8

Assign Controller R ollout (character studio) 789
• Body Vertical
•
Body Turning (selected with the Bo dy
Rotation button)
These buttons can be used to select each track in
the Track Selection rollout.
Li nki ng th e Center o f Ma ss Obj ect
Using the Select And Link tool from 3ds Max, you
can link the center of mass object to another object
if you need to reposition an animation sequence.
An example of this mig ht be a surfer. You could
create an animation of a biped r un ning up and
dow n the surfboard, hang ing its toes off the end of
thesurfboard,andsoon,andthenlinkthecenter
of mass object to the board. When you animate
thesurfboard,thebipedanimationwouldtravel
with it.
The biped moves with the surfboard because the center of
mass is linked to the surfboard.
Bec ause the COM is the root object in the biped
hierarchy, it is the only object in the biped that c an
be linked directly to other objects in the scene with
Select And L ink. A different technique is used to
make other body parts, such as feet and hands,
follow other objects in the scene. S ee
Animating
IK Attachments (page 2–766)
.
Center o f Mass Shadow
The center of mass shadow object, the circle
between the biped’s feet on the world plane,
provides a sense of where the character’s center of
mass is positioned relative to the feet. Another use
ofthecenterofmassshadowistolinkobjectstoit.
For example, a camera and camera target could be
linked to the shadow object to follow the character.
The center of mass shadow between the biped’s feet.
M otion Panel R oll outs
(B iped)
Assign Controller R ollout
(char a cter studi o)
Select a b iped’s COM. > Motion p anel > Assign Controller
rollout
The Assign Controller rollout assigns and appends
different transform controllers to individual
objects. You can also assign controllers in Track
View. Animation controllers are plug-ins that
handle all of the animation tasks in the sof tware.
For a complete list of available Animation
cont rollers, see
Assign Controller (page 2–523) .