Secondary Animation Using Bones

[AndersEgleus]

Try it and tell me if you like it:

Spring Joint (http://home.sol.se/anders_e/AE3d/Scripts/SpringJoint/Index.htm)

Its main purpose is in its name - bones with rotational springs between them - but if you set the tension very low/ mass very high and combine it with gravity, you can use it like a chain link.

Note though, that it only calculates the spring effect based on the bone's and bone's parent(s) motion, not the children, so it's not very accurate for chains linked in two ends. For real accuracy, you'd have to use reactor I guess.

[Stroker]

Basic idea is to add Spring/whatever to a helper or to the end of a bone. Then Spring/whatever moves the bone, and the bone moves the verts around.

Here's a fun thread that should help:
Breast Simulation (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49869).

[FatAssasin]

Thanks dudes. I think the native max Spring controller would work for simpler secondary animations (like the bouncing breasts), but I think Anders' script would be easily to use for something more complex like a scarf or chains.

[Dave Black]

One other thing you may need to remember, and this is simply a side note that could save you hours of frustration:

If your engine only supports bones, dummy object and thier controling parents may not export. You can bake the animation into the bone's keyframes by doing this:

Select you're bone objects. Click the motion panel, and then select the trajectories button. Using the Collapse Transform button, you can bake all non-boned animation, i.e. animation that is being controled by a non-bone object, but is affection the animation of the bones.

Just something I thought I'd share. May not be of any use, but it's a little-known cure for a common problem.

Best of luck!

-3DZ

:D

[FatAssasin]

Thanks 3DZ. This is for an Unreal Tournament 2003 mod and I had the same concerns when I started thinking about how to do this. But from what I understand, when you export an animation is simply saves out the rotation and translation information for each bone, each frame. So it shouldn't matter how the bones are being controlled, but I haven't done any crazy tests yet. If I do run into problems, I'll definitely use your trick. I didn't know about that one. Thanks!

[Reality3D]

You can try also Superlag by Michael Comet
http://www.comet-cartoons.com/toons/3dfiles/superLag/superLag.html

[FatAssasin]

Wow, I didn't know there were so many different ways to do this. Thanks.

[zad]

Hey guys, i have a charactor with a tail and found your thread with super lag on it and by what you have said it works. ive tried to laod it into max 6 and all i get is the super lag floating window with no icons. would you know if this is because i am using max6 or it may be the way i loaded it in to max. so if possible would you be able to guide me through the loading process

[FatAssasin]

I haven't tried Super Lag with Max 6, but the best way to load Comet's scripts is to download and install his entire package of scripts.

But I have used Spring Joint with Max 6 and it works great. I've been using it quite a bit and have only found a couple minor problems, but overall I highly recommend it.

[Cullen]

i usually use spring controllers on spline ik. but that is very slow to work with.

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