1 LightWave 3D Tutorial Poser Mixer Setup Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:48 pm
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I will show how to leverage the new weight curves in Motion Mixer 2.0 to create a pose slider set. This tutorial assumes you know the basics of both LW 7.5 sliders and motion mixer 2.0 actors.
NOTE: Save often with incremented file names ie: posemixer_tut_001.lwo, posemixer_tut_014.lws. This may save you some time if you do a step incorrectly.
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Open Layout and get some content to use for your pose mixing. It can be as simple as a null with three bones or as complex as a hand. I'll be using a hand because it looks cooler than a null with three bones. Disclaimer: I didnt model this hand, I just put bones in it. Travis B did the modeling.
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Select everything that is going to be in your actor. Open Motion mixer, create an actor and name it somthing appropriate.
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Click create motion. Name it somthing useful (open makes sense for what pose my hand is currently in) and set the end frame to somthing that is far longer than your animation will actually be. This is becasue we want to be able to use these poses for the whole animation and we cannot scale them later.
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Using the motion menu save the motion.
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Uncheck active actor, repose your object and then reactivate the actor. Create motion again, name the motion (fist for me) and make sure to make the end frame long.... Then save the motion like you did for the 1st one. Rinse and repeate. Continue this until you have a few pose clips built up. 2 more is good enough.
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2 more poses
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I inserted an extra track in motion mixer and added my 4 pose clips. Again, my animation is only from 0-60, so they are more than long enough.
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Right click on each, one at a time and choose add weight curve. Close Motion Mixer. Try dragging the timeline, your object will assume an average of all the poses. Thats because right now all the poses are set to 1. Add the slider plugin to your object or use the technique in my slider tutorial to set up an auto hiding slider. Open the slider panel.
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Add the 4 weight curves to the slider set. They are nested underneath the actor in the motion mixer section, leave the ranges and the label at the default.
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Done. You have a pose mixer to mix and blend poses. One thing thats kind of a bummer is that its non interactive, which means you need to jitter the timeline to update the window. But thats not too bad if you use the left and right arrowkeys to frame forward then quickly frame back.
Well, there you go, a fully functional pose mixer in LW 7.5]
I will show how to leverage the new weight curves in Motion Mixer 2.0 to create a pose slider set. This tutorial assumes you know the basics of both LW 7.5 sliders and motion mixer 2.0 actors.
NOTE: Save often with incremented file names ie: posemixer_tut_001.lwo, posemixer_tut_014.lws. This may save you some time if you do a step incorrectly.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Open Layout and get some content to use for your pose mixing. It can be as simple as a null with three bones or as complex as a hand. I'll be using a hand because it looks cooler than a null with three bones. Disclaimer: I didnt model this hand, I just put bones in it. Travis B did the modeling.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Select everything that is going to be in your actor. Open Motion mixer, create an actor and name it somthing appropriate.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Click create motion. Name it somthing useful (open makes sense for what pose my hand is currently in) and set the end frame to somthing that is far longer than your animation will actually be. This is becasue we want to be able to use these poses for the whole animation and we cannot scale them later.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Using the motion menu save the motion.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Uncheck active actor, repose your object and then reactivate the actor. Create motion again, name the motion (fist for me) and make sure to make the end frame long.... Then save the motion like you did for the 1st one. Rinse and repeate. Continue this until you have a few pose clips built up. 2 more is good enough.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
2 more poses
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I inserted an extra track in motion mixer and added my 4 pose clips. Again, my animation is only from 0-60, so they are more than long enough.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Right click on each, one at a time and choose add weight curve. Close Motion Mixer. Try dragging the timeline, your object will assume an average of all the poses. Thats because right now all the poses are set to 1. Add the slider plugin to your object or use the technique in my slider tutorial to set up an auto hiding slider. Open the slider panel.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Add the 4 weight curves to the slider set. They are nested underneath the actor in the motion mixer section, leave the ranges and the label at the default.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Done. You have a pose mixer to mix and blend poses. One thing thats kind of a bummer is that its non interactive, which means you need to jitter the timeline to update the window. But thats not too bad if you use the left and right arrowkeys to frame forward then quickly frame back.
Well, there you go, a fully functional pose mixer in LW 7.5]