8

Understanding Biped 691
• Use of the Track View - Dope Sheet and Tr ack
V i ew - Curve Editor , and the trackbar to view
and edit animation t racks and keys
For information on these areas, refer to 3ds Max
documentation. If you don’t know how to u se
3ds Max, do some of the introductory tutorials
found online in Help > Tutorials.
Understanding B iped
Biped (page 2–701) is a 3ds Max component that
youaccessfromtheCreatepanel.Onceyoucreate
abiped,youanimateitusingtheBipedcontrolson
the Motion p anel. Biped provides the tools you
need to desig n and animate the figures and motion
of characters.
The B iped
The biped skeleton created w ith the Biped m odule
is a two-legged figure created as a linked hierarchy,
anddesignedforanimation.Thebipedskeleton
has special propert ies that make it instantly ready
to animate.
Figure and K ey fr ame Modes
character studio is designed to interchange
motion and characters. In
Figure mode (page
2–835)
, you pose the biped to fit your character
model. In
Keyframe mode (page 3–1054) ,you
animate the skeleton. Motions created for the
bipedcanbesavedandloadedontootherbiped
skeletons with completely different physical
characteristics. For example, you could animate
a giant ogre, save t he a nimation, and load it
onto a small child. Motion files are saved in the
proprietary character studio
BIP format (page
3–1010)
.
These files can b e used in a variety of ways with
Motion Flow, the Motion Mixer , or the Crowd
tools to combine animation or animate multiple
characters at once.
Animating the B iped
There are two primary methods used in creating
biped animation:
footsteps method (page 3–1037)
and freeform method (page 3–1039) .Each
method has advantages. You can convert f rom one
method to the other, or you c a n use a combination
of both techniques in a single animation. For
detailed information, see the sections that follow:
Creating Footstep Animation (page 2–714) and
Creating Freeform Animation (p age 2–743) .
B iped Pr oper ti es
The biped skeleton has a number of properties
designed to help you animate faster and more
accurately.
• Ahumanstructure—Joints on the biped are
hinged to follow human anatomy. By default,
the biped resembles a human skeleton and has
a stable inverse kinematics hierarchy. This
means that when you move a hand or foot,
the corresponding elbow or knee orients itself
accordingly, and produces a natural h uman
posture.
• Cus t omiza bl e for n on-human
str uctures—The biped skeleton can
easily be made to work with a four-legged
creature or an animal that naturally leans
for ward, such as a dinosaur.
• Natural rotations—When you rotate the biped
spine, the arms maintain their relative ang le to
the ground, rather than behav i ng as if they were
fused to the shoulders. For example, say the
biped is in a standing position, arms hanging
at its sides; when you rotate the spine forward,
the biped’s fingers will touch the ground rather
than point behind it. This is a more natural
position for the hands, and this speeds the
process of keyf r aming the biped. This feat ure
also applies to the biped head. When you
rotate the spine forward, the head maintains a
forward-looking orientation.