MB Tutorial Part 19: Blending Poses Video Lecture | A Complete Course: Motion Builder - Professional Skills

alright so here we are at the very last
lesson in VT m number two from
MotionBuilder and what we're going to do
is we're going to let good old Zach
drive in this lesson what I want them to
do is show you guys how we can use poses
inside of motion blend help doing this
poses can be extremely powerful in
creating Psychlo animation as a matter
of fact I'm going to have Zach do is
bring in this walk it's not a walk cycle
instead it's a character that's just
kind of walking around with a bunch of
turns which is fantastic because we can
actually chop that up into a bunch of
takes and use them all over the place
but what I want Zach to do is use the
walk and pose this to create a Psychlo
bowl take for us that we can then bring
back into a new edit inside of motion
blend and then chain these guys together
so the character just walks off in a
straight line okay so Zach with that go
ahead and drag that walk over there into
the viewer and show everybody what we're
going to start out with okay well here's
the walk clip we're going to use and
when it comes in i'll just kind of pan
the view port around here and we'll have
a look at it see what's going on just
hit play on them just so you guys can
see what we're starting out with and he
just kind of turns and walks around and
look kind of what buzz looks like when
he's getting ready for a vtm when he's
in the middle of the VT m and when he's
at the end of the VT m I'm just kind of
walking around lost actually when it's
over there's a little bit more of a
stagger but we won't get into oh yeah so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
start at the end and what we're trying
to do with this lesson is take maybe the
first couple of steps of this and turn
it into something that we can cycle over
and over so that we can make him walk
just keep on walking in a straight line
very good so to do this we're going to
be doing I'll just kind of go over real
lightly verbally is we're going to take
a pose we're going to lead that we're
going to blend that into our cut and
then from our cut blend it into another
pose that will then be cycle so we need
to stack these back by using these poses
like that we can make sure that we've
got the character in a very specific
situation or position if you will so
that then when we blend into the next if
we were to do another take of the same
take again it would just be nice they
were they can just tile right one right
after another and everything would be
were to go in here and do it by eye
right now just kind of set up a cut of
one walk cycle you're going to be
eyeballing it there's no guarantee that
the arms are in the same place because
this motion capture right here it's got
the character walking all over the place
so you end up with a very rough looking
exactly you know if you if you've ever
paid attention to the way you're walking
you know your arms don't you swing
uniformly that was kind of go in a
different position exactly so this guy
is really not in a position right now to
be set up and quickly used as a mini
take that will be cycle alright so just
like we've done in the past couple of
lessons i'm just going to drag him down
into the track we'll set our track up
here for the walked the walk take that
we already imported in here and i'll
reset my cut and you can just kind of
see what we've got here pretty much you
know same thing we've seen in all these
other lessons let me reset my timeline
back here so we can see what's going on
now what I want out of this is to just
pull maybe the first couple of steps out
of here what I need basically is for him
to go from a pose that looks right here
at the beginning to a very similar pose
that we can keep cycling over and over a
very similar move in fact almost the
exact same you got it except we're going
to be tricky as opposed to use the exact
same posed at the beginning at the end
which we could you're going to do a
little something special for us all
right don't jump ahead too far oh no all
right so what we need to do to do this
is we need two more poses and what if
we're going to have a start posing an
end pose for this we need to have them
on separate tracks let's go ahead and
throw in two more tracks first thing I'm
going to do and let me let me just throw
in real quick it's not need two more
poses we need two poses to start with
exactly we need a start pose and to stop
boat okay there you go there you go so
uh what what I'm going to do here is I'm
going to take record my first pose I'm
gonna record it at frame one and you
guys will see why as we go along here
i'm going to select my that the track
here that I want to record the pose at
okay and we'll just click the insert
button now what that did is that
recorded that pose on that track at this
particular frame and we also see the
letter A down there as well slowly so
that means we've recorded the first pose
it acted labels these for you as soon as
you record it the first one becomes a
the second becomes be the next one
becomes D or no but anyway just moving
right along pours
okay I never learned to read okay so uh
what I'm going to do now is record my
second post you really want to mess with
them you could say if you then went in
there and delete it out pose a B becomes
a CV comes being oh my head hurts stop
it it's like pulling something out of a
stack and the stack falls down right the
stack will then go through and rename
itself you got it so what I'm going to
do now is go back to frame 0 and now i'm
going to record another pose here in my
next track and what he did here is
really tricky notice this be posed is
going to be our ending it's what we're
going to blend out of and what he did is
he actually backed up to frame 0 and
recorded it there where the first pose
was recorded in there at frame 1 so
what's going to happen is then when we
put these things together think about it
we're going from the frame prior to the
frame to the next frame right okay so
it's going to be a nice seamless a very
smooth blend so now really you know a
lot of the hard work is over but now we
just kind of need to eyeball and figure
out where we need these poses to be so
we need not so much the poses but the
cut itself exactly I should really be a
little more clear when I could say that
but yeah I want them to realize what
we've done to do now is the cut exactly
we're gonna have to kind of reshape this
cut and only take the part of it that we
need leave the rest of it off exactly
because he's wandering all over the
floor right we don't need this whole
thing so he's gonna take a one step and
then a second step and right about here
he's pretty much you know he's very
close to this initial pose it looks
great yeah so let's go ahead and use
this you know why not so what I'm going
to do is take this second pose that I
created I'm gonna hit this teardrop
button and what that's going to do is
that's going to select the root of my
ghost back here my purple ghost as you
can see by the the purple icon here I'm
gonna translate him forward heel ghost
root selector yeah ghost root selected
us I'll remember that so he's now
matching his ghost up from the second
pose pose be so he's lining right unless
I'm doing it in both axes just making
sure everything's lining up as best I
can and you know it's your note you'll
notice things aren't dead on like his
arms aren't swinging perfectly but this
is where the the pose blend really
starts to shine because it's going to
allow us to actually blend right
to these poses we have the ability to
blend from a pose into the clip and
control over how much time and then out
of the cut back into the pose rinding
vibe so what I need to do now is take
this cut and get rid of all this other
information we don't really need i'm
going to do that just by grabbing our
handle here and just dragging it in and
you know we went to frame 37 here so
just to keep things a little more
accurate i'm just going to double click
here enter frame 37 and there you go
we're all set very nice so let me scale
in here cuz right now everything's all
shrunk down it's really hard to see what
we're doing move things in scale them up
that's nice that'll work for us so now
what we need to do is set this up to
where we're blending from our start pose
which will be posed a into our cut and
then from our cut into our stop pose
which will be posed be very nice let's
go ahead and set that up all right I'm
going to go ahead and hit my start pose
button now what these do I've gotta
start pose button and a stop post button
what these guys do is they cycle through
all the poses you have here so it's not
like you select a pose and then hit
start pose what you do is you hit the
button over and over until you get the
one you want look down there in the
result track that's where you see what
poses being selected so you see the a
right now that's very employed and keep
in mind too that what it's going to be
what it's actually doing is its setting
up that start posed at the beginning of
your result track and it's going to
insert your stop pose at the end of the
result track so what I need to do is hit
stop pose one more time and it'll go
down the list to pose be and really a
lot of the hard stuff is done so let's
go ahead and just take a second test
this out and let me go ahead and shrink
my timeline down I don't really need six
hundred frames on this thing Oh string
it down to about there that should maybe
just a little more than 35 that should
work and you'll notice as we drag we go
from the orange pose which is actually
recorded at frame one and then write
about halfway through we actually blend
into the blue ghost which is the cut
itself and then once we get past that we
start blending from the blue ghost into
the purple ghost which is our stop pose
very nice
but what I want to do just to kind of
keep things flowing really smoothly is
we can select these start and stop poses
okay and we can change the way they're
they're blended into kind of like
changing their interpolation right now I
want to show something else yours when
you clicked on this up here that you got
the how much time it's going to take to
blend from the cutout right another a
shortcut or a little tip that you can do
is you can also just come down here and
click on the letter as well absolutely
so we'll go ahead and we'll start with
Posey you know just to keep things
really nice and uniform I'm going to
take the blending at poze and I want to
make it blend all the way to the point
where it gets to pose be and this may
sound really strange but we have found
that we end up with better looking
cycles when we take the entire time to
blend from the cut or excuse me from the
pose into the cut and now when we
overlap everything like absolutely so
what we're going to do now is go into
post be and we're going to stretch that
all the way back to pose a so really in
a sense what we're doing is as soon as
we leave poze we're bought it we're
already starting to blend into pose be
I'll go start from the beginning we're
already starting to blend into pose be
and really what happens is directly at
the fifty percent mark that's when we
actually hit our cut and then boom we're
right into our stop pose and really
that's it the hard work is done okay
we're ready to process this out make it
into a take and then start cycling it so
I'm going to go in at the process button
process this out doesn't take very long
it's only a few frames and just to kind
of show it let's go ahead and we'll add
and edit over here we'll get a whole new
edit under our take selector here will
select take two which is our new take in
fact let me go over here to the
navigator real quick we'll double-click
this guy and let's rename him let's call
him walk cycle back under motion blend
we have the walk cycle take selected and
then you know it's just like more of
what you guys have seen over and over
throughout this lesson I'm going to
space bar right mouse on this guy I'm
going to alt drag him into the track and
there you go there's our little section
of our our cycle animation and let's
just find out how Psychlo well it is
absolutely so I'm going to zoom out a
little bit here now all I need to do is
insert let's go we'll insert this three
time
and then we've got the button down here
tile all cuts and ghosts click that and
all these are automatically tiled you
can see down here in our result track
that it's going directly from the first
one into the second one into the third
and so and hold ctrl and just kind of
zoom up on a little bit easier
absolutely a little bit better there you
go kind of makes it a little easier to
see and you can see how it's going
directly from one there's no blends and
one of the things I will go ahead and
add real quick that we have not talked
about in this vtm and that is we did
talk about if you take two clips and
overlap them that you get blending also
if you put space between two Clips you
just get pure interpolation interpolates
interpolating from the ending take of
one track over to the beginning take of
another track but in this case right
here we have no blending we have no
interpolation instead what we have is
we're just basically right at the end of
one is the start of the next one
absolutely and really that's why we bet
we've gone through all this work at the
beginning of this lesson so that we can
set these up so that they can just be
titled one right after the other and
form a smooth animation so I'm going to
go ahead just for starters and play this
with the ghosts in and you've seen
actually it's playing a little quick
because of the drop frame rate on the
vtm so let me just kind of dragged
through it so you guys will see it a
little better we're going from the first
pose and then we're going right into our
second one you'll see the blue one hand
off to the orange one the orange one
will hand off to our purple guntank let
me deselect to get that gimbal out of
our way or the the gizmo and then we're
handing off to the red one and to the
end of our animation now that looks
really cool looks really dandy but let
me go ahead we'll switch off all of our
ghosts here in our control window and
then we'll just play this very very nice
now we got a smooth struttin walk and we
can make this guy walk just as far as we
need to yep and then basically you can
turn around and use everything that
you've learned on this vtm right here
where you could then process this out
into a brand-new take you can put a time
more curve on it you can slow it down
speed it up you can bring it back into
motion blend you can then add other
takes in there you can come up with
something completely different this is
what I'm trying to push about this clip
art CD there's so many different
animation
they're available that should be
surprised you pretty much come up with
just about any animation that you can
absolutely you know things like motion
capture it's anybody's been on the
internet and looks for that kind of
stuff motion capture files are expensive
you guys have been provided with a real
nice variety of all kinds of stuff and
with the power of motionbuilder you can
really turn these into almost anything
you can think of absolutely well Zack
that is excellent that really made sense
to me okay so with that that's going to
wrap up this lesson right here so thanks
everyone