- Woooow it has NEVER been as easy creating a looping animation as it is with Motionbuilder. NEVER. The pose tool is, well, awesome. I can easily choose if I want to mirror a whole pose or part of a pose, if I want it to continue from a certain part of the body (making walkcycles a breeze), I even get little thumbnails! Squeal!
- I can pin anything! It comes with its ups and downs of course. While the ability to pin anything is very useable, Motionbuilder has also left a lot of the functionality of the rig up to you and your imagination.
Something that frustrated me a lot in the beginning was that I didn't have a foot roll for the feet of my rig. I've grown used to having a slider or two that I'll manipulate to create a walk, and I couldn't imagine animating a foot movement without them.
However, in Motionbuilder there are no sliders for foot rolling. Which frustrated me to no end for the first day or so. But I've slowly started learning the Motionbuilder way of thinking, which includes clever use of pinning various body parts. For example you could pin the toes of the foot, and lift the heel of the foot while the toes stay in place. Very similar to what you would do with an elbow or knee using Maya!
For me it's still a very abstract concept, that instead of pre-set sliders I have to create my own controls, but oh well... I'm sure I'll grow to love it. Maybe.
- Story mode is of course a nice thing as well. Trax editor in Maya is pretty similar to Story I think, although I haven't used it much. Somehow it feels like the Trax editor is more of an addon, while Story is more of a core function in Motionbuilder. It's got a button on the main interface and everything!
Together with takes, you can quickly edit your animation to see how the end result could look. You can keep a whole short movie in one file, using multiple timelines!
- Comparing the two, I'm not sure which one I prefer to work with more. Maya has a bigger userbase, and as a result more useful scripts, tutorials, assets, you name it. Motionbuilder is kind of like the Apple of the animation world, you get a sleek efficient program with lots of awesome tools. However it creates a lot of limits for the rig, it has to fit the blueprint provided by Motionbuilder.
One of the biggest joys of animation for me is working with a rig that is tailored to the needs of a specific character, and that's a freedom that Maya is able to provide. But the pose tool is awesome..... hm. I will have to think about this.
By the way, have a great Easter!
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