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Inv8r_ZIM
03-29-2003, 02:00 PM
Dunno if there's a workaround for this, but if anyone has a thought, it'd be much appreicated. When I'm working in Max (mostly prototyping a scene), I prefer to rig the Biped to a set of dummies (one for each hand and foot, one for the pelvis). Essentially what I do is use the Object IK blend to bind each to it's respective dummy, then animate the dummy. This has the advantage of giving me direct access to my animation curves in the TrackView, where normally, the Biped just has that crappy ease dialogue box. The problem I've run into lately (using v4 right now, it didn't happen in earlier versions for some reason), is that when each extremity is locked to it's dummy, Max ignores any keys set for bones below it (I.E. fingers). Turning off the lock for that hand allows the finger keys to play, but the hand only loosly follows the dummy, and just ignores however I've setup the interpolation curves. Very frustrating, because, otherwise, the dummy setup with Biped is almost ideal. Any thoughts on solving this one?
Mahlon
03-29-2003, 10:35 PM
Sorry I don't know the answer. But I was just able to set it up (I think how you're saying) and set keys on the fingers. Tell me if this is not what you're talking about.

1. Make a dummy and align pivot with left hand.
2. Take the biped left hand and set a key at 0.
3. Click Object space and select the dummy as the IK object to follow.
4. Set Blend to 1.
5. Animate dummy object; hand follows.
6. Go back and animate finger bones.

Is that the way you set it up? Following that, I was able to set keys on the fingers and have everything come out ok.

One more question for you though. When you animate the dummy, keys are not set for the hand, but its rotations and positions still 'read' in the workbench. Is there, or could there be a way to get those rotations to be keyed -- maybe somehow automatically have keys set for the hand (foot, etc.)? Or someway to bake those rotations (other than on a per frame basis, though), so that the rotations and position of the actual biped bones could be saved into a .bip file. The reason is so that it could be used in the mixer, etc. etc. I guess they could be set manually, but I was looking for a more automatic method.

Thanks,
Mahlon Bouldin
Inv8r_ZIM
03-31-2003, 03:52 AM
Yeah, that's essentially the setup I use, with the only addition being that I lock each limb at frame 0, so they follow precisely what the dummy is doing. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm thinking I might also look into the possibility of making the finger curls as wires controlled at the dummy (something like Maya's setDriven key function). Maybe if the keys are all comming from the dummy, it'll read properly.
Mahlon
03-31-2003, 04:48 AM
If you're wanting to make the finger curls set-driven-keys, that can easily be done on the sub-animation tracks of the biped with wires or custom attributes, or better yet, the reactor controller. Then you can collapse those tracks into the final .bip file.

I'm still interested, though, in how you can make the biped's bones positions read and recorded from the dummy placed on the hand and foot.

Mahlon
Pickman
04-01-2003, 01:53 PM
I agree with you Mahlon, never managed to do that in Biped mode without bugging everything down !
Bob27
04-02-2003, 09:17 AM
what about trying other types of IK.
Mahlon
04-02-2003, 06:29 PM
Pickman,
Do you think it's possible?

Mahlon
Pickman
04-02-2003, 07:38 PM
Honestly, no, but I'm no expert ! I don't think it's been developped that way.
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