MotionBuilder multiple characters

[Mikko]

I am using the new Optitrack Skeleton and trying to stream multiple characters. We have two people on stage. Activating and connecting the plugin, I can see both skeletons moving around, just as expected.

In the Motionbuilder skeleton character setup quickstart it says "[Mobu] ‘Characterize’ each Motive skeleton (Drag mobu character onto Motive Skeleton Hips node)." From that I understand that it should be possible to animate several characters at the same time. I characterize the first skeleton and it works. However, when I try to characterize the second skeleton, it overwrites the first character. I haven't found a way to get two characters at the same time. Duplicating, renaming, all lead to just one working character.

If I try to use two different bindings, I can characterize Skeleton 1 from the first binding and Skeleton 2 from the second binding. But as I have to choose the active binding from the plugin, I cannot use both of them at the same time.

Any quick help would be greatly appreciated, since we are running a workshop starting Monday morning. Thanks!

[Mikko]

I worked around the problem by creating several plugins, one for each actor. But I suppose this is not the recommended way.

Also, when I switch the active skeletons in Motive, the Mobu plugin loses the bindings all together. There's only 'none' and 'create...' available, even if I switch back to the previously used skeletons. Motive recognizes the actors correctly and updates the skeletons just fine.

[NaturalPoint-Dustin]

Hello,

I was able to work around this issue by deleting the the parent node, OptiTrackSkeletonDevice:Reference. MotionBuilder will treat each skeleton as a childe to this containing object unless deleted.

Screen1.png (4.53 KiB) Viewed 5510 times

I have provided a screenshot. I simply right click and select delete.

[Mikko]

Thanks Dustin, that's a good tip. I will give it a go tomorrow.
Do you have any idea about why the plugin might empty it's list of bindings if I add another skeleton to the stream coming from Motive, or remove one skeleton from it?

[NaturalPoint-Dustin]

The reason for this is multiple characters in bindings for skeleton objects are unsupported by Motionbuilder. We are researching new ways of implementing multiple skeletal support that does not involve model template bindings.

[Mikko]

Ok, thanks. Your tip of deleting the parent node surely helped speed up the process of characterizing the actor skeletons, when we needed to switch between acts. So it wasn't too much of a pain anymore