Character Studio 4.. How flexable is it ?.

[EricChadwick]

CS consists of Biped (skeleton) and Physique (deformation).

A lot of games use CS, but people use it for higher-res too.

Biped works pretty well as a skeletal system, in that it has a lot of automatically setup controls. There are some really helpful tools. You can easily import and adjust mocap. You can easily edit and save motions and skeletons. You can easily transfer motions from one char to another. Some people don't like the way it constrains certain animation tasks, like editing keys. You can't see function curves unless you use CS' own curve editor. Etc.

Physique is a separate system, it can be used with other bone setups. Most people prefer the Skin modifier, it is generally faster in the viewport, not so top-heavy. Physique on the other hand has tons of controls, plus Tendons and Bulges. I haven't used those tho.

Oh, forgot to add, you can add as many floating bones to Biped as you wish, for example to add facial animation. Works the same as any other skeleton really. For facial stuff, most folks recommend detaching the head from the body, creating morph targets for it with the Morpher modifier, then adding an Edit Mesh above that and attaching the body to the head, then adding Physique or Skin on top to control the rest of the body, possibly also adding some additional facial controls like jaw rotation, etc..

[Mahlon]

CS is fine for hi res stuff, but you'll probably be adding extra bones to it to get the results you want. In CS4, it's really nice to have the list controllers available for extra stuff (and anything that's animated in the list controller can be viewed in the regular track view as well -- so in theory you could assign euler xyz to your feet and hand list controllers, and then be able to tweak the f-curves in regular track view. All of this would save with the .bip file. But if you wanted to use the animation in the motion mixer, you'd want to collapse the tracks first. Then use in the mixer or motion flow.) And any bones you add to the rig can be saved with the .fig file which is tres convenient.

Anyway, back to your question. I've been working with CS and some pretty detailed meshes recently. (attached pic of hand). As far as the Martin model/rig, obviously CS is geared best towards bipdel creatures (and the Martin could qualify), so it's a little trickier to set it up for four-legged animals, but it can be done.

But CS is a character animation system. The real advantages lie in re-useable animation, bipeds, adapting this animation to that character, etc. The mixer is very powerful and the system has been set up to get animation done quickly. All the tools are there to make really good animation.

Seems the main thing people say is a drawback with CS is the fact that the biped rig itself is more difficult to customize. I take that to mean with scripts, etc. And this is what your question is about, I think. I'm just getting into trying some scripting on bipeds, so I'm a noobie in that. But since CS4 has added the list controllers and extra bones saved with the .bip and figure files, a lot of customization (clusters, ffd, deformation-type things) can be done there effectively outside of much scripting.

I now realize that this is getting pretty long, so I'll stop. I'm starting to sound like an evangelist for CS. Soon, I'll be posting a WIP thread with this character I've been setting up.

Another option is Motion Builder for character rigging, and also HumanIK, the motionbuilder plug-in for max. I'm going to have to try it someday soon, but a lot of the stuff I've seen in Buzz's VTM's on MotionBuilder are mirrored in CS4. So for me, it may be redundant.

Sorry, haven't used physique really. Just using the skin modifier.

Anyway, whoever's read this far gets a beer :beer: and an asprin.

Mahlon

http://personal.mem.bellsouth.net/m/a/mahlonb/Pics/Pierrot_Jan_26b_test_02.jpg

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