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virtualmesh
03-24-2006, 11:25 AM
I was going to create various proportional parts of a human bone system within 3dsmax so that in the future, I would have a limited but proportionally recorded library of riggs that can be brought into a scene and linked up to other body parts within the character rig. Each body part would be it's own max file and the file name would reflect the proportional character size and the body part/rig.

My workflow for 3D is changing...I've discovered it's better to draw in my rig and it's proportions first, before modelling the mesh ontop (I'm a 3D animator hobbiest - not a pro so I'm a multi-task artist here). This way, my animation will be the primary focus for the modelling and not 'vise-versa'.

Hypothetical scenario for having a limited rig library.
Let's say there's a character that I want in my scene that is about 6 feet tall but with the proportional leg and arm length of someone that is say five foot-six inches, I would be able to call up the leg and arm riggs based from a 5'6" character file and the spinal column/head from a 6'0" character file.

Each file would hold the bones/muscle 'stretch' bones and helper/control objects all child to a single dummy object that would act as the hierarchy's parent:

6f0i_spine+head.max
5f6i_legs.max
5f6i_arms.max
I would have a range of proportional files for each rig part...perhaps from 5'0" through to 6'4" in two-inch intervals.

Once these skeletonal 'parts' were in the scene, I would then just link the single dummy helper objects that are the parent object of each part to a master dummy object that would act as the master character's node.

Any thoughts on this or things I should look out for in the process of creating this library of max rigs?
eek
03-24-2006, 03:18 PM
I wouldnt have them as max scenes, id have them as fn calls in a struct. "Build_fk_arm" for instance - that work on parts of a skeleton. The benefit here is firstly:


Multiple character rigs, youd have to do some sort of batch system to link up all the bones to each other. With a fn call you could call multiple fns for a whole character, call arms,spine,legs etc.
Changing the rig afterwards would be horrid, because youd have to bring in new bones, and because there in one scene youd have to re skin that part.
I think the parts idea is one of the best ways - you could have 2 rigs an animation rig and a fk skin rig which reads this. You can call mixtures of fn, stretch arms, normal legs, facial rigs, on the animation rig. Also with this you can make any proportioned character, and just call the rig fn on the parts, heck you could even automate it.
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03-24-2006, 03:18 PM
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