This is just take from iClon website
Motion Director - Play2Animate | AI Animation | iClone (reallusion.com)
INTUITIVE CONTROL
GAME-LIKE CHARACTER CONTROL
Characters driven by Motion Director can be controlled with the mouse, keyboard hotkeys, or gamepads.
Mouse & Keyboard
Direct characters by using a mouse & a keyboard in the following ways:
- Hold [Alt] key and move the character along with multiple waypoints or to an absolute waypoint by clicking left or right mouse button.
- Apply the WASD hotkey convention to walk the character around.
Gamepad
The most enjoyable way to steer your characters in iClone is by game controllers.
- Smooth turns and seamless motion transitions.
- Supported gamepad devices include Xbox One, PlayStation and other direct inputs.
Custom Hotkey & Trigger Actions
Apart from moving characters around, you can also trigger the character to perform certain actions with the keyboard and gamepads by setting hotkeys in Hotkey Manager.
Combine with iClone's Physics Engine
You can create a soccer game simulation by combining the Athletic Run pack for Motion Director with various types of physice states from iClone's physics engine.
Watch the Tutorial >
NPC AI ANIMATION
Path ModeUnder Control On Path and Auto Path mode, you will need to designate a target path and adjust relevant settings like whether to start the motion on path, and the idle/walk/speed change ratio.
Zone ModeSimilar to Path Mode, you will need to designate a target zone and adjust Action Settings for the activeness of the character when moving within the designated zone.
Follow ObjectFollow Mode allows characters to automatically follow a character or a prop. Feel free to adjust Position and Time Offset for more natural following behavior.
LIVE CAMERA SWITCH
Control the motions with one hand and switch the camera views with the other hand by simply assigning hotkeys for each camera during runtime. For gamepad users, Game Controller Settings can be used for adjusting the sensitivity of the joystick when setting the camera views.
9 Camera Views
- Free Camera is a preview camera that is useful for observing crowds from a distance.
- Full Shot, Close-Up and Birds Eye View are the Follow Cameras that you can assign to follow a character.
- You can also set 5 custom Follow Camera views in Control Center.
REACT TO SURFACE
Respond to Terrain Height
- The movements of characters react to ground elevation.
- Auto-detect the ground level to keep characters on the ground.
- Enable "Snap to Surface" in the MD Control Settings on selected characters, supporting all MD Control Modes (Waypoint, Keyboard, Game Controller, Path, Zone, & Auto Follow).
Advanced Surface Sensor Settings
- Adjust or finetune the sensor factors for height, damping, and timing to dynamically react to surfaces.
- Be able to apply to each individual character or affect all characters.
Climb/Fall Limit
Cap the character’s upper and lower distances from the current ground level to reach a different elevation.
Transpose Damping
Adjust the damping intensity to reduce or smooth jittery movement caused by changes in ground height.
Input Forecast
Define the prediction time for surface detection to raise/lower the character ahead of movement.
Supports Displacement Terrain
Works for uneven mesh from displacement maps, and photogrammetric seamless textures created with the Nature Terrain Generator plug-in.
Note: NOT supporting Water and SpeedTree.
HOW WE CREATE SUPER REALISTIC MOTIONS
The Motion Director animations piloting 3D characters in iClone are an evolution in the play-to-create philosophy at Reallusion. Partnering with the talented team at the Creative Media Industries institute at Georgia State University, we were able to collaborate and transform the GSU basketball arena into a massive motion capture volume to capture the data that is now featured in iClone Motion Director. Through a series of walks, jogs, and runs performed utilizing specialized routes and turns we generated the motion sets for the Casual and Athletic Run from these moves powered by AI-driven animation with our interactive AI transition technology.
DATA MANAGEMENT
MACRO SEQUENCER
Macro Data
Everytime Motion Director is used, characters that are activated will have their control sequence recorded. The event data is small in size and saving is required for Macro Replay.
Macro Replay Control
Use Macro Replay to string together several history macro segments, no matter where you place your actor, it can simulate the keystroke or controller events and animate your actor right from the new position and angle.
RECORD TO TIMELINE
After learning how to control character motions and camera views during runtime, place the clip that is created with Motion Director to the iClone timeline so that it can be exported. Here we have three ways to record to timeline:
1. Motion Record
Click to enable recording for each character motion.
2. Macro Data Record
You can directly create the Macro Data clips to your timeline, without the need to record the replay sequence.
3. Camera Record
Activate 'Record to Camera' checkbox and your camera movements will be recorded to the selected camera and its timeline.
BEHAVIOR EXPANSION
Motion Director is designed to let users freely expand AI controllable behaviors with the following structure in mind. We will keep collaborating with professional mocap studios producing expansions in different styles and themes, and plan to open the custom creation capabilities to users in the future.
The Motion Director provides the followings for your first experience:
- Casual Moves for male and female are included for everyone with most commonly used idles, performs, walks, and jogs. Tutorial
- For the first wave of motion extension, Athletic Run pack adds sporty dashes and running styles on top of normal casual movements. Tutorial
It's easy to apply new motion behaviors to characters with a simple drag and drop from MD motion library, and more MD options such as Talk, Dance, and Social Interaction are being planned for expanding the MD behaviors in the future.
MOTION DIRECTOR INTERFACE
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