9

Setting Up Paths for Motion Flow Files 1041
18.
Click Play Animation or scrub the time
slider to view the transition.
To app ly a sha r ed m oti on f low t o a d if f er ent gr ou p
of bi peds :
New in character studio is the ability to save and
load shared motion flow setups. With this facility,
you can create and refine a crowd simulation
usingbipedsthatdon’thavemeshesattached,
thus avoiding the computational overhead that
Physique requires. Once the simulation is ready,
you can save the shared motion flow setup, apply
it to a similar set of bipeds with Physique applied,
and then render the final animation with no
further crowd setup required.
For best results, the two sets of bipeds should
havethesamenumberofmembersandbeof
comparable structure and size, and the biped
structures should have the same root names.
1. Create a biped/crowd simulation using a shared
motion flow.
For details, see Using bipeds in a crowd
simulation (page 2–1175).
2. On the Shared Motion Flow dialog, click Save
and save the shared motion flow in .smf format.
3. Set up a new scene containing the same number
of bipeds, each w ith a character mesh with
Physique applied. The easiest way to do this is
to set up one such character and then clone it.
Makesurethebipedshavethesamerootnames
(e.g., Bip01, Bip02) as those in the original
setup.
4. Select one of the bipeds, and on
theMotionpanel,turnonMotionFlowmode,
and then click Shared Motion Flow.
5. On the Shar ed Motion Flow dialog, click New,
andthenclickLoadandloadthesharedmotion
flow from step 2.
Thesharedmotionflowisloadedandapplied
to the new set of bipeds. The biped names
appear in the dia log list. If “(wrong sca le)”
appears after any biped names, use the Reset
WrongScalesbuttonstocorrectthescales.
6. Click the Put Multiple Bipeds In Motion
Flow button to place all of the bipeds in the list
in Motion Flow mode, and then click OK to
exit the dialog.
7. Play the animation to ensure that it’s correct,
and then render.
Refer to Working with Crowd Animation (page
2–1154) for information regarding crowd
animation.
Setting Up Paths for Motion Flow
Fi l e s
OnaMotionFlowGraph,thelocationofthe
referenced .bip filesissavedinthe.mfe file.
If a .bip file cannot be found, the program
looks to the motion flow directory specified in
\plugcfg\biped.ini.Bydefault,thisdirectoryis
MoFlowDir=<maxdir>\cstudio\moflow.
If a .bip file is not found in the motion flow
directory specified in the biped.ini file, then
3ds Max looks for the file in the same loca tion
as the currently loaded .max file. If it is stil l not
found, the program appends the lo cal path of the
referenced file to the path to the current .max file.
Thefileissavedbacktothesamelocationinwhich
it is found.
If a ref erenced .bip fi le cannot be found in its
current location, there are two ways to resolve this.
• From the Reset Unfound Motion Flow Files
dialog, direct 3ds Max to the folder where the
missing .bip file resides.