Creating Bi-Directional MD Prop with Sub-Prop Animations (New for v. 8.5)

When you create an MD prop and edit the behavior motions in the Timeline, you can bake sub-prop's animations along with the behavior motions to the MD Props. In this page, the Bi-Directional MD prop is taken as an example.

The bake-able sub-prop's animations are:

  • Animation Clips
  • Animation Layer Keys
  • Material Keys (Material Settings, Texture UV and Texture Strength)
  • Visible Keys
  • Particle Emit Keys
  • Morph Keys
  • Light Activate, Multiplier and Color Keys
  1. Create a project. Make sure there is at least one character of Edit Mode and a Bi-directional MD prop.

    Project with character and MD Prop attached with a mesh

    MD Prop Structure containing Look at and Position Point dummies in Edit Structure mode

    You can create the State Switch MD prop from Create > MD Prop > Bi-Directional.
  2. Select the MD prop, launch the MD Behavior panel and switch to the Behavior Settings tab, click the Add / Delete Behavior button to start editing the behavior motions.

    Choose the character as the base for editing behavior motions.
  3. Drag and drop desired motions from motion libraries to the Point A and Point B nodes.
  4. Select the mesh prop and create animation through any methods (in this case, transform keys).
  5. Select the mesh prop and execute the Animation > Flatten... command to convert the animation into a clip.

    The transform keys will be converted into clip.

    Playback to view the result.
  6. Select the motion under Point A and click the Edit behavior motion in Timeline button.
  7. The sitting down motion will be loaded into the Motion track of the character.
  8. Open the tracks for the character and the mesh prop.

    Playback to view the interactions between the character and the mesh prop.
  9. Make sure the target motion in the MD Behavior panel is selected.
  10. Right click on the character's clip on the time line and choose the Select Collection Range by Selection command to make a range on the Collect Clip track.
  11. Right-click in the range and choose the Overwrite Selected MD Behavior Motion command.
  12. You will be asked if you want to bake the sub-prop's animation to the MD Prop. Click the Save button.

    The character's motion and the sub-prop's animation will be baked into the MD Prop together.
  13. Select the other motion in Point B and repeat step 6 to 12 to bake the motion and sub-prop animation to the MD Prop for the other position point. Playback to view the result.
  14. Click the Apply button of the MD Behavior panel.
  15. Start the MD mode and have the character to interact with the MD Prop, you will observe the sub-prop's animation interacting with the character's motion.