Loading and Characterizing Character Models

This tutorial guides you through the procedures required to bring your character models into MotionBuilder and get them ready for animation.

The character models you bring into MotionBuilder need to be characterized before you can create a Control rig, create poses, and use other animation tools. To characterize a character model, you need to define its skeleton and load the skeleton definition template.

The following asset is required for this tutorial:

• mia_blue.fbx

Note: The tutorial assets can be found in the Asset Browser under the Tutorials folder and in the MotionBuilder Tutorials directory on your system.

Note: Ensure you always use the latest update of the tutorials and tutorial assets to complete the tutorials. You can download the latest update from: http://www.autodesk.com/motionbuilder-tutorials. If you download the tutorial assets to a location other than the MotionBuilder default location, remember to add this location (add a favorite path) in the Asset browser so you can access the assets via the Asset Browser.

To add a favorite path to the Asset Browser pane:

1. In the Resources window, make sure the Asset Browser tab is selected.
2. In the Asset Browser, right-click the Asset Browser pane.

   A context menu displays.

   
3. Click Add favorite path from the context menu.
4. In the Open directory window, navigate to the directory you would like to add in the Asset Browser.
5. Click the directory and then click OK.

   The directory is added to the Asset Browser pane in numeric alpha order.