Character Studio, is there anyone out who really can master it?

[Paul L. Ming]

Hiya.

I'm sure it is possible. The best way to keyframe "everything at once" would be to write your own MAXscript to do it. Dont' ask me how to do it, I don't/havn't used it. But, that would be the way to go I bet.

When I animate with MAX I tend to use a base "footstep" layout, then immediately convert it to keyframes. Then I go in and tweak. This keeps the feet "planted" and get's me up and running (no put intended). Sometimes I will create a "total freeform" animation with biped and then save it for use in Motion Flow. It all depends on the character and what I need.

[spacefrog]

Hi Papa!

Keith Langos Poptrough technique fits more for traditional-rigged characters where you can do step keyframes ( thus the name )
Basicly its possible to use it in CS too, but in CS you can not have step-keyframes but never mind....

First: for the keyframe-all problem
you've got this Copy Posture/Pose button under keyframing, if you switch to "Copy Pose" (the whole stickman icon), click it your actual pose gets stored,when you paste with the icon below, all parts get a keyframe ! Thats what you wanted...

Second get hold of a few script goodies ( search for "biped" on www.scriptspot.com )
I personally use "Biped Selector", but there are plenty of others to be explored....
This little "Current Transform" is a little stupid but man....

Paul: in CS3 you got an extra button for "Set Planted Key" which prevents you from animating the body/object space usage ,
so i would get rid of the autmated footsteps in general


;-) spacefrog

[DerPapa]

Heya Spacefrog

Thanks for the copy/paste pose tip, but this doesn't work for the Center of Mass :( Here is my problem, cause I like to have a key in each track (horiz, vert, rot) which is not possible this way, without doing 6 clicks, you know.

Yes you are right, pose to pose not easy with CS cause of the lack of steptangents, but the main interest in doing pose to pose is (as far as I understand) the possibility to have control over timing first, before you go deep into the animation.

Maybe I need another workaround for CS... In fact, that was the reason of this threat. Hoping someone shares favorite workarounds :)
Maybe I will check Pauls rough-footstep-than-convert-and-go-on-technique. And I will take a look at scriptspot :-)

thnx
Michael

P.S. It's a bit sad, that even at the discreetboard, Character Studio related questions will barley answerd.

[Gonzo The Great]

Gaggle - someone that will remain nameless - just convinced me to set fire to all Character Studio manuals and tutorials over in a thread I started.

I don't suggest you do the same but you should.

Burn everything.

[islivkov]

I think I can tell you how to key all your animation atonce, but I am not sure this is going to solve your problems :) If you export your animation to a *bip file (from motion control panel you have an option "export segment" and when you have opened the dialog box - you have 2 check boxes, one of them is "key per frame". But than when you have everything keyed - the only way to alter your animation is to add a new layer and work on it instead of working on your original animation :) I hope this helps

[DerPapa]

No, islivkov, my intention was to get a workaround with CS doing kinda "Pose to Pose" to have a better timing control. Therefore it's helpfull to have a one fully keyed frame, to move a complete pose forward or backward in time.
Generating a key in every frame is definetly the opposite off what i want :)

And, Layers might be very helpfull to fix Mocap Data (the fighting girl from above looks to camera via layer) but in general, layers are not as good, as they seem. I had some problems were Network slaves completely ignored layers :(

but thanks for replying

Michael

[islivkov]

Hi Michael - it's me again. Sorry for the first answer - I obviously did not get what you want from the biped :( As for the copy/paste thing Spacefrog suggested - it should work in CS even with center of mass - actually this is the only way I know of to set keys to all the bones at once. I've tried it just now and it did work. Something else you might try is you select all bones in the biped and hit the SET KEY button in the motion control>keyframing menu, but in this way you will get only one key on the center of mass - the currently selected one. Btw, when you copy/paste pose make sure the animate button it ON (I suppose you know this well, but just to make sure).

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