Bones and motion

[toonman]

Ok. This is gonna be kinda difficult, but I'll do my best. When you move an object, you're performing what's called a transformation. The three transformations 3d apps have avialble are moving, rotating and scaling. Transform data is stored per-object in something called the transform matrix. This data is also stored in parent space. Objects with no parents are children of the world, thus parent coordinates are the same as world coordinates in these cases.
When you deform an object, you're actually transforming its sub-objects (be it vertices, CV's or points, depending on the type of surface the object has). Most 3d apps have a method to perform these transforms based on another object's movement (bone objects, in most cases). Max has a skin modifier to deal with these. An object with a skin modifier has its vertices transformed by underlying bones, based on envelopes, which are areas of deformation each bone has. Envelopes can overlap, thus creating weighted areas, where vertices can be deformed by several envelopes. Vertices can also be weighted by hand to precise amounts, for each envelope.
I'm not sure what you're after. If you're looking into a way of deforming objects through C++ (like writing your own skin plugin), I'd suggest getting into the max SDK. You'll find tons of info there. I hope this helped a bit. Cheers!

[ghengisjim]

Your response prompted a question of mine: How do you animate deformations? Is deform a modifier? B/c the other day, I tried going into the sub-object mode when I animated something, to make for example, a sphere shape "Morph" into a square. It didnt work, didnt animate it, just left it how it was when I finished with my sub-object modifications.

[Dominique]

Did you activate the animate Button???
And did you changed from frame-number???

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