MOTION DIRECTOR FOR GAMELIKE MOTION CONTROL

The Motion Director system debuts game-play controls to drive characters, apply motion triggers and dynamic cameras to direct scenes in real-time.

Game-like Actors Control

NPC AI Animation

Camera Hotkey Switch

Macro Recorder

Behavior Expansion

React to Surface v8.1

INTUITIVE CONTROL

REACT TO SURFACE  

DATA MANAGEMENT

Custom Design   new!

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 Mode

Under 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 Mode

Similar 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 Object

Follow 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.

Advanced Foot Contact & Slide Removal v8.4 Enhancement

Steer characters in the 3D environment composed of props and irregular terrain while having their feet planted firmly on various surface elevations.

Plant Feet

  • Have the character’s feet dynamically adapt to the varying ground elevations and slope angles while standing, walking, or running on uneven terrain or 3D props.
  • Hips remain balanced and graceful with adjustable heel to toe contact points.

Lock Feet

  • Effectively eliminate unwanted foot sliding.
  • The subsequently applied foot locking does not interfere with the walking style of the retargeted motion.
  • Switch between Edit and Lite mode as needed to lock the feet onto the ground and optimize the actors for simulation.

Supports Displacement Terrain

Works for uneven mesh from displacement maps, and photogrammetric seamless textures created with the Nature Terrain Generator plug-in.

UE Live Link to Target Scene

Adapt iClone/CC animations to UE scenes via iClone Unreal Live Link.

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.

CUSTOM DESIGN

CREATE YOUR OWN INTERACTIVE CONTROLS

Incorporate MD behaviors and personalized triggers for your actors, granting them distinctive idle and Perform animations. In addition, Motion Mixer lets designers blend upper-body motion with chosen standing, walking, or jogging states. This enables scenarios like engaging in a phone conversation while walking or prompting them to read in mid-motion.

Custom Idle & Perform Motions

Drag a motion file into the Behavior Editor to introduce a new Perform behavior for the idle state or the chosen movement speed. Trigger keys are automatically assigned but can be customized by you. Once set up, the corresponding triggers will appear in the convenient panel.

Trigger Blending

Right click to add the active animation to the timeline and create smoothly blended start and end sequences for seamless idle and performance triggering.

Trigger Conditions

Immediately switch Perform motions or wait for the animation to play through. Have the animation play once or keep it in a loop until you click again or according to the custom trigger state.

Mixer Motions

Enable upper body animation while the legs are engaged in iMD-driven standing, walking, or jogging. Mixer is capable of incorporating specific sub-mixer actions. For instance, upon interaction with a handheld device (‘holding phone’ state), the actor can be directed to place a call, send a message, or merely glance at the screen.

Mixer Weighting

  • Balance the mixer bone weight between upper body and iMD-driven leg movement.
  • Quickly select the body part for mixing from the preset menu. Select the spine, left arm, right arm, or freely pick a part of the skeleton.
  • Use the ‘Bone Weight’ slider to distribute the animation influence.

Embedded Mixers

Sample a given set of Mixer Motions while steering your actor at different speeds. Trigger master mixers like smoking and phoning, and access their sub mixer options.

Expandable Mixer Library

Expand your collection of MD walk and Perform animations and integrate them with upper-body motions in ActorCore to develop all-new mixer behaviors.

Trigger Logic

Motion Director features extendable AI-controlled behaviors with a flexible structure in mind. New Motion Director expansion packs are constantly being released for various styles and themes, while also offering tools for users and developers to incorporate custom interactive options.

PERFORMANCE & RETARGETING

Instant Previews

To swiftly grant immediate control to 3D actors and imbue them with suitable animation behaviors, iClone employs default motions according to their chosen tags. These tags can represent different archetypes like male, female, juvenile and elderly.

Motion Retargeting & Caching

For accurate pacing, retargeted motions can be applied to specific actors. With it, the MD data is cached to enable faster load times with subsequent sessions.

Batch iMD Cache

iMD can be cached to optimize walk and run animations for each character by efficiently batch processing the cache for motion retargeting.

Retargeting & Feet Locking

To effectively remove unwanted foot sliding, the motion is first retarged for accurate pacing and then the feet are locked onto the contact surface with inverse kinematics.

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