MotionClip SOP nodes that output MotionClips now have a viewport state that allows you to visualize a MotionClip or its evaluated poses over time using a color ramp.

When working with MotionClips, you can now select individual joints from the MotionClip viewport state or the character Rig Tree pane. Also, motion trails now automatically appear for selected joints in the MotionClip viewport state.

You can now specify what to do with the attributes stored by the Attributes to Store parameter on the MotionClip SOP node with the new Rest Attributes and Animated Attributes parameters on all of the MotionClip nodes.

Specify which attributes are evaluated from and repacked into MotionClips for each dynamically warped pose of your character’s animation with the new MotionClip Repack Attributes, Rest Attributes, and Animated Attributes parameters on the Dynamic Warp SOP node.

Use the topology of the skeleton from the first frame of a MotionClip’s range with the new Use First Frame for Topology parameter on the MotionClip SOP node.

Determine where the extraction frame rate and frame range are obtained from with the new Clip Range parameter and options on the MotionClip Extract SOP node.

Remove a subset of joints from each selected pose instead of all the joints with the new Joint Group parameter on the MotionClip Pose Delete SOP node.

Specify which poses to remove from your MotionClip data with the new Frame Range, Frame Pattern, Pose Range, and Pose Group selection method parameters and all of their options on the MotionClip Pose Delete SOP node.

Specify whether the initial position for the locomotion is obtained from the rest pose or from the first pose of the MotionClip with the new Use Rest Pose as Locomotion Start parameter on the MotionClip Extract Locomotion SOP node.

Specify which interpolation method to use when evaluating a MotionClip with the new Interpolation parameter and options on the MotionClip Evaluate SOP node.

The joint transform data in the Rig Pose SOP and Rig Match Pose SOP viewport states are now separated out into their own HUD so that it can be made visible independent of the hotkey hints. The numeric values are also now formatted more nicely.

The Skeleton SOP viewport state now has a HUD.

Access the bake controls for a Rig Pose SOP node from its viewport state’s toolbar with the new Open Bake Dialog button.

Keep a motion path locked to a specific joint even when selecting other joints in the same skeleton with the new Lock To Current Point option in the Rig Pose SOP node’s motion path viewport state right-click menu.

Change the default display settings for a motion path with the new Make Current Handle Settings Default option in the Rig Pose SOP node’s motion path viewport state right-click menu.

See how your motion path will cycle with the new Cycle Frames parameter in the Rig Pose SOP node’s motion path viewport state handle parameter pane.

Use the bounding box to set the pivot used for globally transforming the skeletons during a retarget operation with the new Set Pivot from Bounds parameter on the Rig Match Pose SOP node.

Improved frame rate change and key position handling for your animation sequences. For more information, see Global Animation Options.

Improved frame rate change and key position handling for your animation sequences. For more information, see Global Animation Options.

Set a fractional frame rate for playback with the new Enable playback at fractional frames button and its RMB options on the playbar. This behavior already exists inside the Global Animation Options as the Integer Frame Values & Step options, but it is now easier to access from the playbar.

Smooth point, skeleton, or MotionClip animation data (local transforms or other specified attributes) using a Butterworth Filter with the new SmoothMotion SOP node.

Smooth your animation keys using a Butterworth Filter with the new Smooth Keyframes on Selected Channels options window in the Animation Editor. This window’s options remove unwanted jitter and noise from your animation channels.

The Secondary Motion SOP has a new Use Driver Joint parameter that allows one to choose whether a custom joint is used to drive the effect.

Create point attributes on a ragdoll simulation’s input skeleton for the purpose of scaling the ragdoll solver’s Stiffness and Motor Strength with the new Configure Ragdoll Attributes Per Joint parameter on the Ragdoll Collision Shapes SOP node.

Use a point attribute to scale the stiffness of your character’s ragdoll simulation with the new Stiffness Scale Attribute parameter on the Ragdoll Solver SOP node.

Use a point attribute to scale the motor strength for your character’s ragdoll simulation with the new Motor Strength Scale Attribute parameter on the Ragdoll Solver SOP node.

New Joint Capture Paint SOP node provides an improved and simplified capture (skin) weight painting experience. This node replaces the Capture Layer Paint SOP node in the KineFX capture set-up workflow.

Improve your biharmonic captures by using additional curves or geometry to distribute joint weights more evenly and broadly before refining your captures (skins) by painting capture weights with the new Role > Capture Geo parameter option on the Attach Joint Geo SOP node and the Capture Geo Options parameters on the Joint Capture Biharmonic SOP node.

Improved character rig tree UI now makes it easier to interact with and navigate your joint hierarchies across all the KineFX SOP nodes.

You can now pre-visualise all mappings that will be made while mirroring mappings in the Map Points viewport state.

You can now use box selection to select points, edges, and controls in the KineFX viewport states.

Compute connectivity-aware capture weights and smooth deformations for animated polygonal surfaces or the surfaces of tetrahedral meshes with the new Point Capture SOP. You can use this node as an alternative way to calculate and supply capture weights to the Point Deform SOP.

Improved Character Blend Shapes SOP performance. It is now 8.1 times faster for the initial match points set-up and 1.5 faster when animating the blend shape deformations frame-to-frame using animated weights.

Add or extract in-between shapes to or from your character blend shapes with the new Add as In-Between Shapes parameters on the Character Blend Shapes Add SOP and Character Blend Shapes Extract SOP nodes. These parameters allow you to introduce intermediary target shapes to your character blend shape set-ups that your hero shapes will then transition through along their way to deforming to their main target shapes. For example, you can set-up a lip in-between for a mouth smile-no smile blend shape set-up to avoid any interpenetration between the lip and teeth geometry of a character.

New Character Blend Shape Channels SOP node which allows you to create and then apply parameters and/or detail attributes to a character’s skeleton that then drive its blend shapes. You can use this node to set and animate your character blend shape weights.

Use a per-element mask to set or scale blend weights for each blend shape input with the new Blend Masking and Blend Mask Attribute parameters on the Blend Shapes SOP node. This is useful when you want to layer multiple deformation effects.

New Skeleton Blend 3.0 SOP node with multiple improvements to how pose blending and weighting are handled.

Determine whether to read the frame range from the clipinfo detail attribute on the input geometry or set a custom range on all KineFX nodes that have a frame related parameter.

Automatically determine and set the Rig Doctor’s Joint Scale parameter value based on your skeleton’s root joint scale and the size of its bounding box with the new Initialize Scale From Root button on the Rig Doctor SOP node.

Help determine the up vector that is used to your orient joints with the new Reference Point Attribute for Lookat parameter on the Orient Joints SOP node. If you use this parameter, the up vector is computed as the direction between the current joint and the transform specified by the up reference matrix point attribute.

Choose how to resolve membership conflicts between a newly created joint group and an existing joint group with the new Initial Merge parameter on the Group Joints SOP node.

Set all joint scales in your rig visualizations to be effectively equal to one unit with the new Ignore Joint Scales parameter on the Visualize Rig SOP node.

When attaching control shapes to your character, you can now specify the rest pose for its skeleton with the new Rest Pose Attribute parameter on the Attach Joint Geo SOP node.

Configure the tolerance that is used for determining near-zero values when re-normalizing capture weights with the new Tolerance parameter on the Capture Correct SOP node.

New Character I/O SOP 2.0 node with multiple improvements including expanded MotionClip support.

USD Skin Import SOP node now issues a warning when it encounters invalid skinned USD primitives.

Mocap Stream SOP now supports Qualisys devices via the Qualisys Track Manager.

Specify the pattern to use when renaming the blend shape detail attributes that define the facial motion from an input character with the new Facial Attributes parameter on the Mocap Stream SOP node.

Determine how the input and output skeletons should be layered with the new Layering parameters on the Mocap Stream SOP node. This allows you to more easily combine motion capture performances from multiple sources at the same time.

For Optitrack (Motive) motion capture devices, you can now ensure a successful connection to a multicast group by specifying the IP address of the machine running Houdini with the new Local IP parameter on the Mocap Stream SOP node.

ROP FBX Animation Export SOP and ROP FBX Character Export SOP nodes now support a variety of default frame rates as well as custom frame rates.

FBX Animation Import SOP and FBX Character Import SOP nodes now support both static and animated custom attributes which they import as fbx_custom_attributes point dictionaries.

Import or export user-defined properties from/to FBX files and store them as fbx_custom_attributes point attributes with the new Import User-Defined Attributes and Export User-Defined Attributes parameters on the FBX Animation Import SOP, FBX Character Import SOP, ROP FBX Animation Output SOP, and ROP FBX Character Output SOP nodes respectively.

Specify the skinned shape name that a capture joint is attached to with the new fbx_skin string array point attribute stored on capture pose geometry and understood by the FBX Character Import SOP and ROP FBX Character Output SOP nodes. This attribute supports the more accurate FBX import/export of bind poses for joints that are not bound to any skin points.

Look at all the FBX custom attribute animation curves that you want to export and automatically delete any identified constant curves (curves with no change in key values) with the new Remove Constant Animation Curves parameter on the ROP FBX Animation Output SOP and ROP FBX Character Output SOP nodes.

FBX Export Window (File ▸ Export ▸ Filmbox FBX), FBX ROP node, and ROP FBX SOP node now support custom frame rates.

When importing FBX geometry using a File SOP node, you can now use the new convertunits path syntax option to perform unit conversion during the import. For example, filename.fbx#,convertunits.

When exporting your scene files with FBX, you can now embed any media (like textures, sound, and videos) related to your scene in the export with the new Embed Media parameter on the ROP FBX Output SOP and Filmbox FBX ROP nodes.

Convert any non-changing topology deforming mesh sequence into a bone-based animation with the new Dem Bones Skinning Converter SOP and Dem Bones Skinning Converter ROP nodes.

Filter audio input and/or animation channels using a frequency response that has a maximally flat magnitude with the new Butterworth filter type on the Pass Filter CHOP node.