You can choose to import
the entire contents of scenes saved in MotionBuilder, or only those
elements whose names match elements in your 3ds Max scene.
The animation you import
from MotionBuilder is fully editable in 3ds Max.
Import the animated character to 3ds Max:
- Start 3ds Max.
On the Quick Access toolbar, click Open File. If the scene from
the Creating Naming Templates lesson is still open, do not save
- Open the scene file called Pepe_biped-PEPE.max.
- On the main toolbar, click
Select By Name.
The skeleton bones have
the same PEPE prefix as the character you exported
- Close the dialog. From the
Application menu, choose Import.
- On the Select File To Import dialog,
navigate to the MotionBuilder Files folder and open Pepe_biped_plotted.fbx.
- On the FBX Import dialog, scroll down
to the Include rollout.
The File Content list
displays Add And Update Scene Elements by default. If left as is,
this setting would import not only the Pepe character, but the yellow
reference skeleton as well.
- From the File Content list, choose Update
This option updates only
the scene elements in 3ds Max that share the same name as those
in the imported file. No new elements are imported. If you were
importing animation from MotionBuilder to a new 3ds Max scene,
you would instead choose the Add To Scene option.
- Click OK, then OK again to clear the
message informing you that the rotation limits of the characters
in MotionBuilder and 3ds Max differ.
This disparity will not
affect the animation.
- Scrub the timeline to see how the MotionBuilder
animation has been baked into the Pepe character bones.
Fine-tune the animation in 3ds Max:
- Go to frame 0 and zoom in and rotate
around Pepe’s hands.
Character fingers are
too close to the thighs
- Expand the Motion Panel
> Layers rollout and click Create Layer to create a new layer
- On the main toolbar, click
Select By Name and select the PEPE R Hand bone.
- Right-click in the viewport, and from
the quad menu, choose Move.
- Drag the hand away from Pepe’s body on
its X and Z axis.
- Expand the Key Info rollout and click
- Expand the Track Selection rollout and
click Opposite to select Pepe’s right hand.
- Repeat steps 5 and 6, then replay the
animation to see the result of your edits.
In this series of lessons,
you took a biped skeleton with a mesh called Pepe and exported it
to MotionBuilder as an FBX file. There, you characterized the biped
bones using templates and scripts, and animated the Pepe skeleton
by plotting it to another skeleton whose own movements were derived
from motion capture. Then you baked the animation back to Pepe’s
control rig, made a few adjustments so that the motion better fit
his cartoon-like dimensions, and baked the animation back into Pepe’s
skeleton for export to 3ds Max. Finally, you fine-tuned Pepe’s
body motion using the fully-preserved Biped edit functionality.