As Alias acquired Kaydara, MotionBuilder came with the package, and Alias had a character and animation building application that is regarded by many as the industry standard. Not more than a few months did Alias wait to offer an upgrade to MotionBuilder incorporating new features and improvements in every area of the program.

MotionBuilder Pro is the brain behind many movies and TV documentaries when it comes to character animation. MotionBuilder Pro supports motion capture data mapping and editing, optical data cleanup, asset management integration (AlienBrain and Microsoft VSS), Python scripting, nVidia CgFX shaders, the Open Reality SDK, and FBX, a platform-independent, 3D authoring and interchange format.

Alias’ new version of this venerable program brings improvements in the area of keyframing controls. There is also enhanced dopesheet feedback through new key summary and hierarchy folders and through Body Parts and Keying Groups tracks. Multi-referential animation is a new way of animating so that the Transform (TRS) animation referential of any object or object group can be changed easily and the animation quickly adapted when a referential change is made.

3D paths are another new feature, just as the Rig reconnect feature. This is a new tool which serves to save a rig with all its added functionalities, and then load that rig into a different scene in order to reconnect it to another character. In fact, many new features are aimed at speeding up the creation process. Re-usability and less actions to achieve the desired result seem to be the keywords of MotionBuilder 6. Mirroring is an example of this philosophy. You can mirror around a plane you defined and create pivot-based poses.

To make it easier for you to create more realistic characters, features like Rotation Orders have been enhanced to support definition of rotation orders of any 3D object (XYZ, XZY, YZX...). This also facilitates the information interchange with Maya among others.

Another such improvement is the support for pivots. Transformation pivots can be positioned independently of an object’s geometry centre which allows to achieve more refined character animation. Auxilliary pivots enable the use of more than one rotational point, so that movements can look more natural. A character’s hands and feet will benefit the most of this improvement.

The Story Timeline gives more real-world production options through support for all scene properties and object types, real-time camera and audio crossfades, multiple audio tracks and volume animation.

It is possible to record audio and have synchronized frames and audio during jog and shuttle. The Story Timeline also enables you to import and apply video texture maps. New video formats that are supported include QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, MOV, MP2 and MP4.

MotionBuilder Pro has outstanding support for the mouse, the keyboard and a Wacom graphics tablet. Other devices that are supported are SpaceBall, JLCooper MCS-3800, MIDI devices, and Lantronix serial ports.