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nirishere
08-20-2002, 06:27 AM
Well, it goes like this.
I created the bones, and now I have a skeleton of a human.
I used IK (assign to children option).
The thing is :
1. I want the bones to have limits, I mean, you can't make the arms bend the other way or the head spin 360 degs...
How do I assign limitations to bones ability to move ?

2. What do I need to do to be able to move a bone that is located in the middle of the chain ? When I try to move a bone in the middle of the chain it just doesn't move and I think it's because the Start->End of the IK chain have been already calculated... How do I overcome this. I want to move it like a puppet.

3. can I make the bones react to gravity ? I mean, is there a way I can make the character jump and fall back to the ground ?

Thanx guys, you are very helpful !!:wavey:
Joel Hooks
08-20-2002, 06:58 AM
Originally posted by nirishere
1. I want the bones to have limits, I mean, you can't make the arms bend the other way or the head spin 360 degs...
How do I assign limitations to bones ability to move ?


Well, my first bit of advice here is going to be to open your max helpfile and search for IK limits.

"I want to move it like a puppet."

Ya, I bet you do :)

Unfourtunatly it is not as easy as just wanting it to be a puppet. You are wanting to make a "rig", as it's called. It's a huge side of 3d character animation, with vast amounts of knowledge available on the net.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17735

here's a recent thread with some links. Search these forums for "max rigging", search google for "3dsmax rigging tutorial"

Good luck!:beer:
nirishere
08-20-2002, 01:12 PM
Ya well,
I wasn't really expecting a book to be written just for me, but keywords like the ones you just gave me are perfect.
Still, is there a way to move the IK chain from the middle ?
As hard as it would be, I don't think that human animation like that shown in warcraft III, or almost anywhere else is made strictly by humans, this is an endless job.
What I am trying to say is, that I want to know what techniques can I take to make something move more reliably. After all, most animations look quite convincing, and I am sure I am missing a point here.
Thanx for the IK limits !
and cheers, gonna have a beer for that ! :beer:
samhodge
08-21-2002, 04:15 AM
Regarding realistic movement, and the time it takes.

I am not sure if you have heard of the concept of motion capture?

But it is basically that an actors movements are tracked my some special hardware and applied to the character.

Its neat if you want human movement applied to human like characters.

But it can be a pain in the butt if you wanna apply to to outside this realm.

Even then it can be a pain as it produces a key every 30th of a second, which can mek for a lot of editing

luckily character studio for max sorts a lot of these problems out
nirishere
08-21-2002, 08:28 AM
Well, I am quite a new user and I am not familiar with character studio that much.
All I wanted to know was how I can move an IK shain from it's middle ?
I saw a few scenes in Max 4.2 (of the dinosaur, for ex.) where I could grab the chain of bones from its middle, and thus affect both sides (start and end) of the bones chain. Is there a way I can do it myself ?
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