PDA

View Full Version : A few issues with Character Studio

Trazza
10-07-2009, 08:18 AM
Hey guys

I'm sorry if i'm going to be asking some stupid questions here but I've looked around and couldn't find solutions anywhere else.

I'm helping a mate out on an indie game at the moment and the character has been rigged with Character Studio to keep things simple. Problem is I'm doing the animation and I'm finding some things a bit weird.

First one is that when I try to clean up my fcurves on one axis it deletes the keys for every axis for that frame. Same if i shift keys on one axis as well...it decides to move all the keys on that frame. Is there a way around this so I can treat each axis independently?

Also I wanted to block in some simple overlap on the spine but when I shifted the keys on one of the spine bones it moves the keys on the other spine bones as well...even though that's not what I want.

I know Character Studio is probably most suited to Mocap work and maybe they just haven't built this functionality in but I wanted to see if anyone has any ideas. I always use custom rigs so going to this has been a bit of a nightmare. I used CS years ago and I would've thought this kind of stuff would be built in by now.

Cheers
Trav
Dupinet
10-09-2009, 03:02 PM
I know what you mean, Welcome to CS . I had the same problem at my first approach with character studio. At the beginning really sucks but then you'll understand the strange logic.

The first thing: Character Studio uses a primitive quaternion spines so it means that fcurves doesn't work as a regular rig. Their use is only useful to figure out how the animation is working, but that's all... to change the curves in CS it's better to use the "TBC" option (you will find it inside the "Key Info" option). To be honest it's not intuitive so I prefeer to use this script so I can see what I really want :

http://www.mikems.ru/img/scripts/bk_scr.png
http://www.mikems.ru/download.php?script=bk

The best aproach with CS is to make the poses first (unfortunately you cannot use stepped curves), then the breakdowns and everything else as a regular rig. When I need to make an adjust like a break joints in animation or some polish it's a good idea to use the Biped layers.. I've used them sometimes to polish shoulders and elbows because by default CS introduce a keyframe to all the arm even If you just want to keyframe a wrist.

About the curves, it's better to work directly on biped and see the curves to see how the biped it's working

At the begining CS it's frustrating but then you will find that it's really fast too...fortunately CAT it's going to be a good option in the future for sure.

If you have another question don't hestiate to make a comment.

by the way, the instructions about how to install the script it's below
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/bipedkeyer-v1-4
Trazza
10-12-2009, 10:50 AM
Cheers thanks for that. I'll give that script a go. It looks like it's a bit more user friendly than what CS has built in. There's certainly some cool things in the software that makes things easier...unfortunately it also seems to have some more uncool things that make the simple things harder.

I'll keep playing around and see how I go and thanks again for the script.

Trav
Dupinet
10-12-2009, 05:20 PM
you're welcome pal
mef
10-13-2009, 03:41 PM
You have to "Enable Subanims" to be able to separate your keys and "Manipulate Subanims" to move them around freely. This will allow you to have separate keys for the spine elements as well as arm and leg structures.

Marc



Also I wanted to block in some simple overlap on the spine but when I shifted the keys on one of the spine bones it moves the keys on the other spine bones as well...even though that's not what I want.
CGTalk Moderation
10-13-2009, 03:41 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.