Yeah, and that's just on the 3D side. These days I seem to work mostly working in 2D cartoon animation, and that adds a whole other suite of tools on top what I'm already using. :)

For 3D motion capture, Motion Builder has been the long time king but it really hasn't changed much since 2007 or so (pretty much ever since Autodesk bought it and jacked up the price.) It still works well but the UI and workflow is a bit scattered and feels dated compared to many modern programs. Autodesk did give the program a refresh a few years ago but, IMO, it was largely cosmetic.

The way I learned how to use it was mainly from the 3DBuzz website. If you dig deep inside their archives, you can find many free tutorial videos for Motion Builder. Most are for MB 2005-2007 but they are still relevant to the more recent releases. (As I said, AD really hasn't updated the program very much.) Pluralsight (formerly Digital Tutors) has some good courses too, which are better organized and presented, but it's not free and I think much of the really useful info is covered in the old 3DBuzz videos. Both are worth seeking out for a well rounded education.

If you're on a tight budget (like I am,) you might look into WebAnimate or iClone with 3DXchange though. From what I've seen so far, most of what you need for editing (beyond what's available in Mocap Studio) can be found in these two programs and the cost is significantly less than Motion Builder.

If you already have a preferred animation program and renderer, I would look into WebAnimate first. It's purely dedicated to mocap editing, mixing and retargeting, and it's designed to support a variety of other animation programs and game engines.

iClone may seem more expensive but you're actually purchasing a complete animation and fx system, and a realtime 'game engine' type renderer too. The mocap tools are only a subset of this system, so it might be considered 'expensive' if you don't plan to use any of the other tools. Be aware that you can't buy just iClone to edit Mocap Studio data, you will also need 3DXchange to be able to import/export third party data files.

As you read this, also keep in mind that I haven't personally used WebAnimate or iClone yet--I'm just getting started with these programs myself--so my opinion is based only on what I've read and observed about them, and it may not be a completely accurate view. I hope this info is still helpful though.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

...

iClone 6 is a huge step up from 5 and yes, its a full real-time render and animation program, story mode, auto blending and much more, I got in on the Pre-Order package, so I couldn't pass it up!

The iPi animations go right in easily through 3DXchange without distorting them at all, minor clean up can be done then and the facial puppet and lip sync works well also.

Perception Neuron just released real-time WiFi to BVH linking to animate characters in real-time and record the actions to files, but it's a bit jerky and unnatural, (common IMU suit issues), better to add your own pre-cleaned files with iPi through 3DX, IMO, but real-time working animations to an actual scene is cool anyway.

As G stated, iClone is a drag and drop VFX engine/editor, once you have a large assets collection in it, it's not a game engine, but the dynamics in the new version are awesome and with optional plug-ins for real-time mesh displacement and rendering and other RL programs work seamlessly with it, like Character Creator and Crazy Talk 8.

You still need a fairly high powered machine to work with it, Nvidia GTX 9x for best results, but mine handles it fine until the scene gets very, very heavy, then it slows a bit.

I know you will really like it G, once you get a chance to get into it, the real-time aspects and parameter adjustments are awesome.

RealLusion also has 2D and 3D toon packages, with 1000's of assets ready to go for purchase, I don't model much anymore, there is just too much already out there at cheap costs, even free, to worry with creating it, unless I need a very specific item.

...

Thanks for the info. That will help me decide what to focus on.

Funny, I originally intended to use iClone for rendering Brudders way back with version 4, but the program really wasn't up to the task yet. (3DXchange didn't exist yet and iClone required a Max plugin to move data, and I had zero Max experience.)

I fell back on LightWave since that's what I already used for commercial work. The final quality with LW was significantly higher than iClone of course but since my long term goal is to make Brudders a monthly or even weekly animated series, the idea of using a reatime renderer has great appeal. Maybe version 6 will allow me to do that. TBD.

For my current music video project, I was thinking I'd focus on Webanimate. At the moment, all I'm really just looking is a streamlined solution to fixing and enhancing mocap data on the Brudders characters to finish the music video. I'm also wanting something simple and low cost enough that I can eventually get my family involved with.

Of course I know I should stick with Motion Builder at least until we finish the music video, but since I want to move away from MB, plus we're already a couple of years late with finishing this project, I guess learning one more program isn't really going to delay the project that much.

In the end, I'll probably continue to maintain a mixed and flexible software environment for Little Green Dog because the style and nature of our projects tend to change from project to project. I just want to simplify our productions and reduce the cost, even if it's only a little bit. :p

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Im quite confused about the pricing of MB. The post i saw was saying 700$ for a perpetual license for 2016, but i thought i saw a much higher price? Will check out webanimate on youtube. I hope someone posted videos.

I don't know what the latest Motion Builder pricing is but the last time I checked it was around $3000. (That was maybe two years ago). It also came bundled if you get the 'Entertainment Suite' or whatever it was called but I think that's been replaced by their current subscription package.

Sorry, I haven't really paid attention to what's new with Autodesk for the last couple of years so my info is probably out of date.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

...

Yeah, maybe you were looking at the Entertainment Suite, which is 3 programs in a bundle for $700 a quarterly subscription?

MoBu by itself was listed only in the All Products A-Z section.

Perpetual license = Subscription, as long as you pay the monthly charge, you get access to the programs, this was done so ppl can always have the newest program available.

This is the link for MoBu purchase, from a reseller only: http://www.autodesk.com/products/motionbuilder/buy

It States this:
PAY AS YOU GO
Quarterly *
$525 SRP†
(Reseller only)
Annually *
$1,680 SRP†
(Reseller only)

Plenty of videos on YouTube from Ikenema and others for WebAnimate.

...

Ouch! Looks ike you're right. I did'nt read that right :-( i'll just stick with my edu license until it expires hehe and look into those other apps as well in the meantime.

...

I got mine he last year before they switched to the subscription, so I won't be upgrading either.

As G stated, I only use a very small subset of the tools in Motion Builder.

Good Luck in your new animation "hobby" :) Though it does get addicting with all the cool re-vamped programs to use them in.

...