Hi all, I’m new to Motionbuilder_2010
I haven’t attempted MB since MB6 just before the 7.5 fbx upgrades..
although I have spent some time now with rigging in 3dsmax…
and I still have to say,the Motionbuilder “naming conventions diagram,
from MB2010 help” did not really answer my questions..

I recognize that as it is,the shape of the MB bones
are stacks different from the 3dsmax ones.
I’m guessing it’s one bone and one rotational axis,
except where it comes to an end rotational axis, Right?

That being so, I can see where the ”head” bone is, in the example at 1.
The arm’s which I normally use three bones for”shoulder“Clavicle”,arm and forearm,”
are in MB ”2 leftarm,” ”3 Leftforarm,” and ”B which I guess would be a Leftwrist” and then ”E which I sure hope, is a Leftshoulder,“Clavicle”.”

I’m also quite lost around the C area, does that count as one extra spine
or is it a sub-shoulder?

I hope I have it right as ”D for a “neck” bone,”
but then ”A leaves me an extra unnamed bone between, Leftupleg and the leftleg.?!!

Finally, what do I do about the hips?! I normally don’t have hips on a rigg,
I tend to link the upleg bones, to the bottom spinebone.. via a hip controller manipulator.
As favored in 3dsmax help....

What do I do about these differences, to successfully bring my rigg through from 3dsmax.

If needed, I’ll attach an fbx 3dsmax export of my rigg..??!!

	Attachment

I thought I had caught them all, but unhappily not so,
there’s is still one more unnamed bone,
between MB’s “2 LeftArm & 3 LeftForeArm.”

So all noted now I wonder, how do they do it???!!

the extra inbetween joints are roll joints in motionbuilder so under Roll you will find slots to drop the twist joints.

The rest is correct, Head, neck you got right, the C is just a spine joint but is throwing you off because it is the parent of the clavs/Shoulders.

Max bones don’t have to have End bones but Maya and Mobu joints do often have null ends,and also draw connections between parent and branching children, like where the shoulders are making it hard to look at, where max bones don’t draw connections.

bones vs. joints always visually confuses people it seems like.

Hips is really just the spine base, or you can think of it that way.

Brad Clark
Co-Founder: Rigging Dojo-Teaching the art and science of character rigging
Author: Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging
The Character Animator Toolkit for Motionbuilder :available now: