MotionBuilder 2009, the most recent release of this software, adds a number of new features like greater speed, rigid body dynamics and new shader support.

Autodesk MotionBuilder's claim to fame is character animation. The software is a realtime character animation system that allows artists to create animation quickly and fluidly. And MotionBuilder's tools allow you to build characters using highly intelligent skeletons and kinematics, animate those characters using any combination of keyframe or motion capture tools and either render those characters in realtime or export them to other software to integrate them into larger production pipelines. Anyone using motion capture would most likely be very familiar with MotionBuilder, but the program is also an excellent keyframe animation tool as well.

MotionBuilder 2009, the most recent release of this software, adds a number of new features. The software now has a 64-bit version for greater speed, rigid body dynamics and new shader support. MotionBuilder 2009 is available for Windows XP and Vista-based operating systems.

The interface is fairly clean and consists of a number of floating palettes and viewports. Some palettes offer tools to set up and configure characters, others offer animation tools and motion editors. Characters and animation appear in realtime viewports. For those who are familiar with Maya or Max, MotionBuilder provides navigation and shortcuts the same as those packages. Another nice addition is Maya's Viewcube, which allows for fast navigation of viewports. Clicking on the side of the cube instantly changes the user's angle of view. Several different types of window layouts are provided, depending on the task -- these include ones for setting up characters, editing and storyboarding. I found the interface to be a bit cluttered and this makes the software seem a bit confusing to the new user. Autodesk provides some good tutorials, though, to help with the learning curve. Once you get the hang of it, the workflow is actually very efficient.

Characters for MotionBuilder are typically modeled and skinned in a 3D package, typically Maya or 3ds Max, but any software supporting the FBX format will work. These are then imported into MotionBuilder, where the character's skeletons are mapped to MotionBuilders own custom skeletons. These skeletons have a feature called full body IK, which allows the character to be posed naturally. Pulling on a character's hand, for example, can pull the arm, but when the arm is pulled straight, the shoulders, spine and the rest of the skeleton are affected. To lock down the pose of a character, joints can be pinned, so you can limit the full body IK to the shoulders or hips, for example. Full body IK skeletons are also available to Maya users, making integration between those two packages almost seamless. I found posing and manipulating characters in MotionBuilder to be very easy and about as close to posing a real world puppet as you can get in a 3D package.

MotionBuilder has a wider variety of motion editing tools to create and blend animation from multiple sources. Courtesy of George Maestri.

Once the character is set up, motion can be created or added. For motion capture, you can import raw data and apply them to the skeleton. Sophisticated motion filtering tools can boil down complex motion capture data into easier to digest components. MotionBuilder can then mix together and blend motion from multiple sources, including keyframe animation. All of this motion blending happens in realtime with a high degree of interactivity. MotionBuilder's editing tools in this regard are unparalleled, and anyone working with motion capture will find the software to be indispensable.

Keyframe animation can be done a joint at a time, but MotionBuilder also has a very powerful pose editor to speed the process along. Animators can create libraries of poses for their characters and then add them to the timeline to create pose to pose animation. These poses can also be layered and mixed with other poses and animation for even more possibilities. I find pose to pose editing to be a very efficient way to animate, particularly in larger productions where animation and poses need to be reused over and over again.