Slow motion rain drops in Maya (vray maya material)

1. First create a polygon sphere

This will function as our rain drop and we will use it in the nparticle instancer. First thing we will do is setup an animationed "warble" on the droplet so that it isn't just a static sphere.

2. Now in the animation sub set menu goto create deformers>lattice

A lattice appears around our rain drop,

In your attributes on the right you can change it's resolution


3. Set it to 3 x 3 x 3


4. Right click the lattice and go to lattice point and taper the top a bit to make it a little more tear drop shaped.

Motion Builder - characterizing, making a template, and using BVH files in story mode

Motion builder is a bit confusing at first. Here is a quick description of the steps you need to use BVH files in MB and more specifically to use them as clips in story mode.

We will cover:
1. Making sure sure the BVH file you are trying to use has a single frame of t-pose at it's beginning for either making a bone template or using a BVH file as a clip.

2. Creating a bone template from a BVH which you can use on all other BVH's with the same naming convention. Even BVH files from the same company or website may have different naming conventions. So you must create a different bone template for each possible set of BVH files.

3. Using the bone templates you create to quickly characterize any of your BVH files.

Motion Builder - Create a bone template to characterize many different BVH files

1. First make sure your BVH has a tpose on the opening frame (see tutorial)

2. Then in your asset browser templates>characters> drag "character" onto the hip bone of your BVH. and select characterize.

It will try to match motion builder bone names to the skeleton but it can't so a list of all bones that don't match will appear.Go ahead and take note of these and close that popup.

3. Now under "Characters" in the navigator you now can double click "character" and then select the "character definition" Tab to the right. You may need to expand the "base" section of bones.

Motion Builder - How to mirror an animated FBX clip for story mode

1.Open your main character with NO animation JUST the character in t-pose, now open characterized FBX animation you are trying to mirror. In my case i'm going to mirror one of run right 90turn animations from the previs clips that come with mobtion builder 2014. I'm going mirror it into a left 90 degree turn. Drag and drop the FBX into the viewport ( or file open)

2. Select merge>(name of the animation you want top bring in)

3.Now this FBX has a character assigned to it as well as the motion. and we can see them both here.

4. Up in the character controls window your main character should be selected for the character. then select the FBX animated character clip as the source.

Immediately your character matches the movement of the animated character.

5. Now in the navigator select character>your character name and double click it to bring up character settings.

6. Now expand the characters settings and scroll down till you see "mirror animation". Select the check box.

Your character should immediately mirror the animated character we imported.

7. Now in the character settings panel  for your main character select plot character>  then bake animation from input character to "control rig".

8.Now select the FBX animated character in the navigator  that you imported for animation. Right click and select "select all branches" and delete that character. It will say it is being used choose delete anyway. We want to get rid of anything related to that previous character.

9. Then in navigator under "scene select" anything related to the animation FBX model we imported> select all branches. And delete them as well. Confirm any questions about deletion.

10. In the navigator probably a good idea to name the take to "Run_Left_90Turn" before saving your file out.

You should now have a clean version of your main character with the new mirrored animation with it.

11. Now go to file save as and save your new FBX as Run_Left_90Turn. and that's it! This clip will now drop into story mode.