Tutorials : MotionBuilder Physics

People looking for physics tutorials in MotionBuilder read this post:)

First you can read over my post here on a hack way to pin a ragdoll for older versions of MotionBuilder.
It is one of this blogs top links but there are much better ways to do these things now.

Also if you register for http://area.autodesk.com (free) you will be able to
log-in and watch my web masterclass on MotionBuilder physics

->MotionBuilder Physics: Ragdoll Tricks for Production <- to go to my original post here on the blog to find the link to the video and more information. Now thanks to the amazing "KXL" (he not only programed the physics tools for MotionBuilder he is doing free video tutorials, can't get better than that). You can log in to Autodesk Area and go to this thread Next Physics video poll where you will find the links to below videos covering
the following topics for MotionBuilder and vote for what you want to see next.
(he does this on spare time so thank him! and don't complain there is no audio)

Physics videos for MotionBuilder:

- Solver basics
- Rigid bodies basics
- Joints
- Setting up ragdoll
- Rider setup (part 2 for Joints)
- Little about Animation Mixing
- Animation Mixing


They are all full of fantastic tricks and tips for all kinds of really cool stuff like setting up a car to adjusting the settings to get great playback and correct solving.

Hope you all find this helpful!

:)

Tip: Cycle with Offsets

This question has come up a few times how do I "cycle with Offsets" in MotionBuilder like I can in Maya.

The short answer is you can't in the fcurve window, you can in the story tool if your clip is readonly and you cycle the clip...it will offset its self.

The Fcurve Hack: Do it by hand

1. Use layers.. copy the forward translation keys,
   
2. go to the end of the first cycle, the last key and paste on to a new layer, ignore the warning!
3. In the fcurve window select the keys again and in the lower left..text box for the selected keys, type in 0- to move the pasted keys to start at a value 0 on the last frame of the cycle.
   
4. For more offset cycles add another layer and repeat for your cycle.. the point is each layer will add to the existing one, so each pasted set of keys, you will offset in time your self and move the keys to start at 0 value on the time line at that point so that the layer does not effect the animation up to that time.

Here is hoping that they either make it part of the extrapolate options in the next version or make it so a clip does not have to be saved and read only for it to cycle.