Besides animating a biped with footsteps or with keyframing (freeform animation), you can import a motion-capture file.
The overall workflow for motion capture is straightforward:
Motion-capture files are typically dense, with keys on every frame. Filtering the data reduces the number of keys, resulting in an animation with better performance. You filter the data with the Motion Capture Conversion Parameters dialog. This dialog can reduce large numbers of keys at once. It is displayed when you use the Motion Capture rollout to load a BIP, BVH, or CSM file. Once you have loaded a motion-capture file, you can filter the data further by clicking Convert From Buffer (also on the Motion Capture rollout), which also displays this dialog.
Once you are happy with the converted animation, you can use the freeform animation tools to make specific changes.
Motion-capture files can be one of three file types: the native character studio BIP format, the BioVision (BVH) format, or the Character Studio Marker (CSM) format.
For an introduction to using motion capture, see the tutorial “Working with Motion-Capture Data.”