Prelink Transform Selection

The connection from MotionBuilder to Previzion is achieved through the Prelink plugin. To use:

• Drag and drop the Prelink plugin from the Devices tab in Motionbuilder’s Asset Browser into the scene.

• In MotionBuilder’s Navigator window, drag and drop the desired joints and transforms into the Prelink model list as shown above. Note: Prelink sends each transform as a local transform, so all transforms between the root scene node and the character must be dragged into Prelink to match character scene motion between MotionBuilder and Previzion.

• Set the Export FPS to match the camera speed.

• Under the Network tab, check that the correct TCP/IP address and port is selected. 4444 is the default port. The TCP/IP address should be the address of the Previzion system being connected to; see next section for details.

• Click Online to start broadcasting data. If successful, the Online button will turn green.

• To move individual scene elements around, select the object and click Add Selected in the Prelink window. After moving the object, click Sub Selected to remove its transform from the list being continuously updated.

Deselecting From List UI Quirk

Due to a Motionbuilder interface quirk, the way to remove nodes from the list requires 2 steps:

• Click on the node in the list to highlight it, then click Select Highlighted.

• Click Sub Selected to remove the selected node.

Prelink Network Configuration

• Change to the Communication tab in the Prelink UI.

• Type in the IP address of the Previzion system you wish to connect to (available in the About button on the Previzion system in the Systems tab.)

• Change back to the Stream tab, and click the Online square. If both machines are on the same network, and the IP address was correctly entered into the previous step, the light will turn green and the link will show up in the Previzion Systems tab.

Enabling Timecode

To embed the time code of the current frame into the data packet, select Send Time->Local in the Prelink Stream tab.

To set Motionbuilder into displaying the current frame in timecode mode, right click on the Timeline, and select Time->Display as Timecode.

The incoming timecode frame from Prelink will be displayed in Previzion next to the incoming video timecode with the label Animation, and will be written into the take file.

Play on Frames

Next to the FPS menu on the timeline, set the drop down menu to Play on Frames to prevent Motionbuilder from attempting to interpolate in between frames.