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836 Chapter 14: character studio
useful to keep the character stationary during
envelope adjustment.
Link parameters, Bulge angles and tendons are
the finishing touches. Skin sliding, the amount of
tw ist, and crease blending as a character moves are
controlled using link parameters. Bulge angles are
used to bulge areas like the biceps, legs and chest
relative to the angle created by a link and its child
inthehierarchy.Tendonscanspanmultiplelinks
in the hierarchy to stretch and pull a charac ter’s
skin.
See also
Physique (page 2–1076)
Physique User Interface (page 2–1106)
Understanding Track Editing
There are several places to view your animation
representedastracksin3dsMax. Theseviews
include:
•TrackView-CurveEditor
• Track View - Dope Sheet
•TrackBar
Thetrackscanbedisplayedasfunctioncurves,
or as keys and ranges on a box graph. character
studio makes special use of function curve editing
capabilities with a customized version of the
Track View - Cur ve Editor c alled th e Animation
Workbench (page 2–837).
B iped Cur ve Editing Using the Tra ck Ba r
After creating animation of the biped in the
viewport using keyf raming tools from the Motion
panel, you might need to work on the animation
tracks, either to adjust key interpolation for
smooth motion or to adjust ranges and affect
timing.3dsMaxallowsforanumberofbasicways
to do these tasks for all scene objects using direct
key manipulation.
The simplest and most direct access to keys
and ranges can be found on the t rack bar.
Keys for selected biped objects are immediately
visible there. With some limitations, you can
create keys by
Shif t +dragging in the track
bar.Right-clickinganykeywilldisplayamenu;
choosing from this menu will giv e quick access to
keypropertiessuchasinterpolationcontrols.This
Key Properties dialog is als o accessible f rom a list
on the Motion panel > Assign Controller rollout.
A right-click on the time slider also displays the
Create Key dialog, which is another quick way to
set keyframes.
Selectinganytwokeysdisplaystherangeasabar
beneath the keys. You can reposition this range bar
or resize it to adjust the timing of the animation.
You can combine accelerator keys, like
Ct rl and
Alt ,withleft,middle,andrightmousebuttonsto
extend or stretch the range displayed in the track
bar.
You can expand the track bar to quickly display
thekeysonfunctioncurves.Fromthere,youcan
select and manipulate keys.
B iped Cur ve Editing in Tr ack View
Thesamefunction-curveeditingcontrolsare
found in Track View . T rack View has two modes:
Curve E ditor and Dope Sheet.
character studio displays f unc tion curves for
biped components in the Track View - Curve
Editor.
Dope Sheet mode displays the footstep tracks and
other biped keys as boxes. Here, you cut, copy, and
pastekeystocreaterepeatedmotion.Youcanuse
Time Editing in Dope Sheet mode, and cut, copy,
paste, and inser t time segments, complete with
keys, into your animation.