3ds Max Horse CAT rig

#1

i’m using the standard horse CAT rig in Max 2016.

whenever i turn on/ turn off the Abs Animation Layer the feet move and lose their original position.

eventually it stretches and pulls the geometry. i don’t get this effect with human CAT or Bip

is there a fix or an approach to eliminate this?

thanks!

#2

I don’t know about Max 2016, but previous versions of Max have had numerous CAT bugs, some of them manifesting (as you’ve found) in the sample rigs that shipped with it, which speaks volumes to Autodesk’s QA department.

My advice: if that specific rig is giving you predictably and 100% reproducible results then

  1. log a defect with Autodesk with as detailed and verbose steps to reproduce
    2a) don’t use that specific CAT rig (as it sounds as if it has some bad data embedded in it) and instead attempt to create a custom CAT rig that has the bone set up you need
    -OR-
    2b) don’t use CAT at all and instead use a custom bone rig

If you have the rigging skills, I’d recommend 2b since I don’t know how much CAT has improved in recent versions (I’m still using Max 2013). If you go with option 2a, be on the look out for bugs and general stability issues. I love the concept of CAT and it does some things really well, but it has lots of shortcomings, namely bugs.

#3

thanks for the response…

i wasn’t aware these were known bugs. i’m somewhat new to the character rig side of Max so knowing this does help a lot.

i’d love to build my own rigs but as of yet i’m not sure how to create all of the dynamics inherent in the CAT rigs.

if i did i’d like to create one similar to the rig in Motionbuilder. (if you pull the hand the rest of the body follows)

#4

Just gave the horse rig setup a small test run. It all works well over here. I added an Abs layer, animated in it, shut it down and turned it on, all well.

However I use the base pose only for rigging and setup purposes. If you have started posing your rig for animations and then added an Abs layer, then yes, it all start behaving very dodgy ;), so you may want to start from scratch

If you want you can setup a horse rig relatively quick:

-Create a CAT Parent object and add a pelvis from its sub menu
-Select the pelvis and add two leg, add a spine, select the end piece and add another two legs and spine
-Now select the second spine and add a bone as your head
-select the first pelvis and add a tail

Just remember to position your bones (rotate position and scale and use the copy and paste limb settings) during the whole process. Otwerwise it wont look like a horse but some weird abomination :wink:

Cheers

Chris

#5

thanks for looking into it. it’s odd… i use the base pose, then add abs layer to test the skinning. this is where i always get into trouble.

the feet of the horse always drift away from turning on and off the abs.

i sometimes get this issue with human or bip…intermittent

it must be something i’m doing, especially if you didn’t get the same effect.

thanks for looking!

#6

No problem,

if your problem can´t be solved and you want to look into custom rigs, then have a look at Paul Neales homepage (http://www.paulneale.com/). He´s got a ton of great rigging tutorials and useful scripts on there and knows 3ds Max inside out.

#7

Hi Bilbob and others,

I had the same problem, used “reset Xform” on the four hooves. Then converted them in edit poly and … fixed.

Hope this will help.

Cheers

#8

that’s sounds like a good idea. thanks for the tip!