3D Studio Max tutorial - FBX Mocap To CAT Rig

The process involved for copying motion capture animation in an FBX format across to a 3D Studio Max CAT rig character.

[@maxer167]

by showing this drag and drop connection thing for mapping you saved my days . thanks a lot!

[@danthomas7213]

Thanks for this video it has helped me use mocap data for the first time.

[@mattmcintosh7970]

No worries, glad it helped. Thanks for watching!

[@noor96498]

You just saved my life

[@shoiko]

Thanks. I've been in a rut for a while trying to figure out how i was going to use this workflow.

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Hope the video has been of use, cheers and thanks for watching!

[@angelochafin]

Very Good. Thank´s.

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Glad you liked it, thanks for watching it!

[@Exsulator2]

2:30 my problem is that my rig is not showing any signs of moving while mapping, so I have no idea if the mapping is correct or not. This is on an existing rig that already has been used a while.

[@friendlyreptilian3767]

thx sir

[@MugGod]

What programm you use for mocap?

[@mattmcintosh7970]

The footage was captured on a Vicon system using the Blade motion capture software. Cheers

[@Govi627]

What's the thinking with making the ribcage connect with the head?

[@mattmcintosh7970]

When I made the video a few years back it was as a quick solution to transferring Mocap to a CAT rig, the ribcage step should probably be skipped as it throws it out at an odd angle. At the time it was needed quite urgently for my students and I didn't really have time to re do it. Matt

[@ronin_gamer7587]

will it work BIPED rig!!

[@kylisation]

As of 2018 now, is this workflow have a update version or you still have to convert it manually?

[@mattmcintosh7970]

I used the process a couple of months ago in the latest version of Max and it was still a manual version. Matt

[@kylisation]

@@mattmcintosh7970 Hey Matt, I have actually try it myself, and it really takes some time to get everything align...I am wondering if there are any tools out there can make this automated like a offline version of Mixamo

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Hey, yeah it is a bit of a pain of a process. Would be cool if you found something that made it a lot easier to do! I've not seen anything, though it would be useful as I have needed a quicker option recently. Matt

[@kylisation]

@@mattmcintosh7970 hey there Matt， I find a way in Maya，save me big time！That have a function called quick rig and it's introduced in 2016

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Hey Kyle, cool, I've started using Maya again just recently so I'll check it out! Is it a similar kind of process then? Matt

[@vfxman2]

How do i covert that into a .bip file to use with biped ?

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Not sure as I've never done it, though if you create a CAT rig using the Biped preset to capture the initial information. Then create an actual biped and Link each component of the Biped to the corresponding part on the CAT rig (Starting from the Pelvis), I'm pretty sure you could bake the animation across that way. It's adding in another layer of the process but I'm not sure why people use Biped anymore as it is really restrictive. Matt

[@vfxman2]

Matt McIntosh the thing is that i have my custom made motion capture solution that is IK based. I need to capture my fbx mocap onto a biped so i can use the mixer to mix other mocaps .... anyways i managed to do that using motion builder but i think that the retargeting process in CAT is much easier.

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Hi Yousef, ah right, well that's good going! Hope you get some cool stuff done with it! Matt

[@Exsulator2]

Is there a way to reuse the mapping across various CAT absolute layers? I have like 50 anims on different absolute layers in one single file. Hopefully dont need to map them all independently? That's time consuming

[@mattmcintosh7970]

Bake them down?

[@Exsulator2]

@@mattmcintosh7970 cant bake them down or like, what Im saying is, each cat layer is its own anim and they must be treated separately

[@Exsulator2]

Someone told me the obvious answer, so I might write it here. Just map a single CAT layer and call it something like "import layer" beforehand so you always got a layer ready to go for importing new mocap. Then for each anim you map to it, you just copy/paste it to other layers