MAXON Computer Cinema 4D Tutorials: Motion Blending Specific Hierarchies

Tips & Techniques - MOCCA

MOCCA:
Motion Blending Specific Hierarchies
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Project Works with:
MOCCA, XL, Studio Requires:
Version 9.012

A lot of times when blending motions together, the entire motion of the hierachy isn't always desired. For example: adding a looking motion to an already existing walking motion could be quite cumbersome. With the Motion Blending in MOCCA, you can specify what parts of the hierarchy, for any motion, that will be blended

Step 1: This tutorial will be based off of the first Motion Blending tutorial. Either open your saved scene file or download the project file for this tutorial and open the 'MotionBlendingv2_Start' scene file.

Step 2: For this tutorial the transition into the Running motion isn't really necessary. So open the Timeline and delete the Transition and Running sequences. All that should remain is the Walking sequence

Step 3: The Walking motion is a little too short. To fix this, select the actual Walking sequence and enable the Sequence tab in the Attributes Manager. Increase the Loops to 1.

Note: When looking at the Walking sequence now, the length has been doubled being that it is now looped. This loop is additive, meaning that it will begin looping at the end positon of the original motion. If this is not wanted, disable the Additive Loops option in the Motion Blend tab.

Step 4: Now its time to have the character look around as it walks along. Create a new sequence for the Motion B track by holding Ctrl and dragging out the sequence in the Timeline.

Make sure the newly created sequence is selected. Then drag and drop the Looking object, found within the Motions hierarchy, into the Motion link field. Also use the Resize to Orig. Length button to adjust the sequence.

In the Details tab the Treeview will show all of the objects that will be blended. The checkbox next to the object determines if that specific object will be blended or not. Being that only the motion of the spline and head bones need to be blended, disable the Hips checkbox. This will also disable all children of the object.

Enable the checkbox next to the Spine1 object, which will enable all children of the Spine1 object as well. The left and right arms do not need to be blended, so disable both the LeftArm and RightArm checkboxes.

Step 5: The last thing left to do is transition from the Walking sequence to the Looking sequence. Ctrl drag out the Transition sequence the entire length of the Looking sequence.

With the Transition sequence selected, disable the Automatic option in the Attributes Manager. Disabling this option allows for the in and out of the transition to be manipulated manually. Play with these fields to adjust the transition into the Looking motion.

Note: Make sure to disable the Left Influence and Right Influence options for both the Transition and Looking sequences.