iliketrees
02-25-2009, 11:17 PM
Hi everyone,
Iv been using 3ds max for just over a couple of months now and learning in my spare time (which Iv made a lot of!)
After learning basic poly modelling methods as well as some modifiers and attempting various modelling tutorials (incl heads which went wrong a lot) I came up with a kid character a couple of weeks ago which Im very happy with and spent 'a lot' of time making sure the geometry was all quads and neat (flowing)
anyway Iv now finished rigging him by following through Michele Bousquet's book - Model, Rig, Animate with Max 7 (which I found at my local library) several times and applying the methods to my own bone rig and for skinning the character.
I have 3 spine controls,
clavicle and wrist control
a pelvis control which also controls the legs,
feet controls
a move whole character control
elbow and knee swivel angle (look at) controls
plus custom attributes for controling fingers and foot roll
So with these controls are there golden rules of what to use at what point in terms of animating and how do you go about creating good timing? (the book doesn't go into animating rules as such, just mouth shapes for lip-sych and a couple of poses)
For Example
for a walk/run cycle you move the pelvis control forward, then move the feet controls to postion the feet, then move the pelvis forward again, BUT, (for instance) how do you know how far along you move it the last time to keep with the constant motion?
Is there a 'hub' for animating with bones in Max, a central station if you like to organise and contruct the animation?
It just seems like theres to much freedom and no 'history' as such to see what you've done while working on new movements.
I hope someone's on my wavelength and gets what Im goin on about, any help would be amazing, thanks!
Neil.
Couple of screengrabs of my rig/controls (perviously posted under the 'Rigging' Section when enquiring about mirroring manual vertex weights)
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/neilparsons/rig_cgtalk1.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/neilparsons/rig_cgtalk2.jpg
Iv been using 3ds max for just over a couple of months now and learning in my spare time (which Iv made a lot of!)
After learning basic poly modelling methods as well as some modifiers and attempting various modelling tutorials (incl heads which went wrong a lot) I came up with a kid character a couple of weeks ago which Im very happy with and spent 'a lot' of time making sure the geometry was all quads and neat (flowing)
anyway Iv now finished rigging him by following through Michele Bousquet's book - Model, Rig, Animate with Max 7 (which I found at my local library) several times and applying the methods to my own bone rig and for skinning the character.
I have 3 spine controls,
clavicle and wrist control
a pelvis control which also controls the legs,
feet controls
a move whole character control
elbow and knee swivel angle (look at) controls
plus custom attributes for controling fingers and foot roll
So with these controls are there golden rules of what to use at what point in terms of animating and how do you go about creating good timing? (the book doesn't go into animating rules as such, just mouth shapes for lip-sych and a couple of poses)
For Example
for a walk/run cycle you move the pelvis control forward, then move the feet controls to postion the feet, then move the pelvis forward again, BUT, (for instance) how do you know how far along you move it the last time to keep with the constant motion?
Is there a 'hub' for animating with bones in Max, a central station if you like to organise and contruct the animation?
It just seems like theres to much freedom and no 'history' as such to see what you've done while working on new movements.
I hope someone's on my wavelength and gets what Im goin on about, any help would be amazing, thanks!
Neil.
Couple of screengrabs of my rig/controls (perviously posted under the 'Rigging' Section when enquiring about mirroring manual vertex weights)
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/neilparsons/rig_cgtalk1.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/neilparsons/rig_cgtalk2.jpg