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View Full Version : A few dumb 3ds max questions!

iconboy
06-01-2003, 03:37 PM
hey all, i didnt know where to post my dumb questions because they are diverse, so i just decided to post them here and all under one thread, hope noone minds... here we go...

1) I havent been able to yet do a proper morph! heres my problem, i have the character in the "christ pose" and make a copy of him like that to manipulate as the object for the morph to follow, i apply the morp so that my character say wants to blink, when i use the morph to make him blink, he doesnt just blink! his whole body goes back to the "christ pose" position, argh!

2) Is it considered bullet time to just have a camera revolve around slowed down action? or is there another proper way to do it?

3) HOW do u get the high speed camera effect in max like in all the fight scenes in gladiator!?

4) Ive used advanced lighting but it takes forever to render, then i used brazil and its a little better, but still takes a long time to render, how would i go about using normal lights to mimic the effects of brazil and make it render faster?

thanks!
joconnell
06-01-2003, 03:52 PM
1. Make a copy of your object for the morph target. Make Sure it's not an instance or reference. Make your modelling changes as needed. Collapse the object to a mesh or poly. In your master object apply the morpher modifier to the object and make sure the blend works. Next bone and skin your character using biped / bones / skin / physique whatever. one key thing is to make all of the verts for the head / morphed area asigned 100% to one bone so you don't get any wackiness. It sounds like you're morpher is controlling more than the head if it's returning the body to a default pose - check the stacking order of your modifiers so that the morph is below your skinning.

2. Yup pretty much. Theres a few scripts to do this in 3dsmax easier than setting up complex function curves - look for maxtrix and bullet time in the search field of www.scriptspot.com . Please note that particles won't work as all of the scripts use sub frame movement. Paticles (except p flow in max 5.1) only move in full frames

3. In gladiator it's done by using long lenses with high shutter speeds - it makes the footage really crisp looking with almost no motion blur. Render with no motion blur and possibly run an unsharp mask in after effects or photoshop to enhance it more.

4. You can try using a domelight - A hemishphere full of spotlights pointed to a single place which mimics the sky. You can use the array tool to make your own or again look at scriptspot.com to fond some domelight scripts. Or you can use the free version of vray from www.vrayrender.com
iconboy
06-01-2003, 05:26 PM
wow, thanks soo much for your reply joconnell!

u were right about the morph, it was above my skinning and bones in the modifier stack! doh! ;)

about the gladiator looking footage... in the render options, there is an option to render every _nth frame, would this help at all? say render every 3rd frame? or would that just mak it choppy?

thanks again! :)
gaggle
06-02-2003, 09:00 AM
That would infact indeed just make it choppy. It can be used to speed things up, though I would essentially always suggest going in and tweak the keyframes instead. And obviously it's not something to use if you desire to slow things down to a matrixy bullettime-feel.
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