I just wanted to to
kind of give you a little bit of an idea
so let's go ahead and come in here and
open up one more thing real quick and
this is kind of what we're going to be
focusing on in this specific vtm so
let's go ahead and open this up now the
skinning job on this is nothing
fantastic it was something I threw
together in five minutes or so and i'll
be throwing it again together a little
bit later on in this vtm well we're
actually going to be working over in
Maya for a few minutes now this takes
just a second to actually pull in so we
got to kind of hang tight for just a
second but this is a character that was
modeled back over in Maya the bones were
joint if you will for in Maya were laid
out inside of Maya the character was
smooth skinned in Maya and now we've
brought them into MotionBuilder and at
this point if I was to come in here and
select any of the joints there we go and
we'll go ahead and rotate you can see
that I can rotate we've already got some
basic FK going on exactly but now let's
say that I want to put a ring on this
guy i'm going to hit you to undo i want
to put a control rig so that i can use a
combination of FK and ik yeah what
exactly do you even buy a control rig
we're going to actually talk a little
bit more about control rigs a little bit
later on but just real quickly i'll say
this you know when you're working over
in maya or 3ds max and you put in your
ik it's not you know it's not just as
simple as that if you're going to set up
a very intuitive to control character
for animation I got you okay so you'll
go in there and you'll use dummies or
you'll use locators and you'll rig them
up through constraints and all you'll
set up custom attributes and sliders
just
make it easy for an animator to actually
animate the character takes a lot of
time to set that out so shall I show you
how easy it is to do instead of
MotionBuilder let's see it alright now
you might want to prepare yourself
because this may just may make your
heart stop do we have enough time to
hook all this up well let's see let's
find out first thing I want to do is I'm
gonna come up here to my layout I'm
going to switch it over to editing it's
just kind of the way I prefer to work
when I say it's kind of pausing on us
there we go this is the way I kind of
prefer to work right here when doing
certain things we'll talk more about
different ways of working set of
MotionBuilder a little bit later on but
let's go ahead and come over here to our
asset browser and I'm going to switch
over the way I see this let's come down
here to templates and characters and I'm
just going to take this thing called a
character and simply click and drag it
up over my guy let go and tell it to
characterize drag and drop systems
that's very nice I'll I guess what
that's what MotionBuilder is it's all
drag and drop everything we so now let's
go ahead and take this I'm gonna come
over here and expand characters
double-click on character down here come
over here to character definition and
he's already been characterized in a
control rig has already been created so
I all I need to do just to prove this
I'm going to change his input type right
now to character input now let me say
this real quick this is an introduction
so all these things i'm clicking on and
doing by no way am i expecting you at
the moment to be memorizing the things
i'm doing and be able to reproduce this
we're going to break everything down
throughout several VT ms for you guys in
fact by the end of this vtm you're gonna
be able to do all this stuff just with
no problem at all but you know I've now
got this guy set to a control rig input
I'm gonna go ahead and activate it look
at all the little pretty colors we get
up there we'll talk about some of those
things a little bit later on go ahead
and come over here to our character
controls dialogue and let's select one
of these guys and I'll go ahead and hit
T now watch this huh Wow moving old
hello hang around it stuck some simple
like a in there yeah well simple or not
so so how how's that that rock we have
we have some very unique things that we
can do with this control we rigged with
our character and we'll be talking about
those things a little bit later on and
how you can actually control what it
does and
doesn't do which is pretty neat but to
set up a rig like this inside of Maya or
max would take a significant amount of
time I mean there's a lot of a lot of
control going on right here check him
out very cool huh now of course this is
all real time again our viewers are not
going to be able to see this because of
the the ten frames per second playback
but it is definitely very very beautiful
to get their hands on a copy of motion
bill absolutely let's go ahead and come
up here let's just switch over while we
could drag this around for moving it I'm
just going to switch over to say grab
wrote a and he'll just kind of look
around see what's going on up there
how's it going on that is very nice so
you know we've just kind of taken a look
so far at just what motionbuilder is its
primary focus is real-time animation and
character animations what it's all about
okay and we've talked a little bit about
its capabilities with motion capture
really shines in that department and we
of course have the ability to put lights
in the scene material shaders textures
as a ton of different things audio a lot
of things we can do with animation bring
all these things together and out put
them into files or take that data back
over into other applications and utilize
it there as well we've seen some really
good examples of the really high tech
the relations you can make in between
system absolutely with a little space
invaders type game yang there as well so
I think this is going to serve as a
pretty good introduction to
motionbuilder and then from here let's
go ahead and start breaking it down and
start getting into all the pieces and by
the end of this vtm I believe our
viewers are going to have a pretty good
understanding of what this is all about
I'm looking forward to it all right so
thanks guys