MB Tutorial Part 4: Working with Objects Video Lecture | A Complete Course: Motion Builder - Professional Skills

in this lesson right here what we're
going to do is take a look at working
with objects all right it's a very basic
lesson but you had a very important one
when you agree mr. Zack yeah I would
okay as you know MotionBuilder is not a
modeling application is it yeah I
noticed that MotionBuilder seems for the
most part to be geared only toward
animation exactly but we do have the
ability to add elements into our scene
and for me to pull off some of the
things that I'm interested in showing in
this lesson I'm going to need to add
some elements okay let's take a look at
how we can do this first of all let me
go ahead and point out the layout that
I'm working in right now this isn't you
know the editing layout so if any of you
guys out there are following along you
may want to make sure that you're set
over to that layout let's go ahead and
come down here and switch over to our
asset browser and then from inside here
I'm going to go ahead and expand
templates and then I'll come down and
click on elements from inside here
there's a bunch of different element
types that we can add into a scene such
as a camera a cube a light etc etc and
throughout the next few PTMs we'll be
doing we're going to be taking a look at
a lot of these things but for this
particular lesson right here what we're
going to do is just drag and drop a
plane in the scene drag and drop a cube
in the scene now go ahead and scale that
cube up now notice when you're dragging
and dropping these in they're actually
falling into the scene where you're
dropping them they're not just
automatically being created at the
origin very nice a and tax pointing that
out because some of you guys may be
coming from other applications where
you're used to creating something and it
does indeed put it at zero zero zero or
the origin of the world so now I've
created some very basic elements I'd
like to go ahead and start this off by
showing you how to select and deselect
inside of MotionBuilder this can be kind
of frustrating at first if you're not
exactly sure how to go about doing it
generally you could simply come in here
and double click okay so as you can see
as I double-click an object you can see
that it's selected because it is
highlighted green as this cube is right
here double click here this guy becomes
highlighted
you'll also notice down here in my scene
browser that as I double click on an
object that it selects that object down
here as well that's nice okay now double
clicking Zack that could become quite
tiresome after a while yeah and probably
where me huh yeah so we need to look for
another way we could go about doing this
if I hold the spacebar down and click on
something it will select
that object you'll notice that it'll
automatically deselect the object that
was selected previously so right now
I've got the cube selected if I hold
spacebar down and click on the plane my
cube has now been deselected so
basically we're getting a replacement
selection when we hold down the spacebar
exactly this is very convenient for just
coming in here if I want to deselect
just spacebar down and click nothing
selected click this guy I'm just
continuing holding spacebar down so
deselect select deselect slide very
quick right very nice now another thing
that we can do is a selection where we
start adding to if I hold the control
key down and then just do a single click
you'll notice I have both of these guys
now selected if I click on the plane
again it deselects it so it allows me to
toggle so I can come over here and
select this guy deselect this guy select
gets this guy here and I'm doing this
this entire time with the control key
down so that's pretty important to kind
of get a grasp on now another one and a
very favorite one of mine or one of my
favorites if you will let's go ahead and
spacebar click and that is going to be
holding the spacebar down and then you
can go ahead and drag out a marquee
selection and let go
and this will serve as a toggle meaning
that everything that's not select it
will become selected and vice versa if
it's already select will become
deselected very nice very convenient
exactly so right now let's go and
demonstrate that by simply let's go
ahead and just click on the center plane
right here so it's the only thing
selected so by holding spacebar down and
then marquee selecting around these
three objects what it's going to do is
toggle the selection so that my outer
cubes are now selected and my plane is
deselected sweet ok so easy enough so
with that's basically talking about
selecting and deselecting though there
is one more thing I want to point out
some of you may be thinking you know
well if I why did they even put the
double click in there if you could just
simply hold spacebar down and click now
you'll see as I go through these that
it's selecting again let me point this
out down here in the scene browser it's
actually selecting the object down here
but what I want to do is come down here
and actually create a real quick
hierarchy I want to take cube one and
make it become a child of cube so I'm
just going to left-click drag it up to
cube drop on it and say parent ok so now
you see cubes got a little plus out here
that I can expand and there's cube one
underneath so let's go ahead and close
that back up again I'll hold spacebar
I'll click my plane you see plane
selected hole
spacebar I'll click over here click over
here ah look at this so I click over
here it shows cube selected I click over
here and this is a very light gray now
I'm doing this with the spacebar down
because you know that's convenient it
doesn't where my index finger out right
but now watch this if I double click so
I'll double click on the on the plane
shows the plane selected i'll double
click over here on this cube it opens
the Navigator back up for us you got it
so there is a difference between
double-clicking on an object and just
holding spacebar and clicking on an
object so keep that in mind if you
actually need to have your scene browser
open up and actually show you that
object selected then double click on it
it's good to know ok so next thing I'd
like to do is go ahead and move on into
transforming objects just a real quick
easy look at how we can manipulate an
object around the scene as far as
transformations are concerned and for
any of you guys out there that may get
kind of baffled when I say the word
transformations I'm talking about moving
rotating or scaling instead of saying
moving I'm actually going to start
saying translating ok so to do this
first of all very very simple stuff
make sure your mouse is over your viewer
when you use these hotkeys I'm just
going to hit T and T is going to
activate my translate tool so that I can
now start moving this guy around the
scene you can see that that's exactly
what I'm doing I also get these what's
called translation arrows at RGB a red
one a green one and a blue one and
basically that matches x y&z you can see
that down over here as well so I can
simply click on one of these arrows and
drag and what that's going to do is lock
it in that particular axis so I can lock
this over here to Z and I can go up and
down and Y if I wanted to and just a
quick note to those of you who may be
coming from 3d studio max max is going
to be a Z up world when you bring your
pyrrha models into MotionBuilder you're
going to convert to a Y up world just
something to be aware of ok so a couple
other things let's go ahead and let's go
ahead and talk real quick even though as
I'm starting to switch between these I
want to go ahead and open up my
transforms window so there's my
transforms window and right now this is
you can see my move or translate rotate
and scale and right now that you can see
my translate tool is activated it's
highlighted right now ok so we saw that
T allowed us to
to translate our allows us to do
rotation and you can see right now the
rotate tool has been highlighted keys
are easy to remember and we get a series
of what are called rotation rings and we
can use these rotation rings to rotate
on a given axis so I can rotate around Y
I can rotate around X get the idea
oh yeah okay we also and of course
around Z as well you got a blue one out
here and you have a brown one back here
what the brown one will do is as I come
in here and I rotate around my screen
you'll see that the brown one the brown
ring is always facing right on with the
camera okay or with the viewer itself
this allows me to basically rotate
perpendicular to the camera okay
all right so let's go ahead and do the
last one I'll go ahead and hit s and
this will give me my scale tool and
basically with this I can come in here
and use my scaling handles to scale it
in a given axis okay
and again RGB X Y Z okay get the idea
very nice very easy all right and of
course I can click out in space and drag
and we'll talk more about that in just a
second so what I'm going to do now is
come up over here switch back over to
the move tool or translate tool and now
let's talk a little bit about what's
going on inside this transforms window
over here
first of all XY and Z we've got numbers
we can see exactly where this object is
I can click on any of these given axes
with the left mouse button and then drag
okay allow you can drag like directly to
a given number exactly
I can also double click and type in a
precise number if I'd like I want to
type in 20 or if I wanted to type in
let's double click again and say 10 okay
and let's do something like 30 there you
go the other way so now it's sitting
back up on top of the plane so you get
the idea
yes very nice very nice absolutely now
down at the bottom as I go through each
of these different transform modes
basically you've got a series of buttons
down here you'll see that with this
transform mode right here translate I've
got global local dragon XYZ we'll talk
about them in just a second so I come
over here to rotation now I've got
global local drag XYZ and an additive
and if I come down here to scale now
I've got uniform and I've got volume
that's been added to the mix
basically what we're looking at is are
we doing this transformation in global
space are we doing it in local in the
objects local space a quick example if I
wanted to come over here and rotate this
cube let's say we want to rotate it
around in the z axes then come back up
here to translation mode now take a look
at my translation arrows right now Y is
pointing up X is pointing left and right
that is pointing to and away from me
okay kind of rotate this around their
matching over here with the world
coordinates if I switch this into local
mode now you can see that it's local
coordinate space was basically rotated
when I did the rotation a second ago
with the object it's actually orienting
itself with how the object is rotated so
now I can actually move it along its y
axis from when it was created its y axis
of course was pointing straight up and
down now it's been rotated so almost at
a 45 degree angle and I can move this at
that 45 degree angle or I can move it
along X or I can move along set as well
okay cool all right so so that's global
and local now drag an x y&z this is
pretty cool right now if I it's in drag
mode so if I place my mouse anywhere in
the viewer left click and drag I can
drag this thing around freely like I'm
doing right now if I come over here and
click XY and Z now what's going to
happen is my mouse is going to turn into
left mouse button will basically
constrain it to X okay middle mouse
button will constrain it up and down to
Y and right mouse button will constrain
it to zet very cool I like that so
that's the difference between drag and x
y&z so let's go ahead and change that
back over and we'll just kind of move
this down a little bit so we don't lose
try all right let's go ahead and come
over here same things going on except
for you know right now with drag if we
click and drag out in the viewer
anywhere nothing's going to happen
we need to simply place it somewhere
inside of our rotation rings and now we
can drag it around freely like such okay
and again if I switch it over to X Y I
said what that's going to do is left
mouse button is going to be around X and
you can see that actually happening up
there on the rotation rings middle mouse
button right mouse button okay and
additive what additive is going to do
well let's take a look at this first
let's go back to one of the
look at our numbers up here let's go
ahead and do it in X we've got minus 41
right now so we're rotating rotating
rotating and you'll notice how our
number as we continue to go let's make
it let's make it actually go larger it
gets all the way up to a point then it
shrinks and it basically it's going it's
wrapping itself around in a circle it
doesn't continue going in one direction
we're dealing with on some point it
shifts over to a negative rotation
instead of just keep increasing
instead of creasing right and then
they'll just shift back around and go
back positive and it just stays in this
little loop right there okay so if we
need it to work with numbers that just
continue going going going as we
continue rotating it in a given axis
like like if I needed a 3,000 degree
rotation exactly I can just come over
here to add it if now watch what happens
is I let's go ahead and just go
basically this time we'll do it in Y so
it continues so why isn't it negative
288 we continue negative 300 negative
400 negative 500 the number just keeping
the number just keeps on climbing keeps
on climbing and you know you see I can
let go the middle mouse button then drag
again and it continues to climb but the
moment I turn at it it back off and it
excuse me let's go and come back over to
drag look at that it changes to negative
68 nice and slick okay so real quick
let's go ahead and jump down here to
scale real fast
same thing with local and excuse me
global and local right now unis take a
guess what unimate hmm
top my head I'd say it'd be a uniform
scale form scaling so let's just simply
click out here in space and that's
exactly what we're getting right now is
uniform scaling of course we don't have
to do uniform we could do non-uniform by
coming up here and dragging on one of
these given axes we could also go from
uniform over here to XYZ and what that's
going to do now is again left mouse
button is going to be x y&z you get you
know that one and then volume volume is
very handy let's go and switch over here
to volume and volume will allow me to do
is maintain my volume as I scale in a
given axis so right now if I was to
scale this thing down and said what's
going to happen is it's going to
increase in X and Y and that's what's
happening in it oh that's nice and if I
bring it back up it's going to start
decreasing okay so I'm maintaining the
volume of the object itself okay that's
cool I like that pretty cool so this is
just a quick look
our transformation modes how we can go
in there and translate rotate and scale
just don't forget as far as hotkeys are
concerned T will allow us to go in there
let's go ahead and yeah we'll leave it
like that so T allow us to do
translation mode R is going to give us
rotation mode and s is going to give us
our scale mode okay very easy to
remember yeah absolutely
so since we're talking about working
with objects how do you delete one of
these things if we need to delete it
that's pretty simple
I shall hit the Delete key and it says
delete the selected models yes and it's
gone all right you're not trying to be
too simple there I just wanted to get
that out of the scene right let's go
ahead and come back over here and select
this cube right there last thing I want
to talk about real quick is just going
to be cut copy and paste with an object
selected I can simply come up to edit
cut copy and paste only three that I'm
interested in the moment if I want to
cut it basically I'm going to get a
little dialogue that's going to pop up
and ask if I want to cut the model I'm
going to tell it okay so it's now been
cut I can then come back in and paste it
and there it is again I can also copy
let's go ahead and start using some
hotkeys now I'm going to do ctrl C to
copy it I'll go and hit T so that i
activate my translate mode again make
sure your mouse is inside the viewer
when you do this now I'm going to hit
control V and control V just did a paste
you can see down here that I just got a
new cube add it to my scene and we can
just go ahead and move this over to the
side so we go into another control V and
we get another one add it to the scene
as well I like that the commands and the
hotkeys are very similar to operating
systems yeah regular windows regular
windows copy cut and paste okay so this
is all I wanted to show for this given
lesson right here it's just basically
how you can get in there and start
selecting deselecting objects so they
don't feel lost trying to do that
because you know when you just simply
click on something it doesn't select it
nothing happen a lot of people may be
used to that from you know other
applications so you know we moved on
from there we started talking about the
different transform modes and we went in
so how we can grab translate rotate and
scale and then we talked a little bit
about local and global and drag in X Y &
Z and a few different ways that we can
use our transforms window over here and
then we just wrapped it up with a real
quick cut copy and paste alright so
that's going to wrap up this lesson
right here hope you guys got a lot out
of it thanks