← ArchiveTalk2021
How to use the Motionbuilder STORY to IMPROVE your WORKFLOW
Technical tour of MotionBuilder's Story Tool as a non-linear mocap editor, covering clip blending, pose library, track management, and the workflow advantages for real-time motion editing and cut-scene assembly.
Abstract
This technical tour demonstrates MotionBuilder's Story tool as a non-linear mocap editor across several practical use cases. It shows retiming whole takes or fragments via the scale function and razor cuts (including slow-motion on hit reactions and attacks), repositioning clips with the ghost manipulator to align animation to the world axes or to geometry, and using the reverse time-warp to mirror a strafe motion. The presenter then stitches clips into longer sequences across multiple character tracks, blending between a run and a combo swing by keying track weight and using pass-through so lower tracks let content flow from takes above. It finishes with layering a Mixamo rhino hit reaction reacting to the samurai strike, plotting both characters to a new take, and exporting Story clips for reuse as an animation library across other FBX files.
How to read this
- Category
- Production talk: MotionBuilder Story tool as a non-linear mocap editor
- Contributions
- Demonstrates retiming whole takes or fragments via the scale function and razor cuts, including slow-motion on hit reactions
- Shows repositioning clips with the ghost manipulator and a reverse time-warp to mirror motion, then stitching clips across multiple character tracks with weight keying and pass-through blending
- Layers a Mixamo rhino hit reaction onto a samurai strike, plots both characters to a new take, and exports Story clips as a reusable animation library across FBX files
- Context
- A practical workflow tour of MotionBuilder's Story tool for non-linear mocap editing and cut-scene assembly; no academic lineage, it builds on standard MotionBuilder practice.
- Correctness
- Studio/tool practice, not peer-reviewed; the techniques are demonstrated workflows shown to work in the tool rather than validated results.
- Clarity
- Highly accessible and hands-on; a single watch conveys the techniques.
- How to read it
- Watch once with MotionBuilder open and follow along on a sample take; revisit specific segments (blending, time-warp, export) only as needed for your own edits.
Related work
- MotionBuilder: Essentials Characterization, Retargeting and Baking Animations 2022 / MotionBuilder
- Autodesk MotionBuilder 2022 2021 / MotionBuilder
- Setup Live Link Between Motionbuilder and Unreal Engine 5 Tutorial 2021 / MotionBuilder
- How to Retarget Motion Capture in MotionBuilder 2019 / MotionBuilder
Keywords
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