Max5 Tutorial Character Rigging

[Dave Black]

Show us the example.

How can we help if we don't know what parts you don't like?

You mentioned that you dislike the hand setup in this tutorial. Since I can't see this hand tutorial, I have no idea what to say.

Not trying to be harsh, but you post has sliped into obscurity due to lack of information.

Give us more to work with, and I'm sure we can help you out.

-3DZ

:D

[Stroker]

If you go with straight FK, and FK only, then you won't need to worry about all that math and complex controllers.

Last weekend I was going through the same thing. Once I undestood the hows and whys of things, even with out getting too deep into the math, I was able to streamline the rig for my own purposes. For example, I currently have no use for Attribute Holder on the hand, so I can leave that out. I was also able to come up with finger things that I'm comfortable with (but I still have a few kinks to work out).

Sure, learning the Max/Comet rig is daunting and can be fraught with frustration, but it's worth it. It allows you to pick and choose what you need and don't need for different scenerios. You will also be working in a way that is comfortable to you, and that, IMHO, is important.

[Gremlin]

I have just used Character Studio biped rigging systems so far (max newbie) and its been aiight, but I wanna get to know max bones but the same scripting was scaring me out of trying to read that tutorial.
I guess ill do it sooner rather than later... when i finish my cartoonish challenge entry, I'll have a good model to experiment with! :D
Cheers,
:beer:

[TapioKa]

Thanks Stroker for your insights.

I must agree, that understanding the components of the rig is useful for using bits and parts for one's specific project requirements. I just find the rig, a little bit of overkill for my use, and for the amount of work involved, the tutorial doesn't clearly explain what all these things accomplish esp for the Hand setup. I agree about working just FK although wrist twisting can be an issue.

3dZealot: Sorry, you didn't understand what I was talking about. I'm talking about the tutorials that ship with MaxR5 on Character rigging. If you've seen them the particular section I'm dealing with is the char_rigging03.4 tutorial that deals with the hand It's got 3 dummies alone in the wrist area, with position and orientation constraints along with minor expressions controlling them. It's setup to blend between FK/IK blending with World vs Local coordinates.

Basically, I just wanted to know if there was a tutorial out there that achieved a similar thing without that level of complexity. I'm not a believer that complex things are always the best solution.

Gremlin: I agree Char studio is nice, but there will be times where what you're animating might be some weird creature and doesn't fall in the confines of a standard biped. Regardless, it's always good to know these ways of working.

If you guys know of alternate Char rigging tuts for max, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

[AnimBot]

TapioKa when I was learning how to rig in max what I did was base my rig off of Character Studio. Since I already knew how to use it I just took what I liked about it and applied it to the rig and changed anything I didn't like. Since then my rigging style has changed quite a bit but it did get me started. I attatched a file that contains what I consider the very basic control that I need to have usually for a character. It only took about 20 minutes to make. There's only IK on the arms,legs, and feet. No scripting or wiring. Play around with it and see if this is the kind of control you were talking about. I'm sorry if this is actually more simple than you were thinking.
http://traviscameron.com/pics/quickrig.zip

[TapioKa]

Thanks AnimBot,

I like your rig a lot. It's simple, responsive and fast.

I guess Comet's Rig is good to know in the sense of how far you can go with it.

I appreciate your effort and advice.
:)

[AnimBot]

No problem I'm glad it helped.

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