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900 Chapter 14: Character Studio
Optimize Selected Transitions—Select one
or more transitions and then click Optimize
Selected Transition to optimize them. Displays the
Tr ansition Optimization dialog (page 2–909) to
set the location of the transition.
Optimized transitions take t ime to compute. A
progress bar is displayed w hen you use this feature.
Minimumfootslidingisthemethodusedto
compute an optimized transition.
Show Optimal Transition Costs—Displays
costs in the Motion Flow Graph window. The
lowerthenumberthebetterthetransition.
Check A l l Tr a ns i t io ns —Checks the graph for
overlapping transitions and transitions whose
length is too long for the clip. I t informs you of any
problems, or tells you that none have been found.
Auto Clip Names—Names
the clip based on the name of the motion file.
Turn off to nam e a clip yours elf .
Motion Flow Scripts Group
Selec t a bip e d. > Motion panel > Biped rollout > Moti o n
Flow M o de > Motion Flow rollout > Sc r ipts group
Create and delete scr ipts, name scripts, edit
transitions, edit clips, and p osit ion the entire
animationusingtoolsintheScriptsgroup.Create
random motion for one or more bipeds using
controls in this rollout. The Scripts group on the
Motion Flow rollout is only available when
Motion
Flow mode (page 2–894)
is active.
Scripts
A Script is a list of clips ( .bip files) that you
constructed and are executed as you designed to
animate a character. To create a script, add clips to
theMotionFlowGraph,thenselectDefineScript
in the Scripts group and click a sequence of clips
from the Motion Flow Graph window. Default
transitions are assig ned if no transitions exist
between the clips. The clip names and starting
frame numbers display in the list in the Scripts
group.
Different scripts vary the order of the clips found
in the Motion Flow Graph. Scripts are run in a
top-down order to animate the character. Click
Play to view script motion on the biped.
Tip: As the length of a script varies, use ALT+R to
set the Act ive Time in 3ds Max to the length of the
script.TurnonthePlug-inKeyboardShortcut
Toggle near the 3ds Max status line to enable
character studio shortcuts.
Tran si tion s B etween Cli ps
By default, w hen a scr ipt is created, Minimum
Motion Loss is used to find likely star t frames for
thesourceanddestinationclips.
Editing transitions using the
Transition Editor
(page 2–902)
allows you to determine where a
transition occurs in the source and destination
clip. Transition duration and the orientation of
thedestinationclipcanalsobeadjustedinthe
Tra ns it ion Ed itor.
Random Motion
The Create Random Motion command traverses
clips in the Motion Flow Graph based on tr ansition
percentages. Tra nsitions are given percentages,
and the software creates random scripts based on
the transition percentages. This is a quick way to
create crowd scenes or to t ry out different scripts
on a sing le biped. For example, if five clips are
present in the Motion Flow Graph and transitions
exist between all the clips and each clip has a
percentage or probability of being used, you can
use Create Random Motion to create a script that