Motion Builder - exporting an animation to an .mb

Load the AnimRef_idle.fbx of the character you want, into Motion Builder, and animate with that. Currently we are using the "citywatch" for all base animations (that can be applied to other characters). This rig should already be facing along the X axis, but just ensure this is the case. Motion Builder defaults to the Z axis with a new model.

Before exporting, you have to do this ritual; up on the top right where the picture of the man is, there are some drop down menus... Click on "Edit", then "Plot Character", then click "Skeleton", then "Plot". DO NOT SAVE THE FILE. You definetly don't want to save after plotting to skeleton - you lose all your layer and keyframe data. Everything gets flattened to one layer with a key frame every frame for the entire body.

Click File, export, and from the file-type selector, choose "Kaydara FBX (Animation only)". Like it says, this will just be the animation only, and no cameras or models you may have in the scene. Now do "New" , "Don't Save" and then "Open" to re-open your file.

In Maya, open the fbx_import.mb. Then go File, Import, and choose your FBX file. You may need to install the latest FBX importer plugin. Choose the Merge(Exclusive Merge) option on the importer dialogue.

The animation should play correctly and you should be able to save this as walk.mb or whatever animation name you want, and then use the Getting_Characters_and_their_Anims_into_Doom instructions to get it into Doom 3.