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The Open Reality SDK is a C++ software development kit (SDK) that lets you easily integrate new components into the application.
The architecture is open, modular, and fully scalable - integrating 3D elements (scenes and characters), audio/video streams, and motion capture hardware seamlessly at the architecture level. The software development kit is tightly coupled with this architecture, making it the ideal platform on which to develop fully vertical tools, or to integrate new custom hardware devices.
With Open Reality, you can develop plugins of the following types:
You can also create many other utility plugins to autmate actions, or extend different services provided by the application.
MotionBuilder's technology is built upon the concept of a 'box', essentially connecting inputs on one side, processing the information (calculations, transformations, etc.), and sending the data on to outputs on the other side.
This process is at the base of the real-time evaluation engine. Whenever the real-time engine is called to evaluate a frame to be displayed, it explores the network of boxes that exist within the structure of the scene, running through the different calculations that it needs in order to display the current status of that scene.
Creating a box within the Open Reality SDK has the effect of adding an operator that can be manipulated in the Relations constraint pane.
This section details the specifics of writing a device based on the base class FBDevice. The FBDevice class derives from FBBox, it therefore inherits all the behaviors of an operator, including the evaluation of input and output animation nodes, as described in the previous section.
Devices can easily be added to in order to bring in data from an external source or to send out data to a receiver to control a device. In both situations, a new device permits a plugin to have access to synchronous evaluation callbacks, providing the application with sampled information from the external device. Sufficient layers of abstraction are provided, separating the different layers of communication, isolating time-crictical operations (such as I/O) in different threads to optimize performance.
With Open Reality, you can create many different types of devices, based upon the needs of the developer. Devices can essentially be classified into four different categories:
Constraints are real-time evaluation conditions for elements in a scene. They constrain the movement and/or behavior of objects in a scene, based on input criteria. This can be expressed by formulae, positional information, hierarchal relationships, or many other different forms.
Deformation constraints can also be developed in order to deform meshes using the real-time deformation engine. The Open Reality SDK opens up the creation of constraints to the developer, exporting the necessary creation, management, and evaluation routines needed to add a constraint plugin.
A tool is a new user-interface layout adding to the current functionality of the software. With the extensive user-interface elements available with Open Reality, the possibilities are limitless as to what tools can be added.
MotionBuilder is a hub for data, processing seamlessly many different types of data (motion files, model geometry, constraints, and so on.) Using the different hooks available in Open Reality, you can support many different kinds of custom data formats to bring the data inside the application. Exporters can then be written to send the data to the desired platform.
A manipulator is similar to a tool in usage, but bridges the gap between a tool's functionality and Viewer window interactivity. Manipulators define how the input from the mouse in the Viewer window is used in order to select and manipulate the scene (and the objects in it).
With Open Reality, you can add a new type of manipulator for custom interaction with the Viewer window (selection, viewing, etc.).
A command is an action that is performed at a specific time in the scene. Commands can be accessed in the Transport controls.
A filter is used to adjust or modify animation keyframes on a function curve. The existing set of filters can be extended by deriving new filters from the FBFilter class. These filters can be applied either in the user interface or within the scope of another plugin.
Along with the data structures necessary to interact with the application, the Open Reality SDK is distributed with a series of utility classes that are useful to manipulate data, interact with hardware or work with any of the normal functions that might be needed in the course of developing a plugin. In addition to the functionality they provide, they also give the developer the ability to create scalable cross-platform code, as they are supported in all versions of the SDK. This eliminates any unnecessary modifications for cross-platform development.