Docs / Panel reference / Text to Motion

Text to Motion

Card 03 — the generation request itself: parameters, output placement, and the Generate Motion button.

The generation request itself. The prompts live on the Prompt Timeline; this card holds the parameters and the button that sends them.

Each group carries its own Reset, scoped to the fields that group owns — a reset in one group never disturbs another.

#General

Control	Description
Duration	Read-only: how long the current timeline content runs.
Max single prompt	A fixed reminder that one prompt block covers at most 10 s.
Diffusion steps	Quality against time: Draft (100), Standard (300), Fine (500), or Custom….
Custom diffusion steps	Revealed by the Custom… preset; accepts 1–1000. Above 500 a warning appears — the server caps steps at 500 and may reject higher values.
Seed / Random	Fix a seed to reproduce a result, or tick Random to vary it. The seed field greys out while Random is on.

Honest presets — if a saved step count does not match a fixed preset, the dropdown shows Custom… and the number verbatim. The preset label never claims a value that is not the one being sent.

#Advanced

Off until you flip the toggle in the group header. The Reset here restores the parameters but deliberately leaves the toggle alone, so a reset does not collapse the panel you are editing.

Control	Range	Meaning
Num samples	1–8	How many candidate motions the server samples for the request.
CFG type	Separated / Regular / Nocfg	How the guidance is applied.
CFG weight (text)	0–10	How strongly the text steers the result.
CFG weight (constraint)	0–10	How strongly your constraints steer it.
Transition frames	0–30	Blend length between consecutive prompt blocks.
Initial heading (deg)	0–360	Which way the character starts facing.
Server post-processing	on / off	Runs the server's own pass (root-drift correction) over the sampled motion. On by default.
Root margin (m)	0–0.2	Horizontal slack for that correction. Greys out with the box above it.

Root margin is not on the wire — the value is collected and remembered, but it is not sent. It is documented here so a number you typed is not mistaken for something the server acted on.

#Output Target

In 3ds Max there is exactly one target: the scene holds one animation, and a generation replaces it. Because there is nothing to pick between, the mode picker is not shown at all — the timeline header simply reads Mode: Replace.

#Placement

Control	Description
Use current position	Start from the skeleton's scene XZ and facing rather than from the origin. The rig's facing is captured along with its position.
Preserve height	Send the rig's current hip height to the model, so the motion is generated at that height rather than shifted afterwards.

#Ground

A movable ground-plane object whose height is folded into the generated motion.

Control	Description
Create Ground	Spawns the plane, or finds the existing one.
Refresh	Pulls the plane's live height into the Ground height (m) field.
Ground height (m)	Editing it moves the plane. The plane is the source of truth and the field is a mirror, so it stays disabled until a plane exists.
Hide / Show	Toggles the plane's visibility; the button label follows the plane's actual state.
Apply ground offset	The master switch for the fold itself. It is policy rather than a plane control, so it stays available even with no plane in the scene.

#Layer & Rig

Control	Description
Generate on base layer only	Key onto the base animation layer regardless of which layer is active. This is key placement only — additive layers above still show.

3ds Max exposes native animation layers, which is why this switch is here and why it is the only one in the group.

#Generate Motion

Builds one request from every prompt block on the timeline and sends it. While it runs, a progress row below the card shows the phase, an indeterminate bar and an elapsed clock, and the card itself is disabled so a second click cannot race the first.

The same run is started three ways: Generate Motion here, Generate in the timeline header, or Ctrl+G with the mouse over the timeline.