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746 Chapter 14: Character Studio
To cr eate a fr eefor m peri od withi n a f ootstep
animation:
• See the lesson entitled “Animating a Pratfall” in
the character studio Tutorials.
Crea t in g Fr eef or m
Animation
Selecting Biped Track s
To an i m a t e yo u r cha r a c t e r w i t h f r e e f o r m me t h o d s ,
you need to know how to select the body part you
want to animate, as well as the typ e of movement
youwanttoaffectforthatpartofthebody.3dsMax
and Biped prov ide a number of different methods
for selecting and moving these animation tracks.
Several involve using the 3ds Max Track V iew , a
powerful envi ronment for viewing and managing
the geometr y and motion data in your scene.
For each biped body part, motion data is viewable
in Track View or on the track bar. Once you’ve
selected the biped object, using one of the methods
described below, you can see its associated motion
data on the t rack bar or displayed in the Transform
branch for that object in Track View.
Bipedletsyouexpandandcollapsecertain
animation tracks to give you more control over
your character’s movement as you set keyfr ames.
Forexample,tracksforbodypartsinthearms
can be animated using five separate tracks for
maximum control.
You can als o collapse these tracks for simplicity,
and use a single key to pose t he entire arm. Tracks
can be expanded or collapsed in this way for the
arms, legs, ponytails, neck, tail, and spine.
In 3ds Max, you have the ability to display the
motion data as function curves. You can see
and manipulate funct ion curves either in the
Track View – Curve Editor, or by using
the
Workbench (page 2–864)
.TheWorkbench
provides specialized tools for analyzing and fixing
motion problems found in t he curves.