8
692 Chapter 14: Character Studio
• Designed for footsteps— The biped skeleton
is specially designed to animate with char acter
studio footsteps, which help solve the common
animation problem of locking the feet to the
ground. Footstep animation also provides an
easy way to rough out animation quickly. See
the section
Creating Footstep Animation (page
2–714)
.
See also
Working with Biped (page 2–701)
Biped User Interface (page 2–787)
Under standing Physique
Physique is a modifier that, when applied to a
mesh, allows the movements of an underlying
skeleton to move the mesh seamlessly, like b ones
and muscle under a human skin. Physique works
on any point-based objects including geometric
primit ives, editable meshes, patch-based objects,
NURBS, and even FFD space warps. For NURBS
and FFDs, Physique deforms the control points,
which in turn deform the model. It will attach to
any skeleton structure including a biped, 3ds Max
bones, splines, or any 3ds Max hierarchy. When
you apply Physique to the skin object(s) and attach
theskintotheskeleton,Physiquedetermineshow
each component of the skeleton influences each
vertex of the skin, based on settings you specify.
Physique affects a mesh after you click Attach
ToNodeonthePhysiquerolloutandselecta
root node in the viewports. During the attach
process, Physique works its way through all of the
children in a hierarchy, starting at the object you
select, and creates its own links with associated
envelopes (page 2–936)
for each link it finds. The
links created by Physique are referred to within
this documentation as the Physique
deformation
spline (page 3–1021)
.Verticesthatfallwithin
envelopes are influenced to follow the links and
animate the mesh. Splines and 3 ds Max b ones can
also be added using the Add button in the
Floating
Bones rollout (page 2–962)
.
Biped and Physique
When the biped pelvis is selected in the v iewports
and
Attach To Node (page 2–958)
is turned on,
Physiq ue traces its way from the pelvis down the
legs to the toes. From the pelvis it a lso t races its
way up through the spine and branches at the
collar to the arms, hands, and fingers, and up the
neck to the head. A link and associated env elopes
are created for each link found. If any other
objects, including 3ds Max bones, are linked to the
biped, Physique treats them similarly: it creates a
new link and envelo pes.
Keep this in mind when you use Physique to
attach a mesh to the biped; if your character has
additional limbs, link 3ds Max b ones to the biped
for the extra arms before using Attach To Node
to create links and envelopes. When Physique is
applied and Attach To Node is used, it creates
links and envelopes for all the links in the biped,
as well as for the linked bones. Objects that should
not deform, like sk in, but need to be linked to the
biped, like a sword, should be linked
after
Attach
To Node is used to link a mesh to the biped. Th is
way, a link and envelopes will not b e created for
the sword.