Shared Motion Flow allows you to assign one motion flow to multiple bipeds or crowds. Rather than building a motion flow network of clips for each biped, you can create a motion flow with all the clips and transitions to animate multiple bipeds. Random motion creation will use each biped's own motion flow. If a biped’s motion flow happens to be a shared motion flow, then the shared motion flow will be used to compute random motion.
A biped that shares a motion flow shares only the clips you have added to the Motion Flow Graph. Scripts are unique to each biped, although the scripts point to the clips of the shared motion flow. You can manipulate each biped's motion flow and scripts in the usual ways. You can create random motion on a biped that shares a motion flow, or create a motion flow script using the crowd system.
There are a few indicators in the user interface that show if a biped is using a shared motion flow. If it is, a white circle surrounds the Shared Motion Flow button when you edit that biped. If you edit that biped's motion flow graph, the title of the graph dialog will say "Shared Motion Flow Graph", followed by the name of the shared motion flow.
Note: All bipeds in a shared motion flow should have the same leg scale and structure. Adaptation for differently sized bipeds does not occur in a shared motion flow. If you want differently sized bipeds in a crowd, then create a shared motion flow for each size.
Tip: The only way to save a shared motion flow, along with the bipeds sharing it, and keep everything hooked up correctly is to save it all in a .max file.
Example: To share a random motion flow among multiple bipeds:
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Click Create Multiple Clips and add at least four clips to the Motion Flow Graph.
The Open dialog appears where you can choose the location of your .bip files.
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After adding the clips, click Move Clips and arrange the clips so they are not so close to one another. This will make it
easier to see the transitions later.
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Click Select Clip/Transition and region select all the clips.
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On the Motion Flow Graph, click Synthesize Motion Flow Graph and click Yes when asked if you want to create transitions from
each selected clip to itself.
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On the Motion Flow Graph toolbar, click Select Random Start Clips.
All the transitions linking clips are weighted at 100, meaning all the transitions have a even chance of being randomly used.
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Region select all the clips in the Motion Flow Graph dialog.
The clips all turn purple and are assigned a weighting of 100. All the clips have an even chance of starting first.
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On the Shared Motion Flows dialog, click New.
A new shared motion flow is created.
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On the Shared Motion Flows dialog in the Parameters group, click Add.
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On the Select dialog, choose all the bipeds.
The bipeds are added to the list. If you add clips to the motion flow graph they will be shared by the bipeds.
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In the Scripts section of the Motion Flow rollout, click Create Random Motion.
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On the Create Random Motion dialog, turn on Create Motion for all bipeds sharing this motion flow.
Failure to do this will result in the motion flow being added only to the selected biped.
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A random script is created for each of the bipeds that shared the motion flow.
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Click Play Animation or scrub the time slider to view the transition.
To apply a shared motion flow to a different group of bipeds:
New in character studio is the ability to save and load shared motion flow setups. With this facility, you can create and refine a crowd simulation using bipeds that don't have meshes attached, thus avoiding the computational overhead that Physique requires. Once the simulation is ready, you can save the shared motion flow setup, apply it to a similar set of bipeds with Physique applied, and then render the final animation with no further crowd setup required.
For best results, the two sets of bipeds should have the same number of members and be of comparable structure and size, and the biped structures should have the same root names.
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Create a biped/crowd simulation using a shared motion flow.
For details, see Using bipeds in a crowd simulation.
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On the Shared Motion Flow dialog, click Save and save the shared motion flow in .smf format.
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Set up a new scene containing the same number of bipeds, each with a character mesh with Physique applied. The easiest way to do this is to set up one such character and then clone it.
Make sure the bipeds have the same root names (e.g., Bip01, Bip02) as those in the original setup.
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Select one of the bipeds, and on the Motion panel, turn on Motion Flow mode, and then click Shared Motion Flow.
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On the Shared Motion Flow dialog, click New, and then click Load and load the shared motion flow from step 2.
The shared motion flow is loaded and applied to the new set of bipeds. The biped names appear in the dialog list. If “(wrong scale)” appears after any biped names, use the Reset Wrong Scales buttons to correct the scales.
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Click the Put Multiple Bipeds In Motion Flow button to place all of the bipeds in the list in Motion Flow mode, and then
click OK to exit the dialog.
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Play the animation to ensure that it's correct, and then render.
Refer to Working with Crowd Animation for information regarding crowd animation.