MB_ Tutorial Part 18: Blending Takes Video Lecture | A Complete Course: Motion Builder - Professional Skills

okay in this lesson right here what
we're going to do is take a look at how
we can take two takes and blend them so
that we basically go from one take
nicely over to the other taken it looks
like one piece of animation okay also
going to talk about how we can then
process our final result into a new take
okay now what I'm going to use as my
example will be the starting of the
little buzz standing there looking
around and running and tumbling all that
animation you saw earlier i'm going to
show you how he set up the beginning of
it and then with that you guys can go
off and finish the entire thing if you
want it's no reason for us to continue
doing it over and over and over because
it could becomes quite repetitive at
that point right so let's go ahead and
get ourselves set up by bringing in some
animation so I'm just going to go in
come over here to the asset browser and
up underneath motions I'm going to come
down here to superhero and I am looking
for look around so H look around looking
looking looking there it is going to go
ahead click drag and import all takes so
here it comes all right very good now
I'm going to come over here and find a
stand to run so h stand to run click
drag over here and let's import come
down the options and I don't want any
models producer cameras or camera
switcher and I'm going to pin this
information so now my character has got
two different takes that I can work with
the look around take which if you
remember it's just this he's just
standing there and he looks around okay
rewind it and then the other take is
going to be from a standing position
into a run we wouldn't want to blend a
stand take into a run take I mean we
could but it would be a little bit more
difficult to make it look really fluent
really nice right it'd be really kind of
hard to simulate that weight shift right
before somebody goes into a run exactly
but if we bring a take in that already
has the person standing and naturally
transitioning into a run then we can
blend from the one take over into the
take where he's then going into the run
and then finally into a take where he is
running and you see how it kind of just
all four absolutely okay so now that
we've got some animation in the scene
let's go ahead and see what we need to
do to create this nice blend so I'll
come over here to motion blend and I
will simply zoom in of course I could do
this if I
from inside my schematic view but I'm
going to simply space right click on my
hips to grab my entire skeleton and then
I will alt left-click drag and drop down
here you can see we now have a ghost
that is just standing there at position
of take 0 0 1 i'm going to go ahead and
insert a second track as well okay
you'll notice by the way as i continue
adding more tracks all of these tracks
are going to be working with the same
model the same skeleton the same sensors
whatever maybe that you've got loaded in
here okay this make note of that another
thing that's worth mentioning is that
you can't do shapes and you can't do
motion targets in here all right just
thought I'd throw that in there real
quick or morph targets excuse me so
let's now go ahead and set our first
track here to be just you know looking
around second track to be stand to a run
and so now we can go ahead and come over
here and reset all cuts so that we can
start messing with this and let's go and
zoom out a little bit there we go and
what we've got at the moment is that ok
so I need to create an overlapping
section right here so that I can blend
from the one track into the other track
right because right now is just playing
them both at the same time you got it so
maybe hold ctrl and kind of zoom in a
little bit there if I wanted to I could
just come over here and click and give
myself a lot more room to work with
they'll be a little bit easier for you
guys to see very nice alright so I could
just simply come in here right now and
click and start dragging this guy over
but before I do that well actually you
know what let's just go ahead and offset
his time just somewhere out over here
and let's find where I want to come in
and so we're going to need a lot more
time over here so let's go with I don't
know about 350 frames may be so we're
just going to come over here i'm looking
at my character right now the one that's
all in green and so he's going to come
all right so he looks up a little bit
and then he starts to or he starts to
bobble back down so I'm looking for a
point in which I won't the transition to
actually occur so we're over here in
this area so what I want to do is grab
this guy again I'm going to hold T and
again as I'm dragging it by holding T
you'll notice over here that my time
offset number is updating and I can just
simply
rag it on back over so so basically
you're looking for a spot where the the
two of the two takes are going to have a
pose that you can easily blend together
exactly so let's go with about 250 two
or so okay so this is what we've got now
at the moment so we're going to blend at
this point from right here all the way
back over to the other ghost back there
now I don't want the ax blending to
occur over this length of time so I
could come up here and adjust my cuts
right here so we take my ending cut and
let's adjust it to about I don't know
274 okay worked pretty good for me
earlier it's just a matter of coming in
there and tweaking a few times and
honestly it just takes no more than a
couple of tries and you've got it
dead-on right this is so into it if it
works really well okay of course we've
got a pretty big problem happening right
now we've got a large difference if you
will in location between our two ghosts
and as we're blending from one goes to
the other goes well we get this big
sliding action right there so what I
want to do is introduce you guys to
stabilization objects what we can do is
we can use a stabilization object and
then match the pivot of this ghost back
here to the stabilization object which
will be some part of this character
right here and basically what's going to
happen is then my ghost right here is
going to snap up to this ghost okay now
I could go in there and move them by
hand and that's something that Zacks
going to be showing you a little bit
later when we start working with poses
but for this case right here
stabilization objects work fantastic so
what I'm going to do is just go ahead
and move this over a little bit control
just to open it up so that I can see my
blend area a little bit bigger now first
thing I need to do is grab a
stabilization object to do this I'm
going to be going in the schematic view
to select I could select it in here but
I want to make sure that I've got
exactly what I won't and drag it over
into here now in doing this the first
thing you need to do is make sure that
your global timeline indicator is inside
the blend area right here if it is not
it can get you in trouble because then
as opposed to having the entire
character in here select it from hips on
down with the rest of hierarchy you may
select just let's say the foot itself
and then accidentally drag the foot down
here without your timeline over the
blend
area then what happened is you just set
your foot in here and you're going to
end up with some really interesting
incorrect things let's just leave it at
that all right so let's go ahead and
come up here i'm going to pick on the
left foot how do you know what object to
use as a stabilization object well it's
quite simple select something that comes
to rest for a frame or to a couple of
frames like a foot that just stepped
down on the ground as it holds the
weight as the other foot then shifts or
something like that that'll work really
well as the stabilization object I've
used the hip a few times I've used
different parts it's just all depends on
what you're looking for but defeat
that's a good place to start with for
those of you that are learning how to do
this for the first time yeah I hate to
use the word but you're looking for
something that's relatively stable
exactly the system so let's say right
here my character is nice and still
character back here is really still so
with my timeline right there timeline
indicator I'll now just come up here to
view switch over to schematic and hit a
to frame everything up now let's go
ahead and space to deselect and now what
I want to do is simply come in and zoom
in here so let's go ahead and come over
and we're going to pick on the right
foot so what I'm going to do is simply
space left click on the right foot right
there and watch this click alt or hold
all not click it with your finger and
then left-click drag and drop and you'll
know everything went right if you see
the object that you intend it to be your
stabilization object appear inside your
blend area right here that's cool if it
did not appear in here check to make
sure that your timeline indicator is in
the blend area and also go ahead and
reselect your hip and the rest of the
branch and drag it back in because I can
guarantee you you just mess something up
okay so with that in place now what I
want to do is go ahead and come back
over here and switch back over to my
perspective view and I've already got my
timeline where I want to match the pivot
I want this guy to match up to the pivot
of the stabilization object that I'm
using so watch this it's just a matter
of coming over here to blend and click
match pivot pink oh wow check it out
look at that now of course we're going
to have the balloon that's going to
occur between these two different guys
these two different tracks but now of
course our ghosts are a lot nicer so
we're going to end up with something
that's going to look a whole lot down
Wow okay that is awesome but now we get
something that's a lot cleaner if we
and let's just remove our ghosts and
let's go ahead and come back over here
and perhaps it's like the entire guy
just to light them up so it's easier to
see right now our animation is going to
look choppy on playback but it's going
to look like well playback for you guys
that is right for us it looks pretty
good after death so he's looking back
nice and look like he's going to kind of
take a breath and lean in and away he
goes Wow okay and of course we could
come in and we could tweak that if we
want to we could tweak the amount of
overlapping time right here we also when
something doesn't match up let's say
that you've got one clip in the
characters going at one speed and then
you got another clip that matches really
well but he's going a little bit faster
or a little bit slower you can simply
come over here and scale it up or scale
it down to fix that start compensating
for it works really well very nice and
believe it or not Zach that's not you
know not trying to make something that
seems like it would be a very long
lesson short but that's pretty much all
we're looking for right that's it okay
so with that a quick recap all I did in
this particular case well there is one
more thing I do want to show when a show
processing but all I did is I pulled in
two tracks I set my character in here
and then I went in and set one take set
my other take overlap them figured out
exactly where I wanted the blending to
occur figured out the best place where I
could match pivots off of a
stabilization object I dragged my right
foot as the stabilization object into my
blend area which as I've already
mentioned before I can double click and
I can come in here and start working
with this animation curve just like any
other function curve that you can work
with you can adjust tangents etc etc and
get some really interesting things and
then again that's just for further
tweaking the look of this run that's all
alright and then basically after talking
about all that that's pretty much it so
now what I want to do is just process
this guy over and tall an all-new take
so I'm just going to come up here and
set this guy to take 001 so I don't
accidentally mess anything up and I'm
just going to come down here and click
process and will process the whole thing
out so it's processing and all is good
and so that's on take 002 so let's just
go ahead now and switch back over here
and come down to take 002 and i'll
double click on it and when we can just
call this my
ooh take okay sounds good good so we're
now looking at my new take we can rewind
it there is he's just standing there
again let me just go ahead and come in
here and do the same thing so I like
this guy up for you and I'll come over
here and hit w just too excuse me t to
make things a little bit easier so
rewind play so standing there looking
around and then it's going to take a
little bit of the the breath lean
forward and go into the run that is
awesome and just to make sure that I
understood what we did we took two takes
we blended them together to end you know
kind of lined everything up use a
stabilization object to make sure that
pivots were great and that they actually
blended together nice and clean right
then we made that into a new take and
now if we want we can go ahead and take
that and start blending it into even
more animation yep I could if I wanted
to come over here and add a brand new
edit and if we wanted to we could call
this edit let's say run run start to run
so that we've gotta run start right here
then we could go to a full run we could
come back up here to this one we could
rename this edit I don't know we could
call it stand to run make sense yeah and
then back down here on this edit watch
this this is as simple as coming in here
and bringing in my new take I mean you
know that's really all it is that we've
got to deal with make sense oh yeah
perfect sense okay now right now you got
to be careful but that set watches this
is interesting there is no models just I
don't want to get too far ahead and just
assume people realize what's going on
here make sure that I bring this guy in
but with this take already selected
watch this I'll just come up here I'll
grab them alt left-click drag drop look
at that I already have my cut your cuts
already set up you don't even have to
reset it you got it so that's something
that's really nice without having to
adjust with the take already set up
right right so he set up now I can just
come in here I can insert a new guy a
new track that is and then I could
simply come back over here come back up
here to generic motion maybe and start
looking through find a run drag a run
and import and let's just come down here
to options and I don't want any models
or any of that good stuff we'll just
append it bring the animation in it's
going to add it as a new take there it
is and then with this guy down here I
can say all right I really want you to
be run and then at that point we turn
our two ghosts back on so we can see
what we're dealing with
and then it's just really a matter of
coming in and deciding how you want the
blending to occur just doing the same
thing over again say no what we just did
you got it so it's just a matter of
coming in here of course now I may want
to come down here to this want to go
ahead and reset my cut there you go now
I can click hold T drag it on over and
then it's just a matter of lining things
up stabilization object match pivot and
making sure that the blend transitions
nicely you know blows my mind too
because the first time you discussed
this with me so you know we're going to
take several different clips of
animation we're going to make them look
like one clip I was expecting something
that was going to give me a headache
something's going to take forever to
understand but this is just almost too
easy it is extremely easy and I
recommend everybody out there spend a
little bit little bit of time and get
comfortable with doing it because it's a
very powerful way of generating a lot of
animation quickly for your scenes all
right all right so so with that that's
going to conclude this section right
here so thanks everyone