8

784 Chapter 14: Character Studio
animation is blended between the biped’s
new position and its previous position at
fr ames where the key is set.
Previewing Biped M otion
There are two types of animation playback
available within character studio:
•
YoucanusethePlayAnimationbuttonin
the viewport playback controls to play biped
animation, the same as you can any other
3ds Max animation.
•
Use the Biped Playback button (page
3–1010)
on the Biped rollout to play back the
animation with the biped displayed as a stick
figure, while hiding everything else in the scene.
Note: Itispossibletoturnonbothbuttonsat
once. Thisisnotrecommended. Depending
on your system configuration, turning on Play
Animation and Biped Playback at the same time
canconsiderablyslowdownperformanc.
Biped Playback
Biped playback previews the motion of all existing,
v isible bipeds. If you hide a part or all of biped, the
hidden biped or biped part does not appear in the
Biped playback. Objects in the animation that are
not bipeds do not appear in Biped playback. If the
3ds Max home grid is visible, a gr id appears at Z=0
in the Biped playback viewport.
While Biped controls are visible in the Motion
panel, you can also press V to start or stop Biped
Playback. For this k eyboard shortcut to work,
theKeyboardShortcutOverrideTogglemustbe
turned on.
Bipedalwayspreviewstheexistinganimation
range. Biped Playback responds to the parameters
inthe3dsMaxTimeConfigurationdialog.IfReal
T ime playback is chosen in this dialog, Biped plays
back at the current frame rate, sometimes skipping
frames if necessary. If Real Time is turned off,
Biped plays back as fast as it can, depending on
the capacity of the graphics card installed on your
system.
Note: Hardware acceleration has no effect on Biped
playback. If you are using a hardware-accelerated
display card, you might find 3ds Max playback to
be faster u nder certain circumstances.
Procedures
To preview biped motion using biped playback stick
figure:
1.
Activate the viewport with the view y ou want
to see.
2. Hide or show the bipeds you want to appear in
the playback.
3. Selectoneofthevisiblebipeds,andgo
to the Motion panel.
4. On the Biped rollout, click Biped
Playback.
Stick-figure biped animation plays back in the
active v iewport. Animation plays back for all
visible bipeds.
To preview biped motion using the full biped model:
1.
Dragthetimeslider.
2. Click Play Animation.
Biped animation plays back in the active viewport.
Depending on your system, biped animation
might not play back in real t ime using 3ds Max
view por t playback.
Wa rn in g: You might miss critical frames of your
animation if Real Time is selec ted in the Time
Configuration dialog.