Attached Link: http://www.3dbuzz.com

MotionBuilder is professional character animation tool. More info and videos at http://www.kaydara.com/. I already ordered it, so I'll let you guys know what I think after I've worked with it for a while. -mark

does it work with poser files ? i read the pages but it really didn't say, said the typical, Maya, LW etc. This looks very interesting

You can import obj or 3ds files for rigging. I'll post what I find out when it arrives here (hopefully soon). -Mark

wow, that's a great deal, after watching the demo's, it looks like a really great tool. let me know what you think, mark. evo

also, I'm wondering if this is a limited time offer.... it looks great, but, I'd like to wait till after the holidays... ;) evo

I ordered mine yesterday. I know the quicktime movies made it seem too easy but...you never really know. Plus. I am using my holiday cash for this one. Let you all know when i get it and start playing around with it. Cheers

I do know that 3Dbuzz offers several tutorials on it...and this tool seems ideal, especially at THAT price, for animators without the luxury of mocap devices. Yeah, please do let us know what you think. evo

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/artistdownload.ez?Who=markdc&fileid=2375&key=774413

I've had it for a couple of days and so far I can say it seems to be an excellent package. The UI is nice and very easy to customize. The default layouts are for 1280x1024 so I created some smaller ones for me. I also use dual monitors and it works great with them (some apps don't). The F-Curves editor is very nice. Much easier to edit curves than other software I've used. I also like the multiple layers for for animation and the dope sheet. The thing I'm most interested in is Motion Blending (NLA). I haven't reached that tutorial yet, though. The view port previews are very fast as pointed out in the buzz videos, and it seems to have a nice asset management system. It also has "Mimic" like capabilites to drive animation with wav files(haven't tried this). You can also do mocap with your mouse, keyboard, joystick, etc. This is a deep package so it's going to take a while to learn. I'll post more as I learn more. -Mark

The link above is just a very short animation I did with MB following buzz's animation tut. -Mark

Attached Link: http://66.70.166.29/promo/testwalk.zip

Just curious mark, Do you create character animation in motion builder with default Rigs in motion builder and export to FBX Format?? Lightwave 3D imports and export to FBX format as does MAYA And MAXwould you care to see if you can open this walk cycle exported to kaydara FBX Format( Link)

Just curious mark, Do you create character animation in >motion builder with default Rigs in motion builder and >export to FBX Format?? That's possible, but so far I've just been exporting bvh files and using them in Poser with Vicky3. >Lightwave 3D imports and export to FBX format as does MAYA >And MAXwould you care to see if you can open this walk >cycle exported to kaydara FBX Format( Link) It opens and plays the animation, but to use that rig animate it MB you would have to match MB's joint names in LW. You can also match them up manually in MB with about 5 mins of work. -Mark

Right on, this looks great, I can't wait till I have the money for this...hehe, right now all my money is going towards my new system (Dual Athlon MP 2400). A real screamer, but it sure does burn holes in my pockets putting it together. I'm working on a big animation right now in Poser, but I'm not having fun with Poser's animation wierdness... evo

I just built a dual MP200 about 2 months ago. It's nice. Very stable and absolutely no problems with heat. I bought a very nice case with good airflow and a 420W pow supply (~$150). I'm using one of the tyan boards. One note the MP boards require registered memory which is a bit more expensive. -Mark

Yeah, I'm hoping I didn't mess anything up...this is the first system I've built...so I hope it runs, hehe. I had a hard time putting the heatsinks in, so I hope I didn't hurt the processers there. I also added some thermal compound, but I think I may have put on a little too much. (not gobs or anything) I'll let you know...all the rest of the components should arrive over the next week or so. Also, when the new system is built (if it runs fine) I'll render my latest animation work (also the first big one I've attempted) on it and post the link in this forum. Ciao! evo

Yeah !!!! I got my Motion Builder today, thanks for the tip marcdc

Hi guys, Got the PLE of Motion Builder today and am a tad overwhelmed. Just how the heck do I move my cameras around? What tutorials do you recommend I start with? Can I import my Poser figures if I export them as 3ds, or other formats? ANy help will be appreciated. Best, JG

check out the motion builder VTMs at 3dbuzz in the downloads section. a few hours of tutorials that should get you started.

There are also about 20 pdf tutorials with files on the kaydara.com site. >Can I import my Poser figures if I export them as 3ds, or >other formats? Yes but you will need to rig them. Kaydara has promised a tutorial on how to do this because it's not convered in the manual. They expect that people would rig in lw, maya, or max and then bring the rigged model into mb (I'm not happy about that). You can import the hierachy from a bvh file, use it as a rig, and export the bvh. but this has it's problems too.

Since I've been using this for little while, I wanted to point out a couple of problems that I've noticed with this app. One is Undo: It doesn't work consistentantly and is unavailable for some functions where it should be available. For example editing function curves. One of the reasons I don't like animating in Poser is because of it's limited Undo. I thought a pro app would have an extensive Undo capability. Also, the app has no built in scripting and the SDK requires an additional fee. This of course makes the app very inflexible. They've promised an update for the app soon. Hopefully these issues will be addressed because there is alot to like about this app. -Mark

This application Sound's alot to melike Lifeforms 3.9 in that I Take a generic Lifeforms figure apply motion to him/her such as walk cycles or rotoscope to imported footage.walks on paths, walks uphill /downhill, and backwardswalks i can mix and blend motion from diffrent sources and open Lightwave rigs or poser bone hierarchies.and Preview BVH files without opening them and export the motion as Lightwave scene files,MAX bipeds,or BVH file for poser.

How do you do it? I mean get the bvh to work with Poser? Please help. MB I can make awesome animations, but not get the bvh to work in Poser. Please help. Thanks

Just a little tip for those wanting Motion Builder and wanting it cheap There is a free 1yr license and the Motion Builder 4.02 app in the June Issue of Digit Magazine

Flog : Applying bvh in Poser SEEMS easy, but that may only be because I've tried it so few times. I do this : - Put a figure in Poser - Hit File - Import - BVH Motion - Choose the "Along x axis" option and "Scale Automatically" With some BVH files (House of Moves) I've had to use "Along z axis" to make it work. Other than that, I've had no problems. Works fine with both Dork/Posette and Mike/Vicki.

thip, have you attempted to utilize bvh files exported from MOTIONBUILDER? I have attempted it without much success. It seems Poser does not recognize the bone structure used by MOTIONBUILDER. This may be easy to correct, but I don't know how.

Evo - no, I think the bvh's I've used are mostly mo-cap. I'll get the free MB tryout mentioned above and see how its output works in Poser.

MB-and-Poser snippets in http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12351&Form.ShowMessage=1294893