Maya/Motionbuilder/GameEngine Workflow questions

[videl]

Hi

We want to use Motionbuilder for our game project to animate characters. As we don't have much experience with the motionbuilder workflow, i have some questions about it.

To export animations to our engine (based on the Ogre3d Engine) i think we need to have all the animations in one file to export them. Or maybe it is possible to export from several Maya files (one per animations). But at the beginning the easiest way is to export all animations from one Maya file.

I know how to exchange between Maya and Motionbuilder using the "Send To"-feature, but i still have some questions about the general workflow organization:

1) Is there something like referencing in Motionbuilder? I think it does make sense to create one motionbuilder (fbx) file for each animation (as there are multiple persons animating), so we need to reference our character rig, right? Just importing would be quite unclean if we decide to change the rig only a little bit... In Maya I would use referencing, but how can I do this in Motionbuilder?

2) Is it possible to create animation clips for the maya trax editor or something similar in motionbuilder? Because the animations all need to come together in one file it would be quite useful to just export the animations from motionbuilder for the character and not the skeleton and control rig.

Our workflow should be like this: Modelling/Texturing/Rigging in Maya --> Creating Control Rig in Motionbuilder --> Animating (animations stored in different files) --> Send To Maya (already one file or one per animation?)--> Bring all animations into one scene file --> Export to the engine

I hope you can help us

regards
videl

[Bellsey]

1) Motionbuilder doesn't have referencing though many people have often requested it. As Maya now as HumanIK and you can Characterise and setup in Maya before Sending the rig to Motionbuilder, you are kind referencing the rig into Motionbuilder from Maya. The Send To feature allow for updates to be send to and from.

2) Use Story Mode in Motionbuilder, its just better and has more functionality than what Trax does. Story allows you to blend clips together and then plot them to multiple takes in Motionbuilder.
Story is great because you can just drag in however many FBX clips that you like.
You can then batch export from Motionbuilder if you want to. You can also switch between takes in Motionbuilder and send that animation back to Maya if you want to.

You could always do all your hardcore blending and animating in Motionbuilder, export your clips and then retarget in Maya.

In terms of your workflow it could work like this: Modelling/Texturing/Rigging in Maya > Creating Control Rig in Maya > Send Skeleton rig and Control Rig to Motionbuilder > Animate in Mobu (animations stored in different takes) > Send To Maya or Batch export animations as FBX--> Bring all animations into Maya? --> Export to the engine

[videl]

1) The "send to" can work similar? Lets say i do the following: rig in maya -> send to mobu -> animate (mobu files seperated, one per animation). Now I change the rig in maya. Now I have to open up each Motionbuilder file and click the update button in maya?

2) So you recommend "collecting" all animations into one file with Mobu? I need all animations in one timeline for the exporter, i think doing that in Mobu is easier than importing the animations into single maya files, right?

Maybe it makes sense to collect all animations in one Mobu file right after they are done by the animator. Then it would be easier to update the rig.

[Bellsey]

Originally Posted by videl

1) The "send to" can work similar? Lets say i do the following: rig in maya -> send to mobu -> animate (mobu files seperated, one per animation). Now I change the rig in maya. Now I have to open up each Motionbuilder file and click the update button in maya?

Yes, you can do that.
As long as you have both apps open then you can send data to and from. Close either app and the connection is broken.
But if you re-open the Motionbuilder scene and then from Maya use the 'Update Current Scene' in the Send options then yes updates will be applied. The default is to the update the entire scene, but select something and it only try and send/update those elements.

However this will only work with Maya rigs that use HumanIK, as this is what Motionbuilder uses.
Conventional rigs created in Maya with the normal IK solvers wont work.

Originally Posted by videl

2) So you recommend "collecting" all animations into one file with Mobu? I need all animations in one timeline for the exporter, i think doing that in Mobu is easier than importing the animations into single maya files, right?

Maybe it makes sense to collect all animations in one Mobu file right after they are done by the animator. Then it would be easier to update the rig.

Its hard for me to recommend anything because pipelines can be different even in the same type of game.
You could put seperate animations on seperate takes in Motionbuilder but that might create some large Motionbuilder scene files.
It might be better to keep the animations as seperate FBX clips that you use between Maya and/or Motionbuilder.
So if I had 2 seperate animation clips that I wanted to blend together and create a third, I would keep the 2 clips as seperate FBX files, import them into Story, do the required work and then just export the newly created clip as a new FBX file. That way I'm kind working non-destructively

[videl]

However this will only work with Maya rigs that use HumanIK, as this is what Motionbuilder uses.
Conventional rigs created in Maya with the normal IK solvers wont work.

Sure, but I think the human IK system is quite good so we will take advantage of its features and not use the normal IK solvers (at least for humans)

You could put seperate animations on seperate takes in Motionbuilder but that might create some large Motionbuilder scene files.
It might be better to keep the animations as seperate FBX clips that you use between Maya and/or Motionbuilder.

We will store the animations in seperate files anyway, because then we can easily work at multiple animations at the same time.
As far as I know now, it makes sense to import all the animations in one fbx file and then send all animations to maya from one mobu file. So we can just hit the export button in maya and don't have to worry about transferring animations across different maya files.

Will be some testing for sure to establish the workflow. We are all learning/hobby artists, so none of us has experience with such a pipeline