MOTION DIRECTOR

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 Switch

Macro Recorder

Behavior Expansion

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.

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.

MOTION DIRECTOR INTERFACE

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.

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.   Learn how to extend motion data in Behavior Manager >

More MD motions to be continued...

RECOMMENDED ADD-ON PACKS

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.