9

Understanding character studio Workflow 839
One of the most important requirements of
crowd simulations is avoidance; realism suffers if
characters pass through each other or other objects
in the scene. The Crowd system offers a number
of behaviors to help achieve proper avoidance.
It a lso provides the Vector Field, a special space
warp, that, when applied to an irregularly shaped
object, allows delegates to move around the object
without penetrating it.
Used in combination, the Crowd-system tools
described here can produce an endless variety
of interesting, multi-character simulations. The
Crowd topics in this manual provide detailed
information about every aspect of crowd
simulation.
See also
Crowd Animation (page 2–1154)
Crowd Animation User Interface (page 2–1182)
Unders tanding char acter s tudio
Workflow
Biped, Physique, and the Crowd system work
together within 3ds Max to provide a complete
set of character animation tools. Although these
components can be used i n a variety of ways, it
is helpful to approach character studio with a
basic understanding of how a typical charac ter
animation is created.
The following sections provide a brief summary of
the b asic workflow an d related benefits to creating
acharacterwithBipedandPhysique.Youmaynot
useallthefollowingsteps,butyou’relikelytodo
them in the following order.
Create Sk in Geometry
Create a basic skin shape for your character using
any 3ds Max modeling tools and surface ty pes. Be
sure to place your character’s skin in a neutral pose
w ith arms outstretched and legs spaced slig htly
apart. You may also want to add sufficient detail to
your skin ’s mesh or control points around joints to
facilitate deformation during m ovement.
Note: SincePhysiquedeformationsarebasedona
volume, you can refine your geometry at a later
time with minimal impact on your skin behavior.
This means you can create your animation before
you’ve built your model if you wish.
Create a B i ped Skeleton
Biped automates the creation of bipedal character
skeletons. It a lso lets you introduce sign ificant
changes to the skeleton’s structure and sizing at
any point during your animation without adversely
affecting your character’s motion. This means you
can animate your character without knowing if it
is short or tall, skinny or fat. It also means t hat if
the director changes the character’s proportions,
the animation will still work.
For more detail on posing a biped skeleton, see
Biped (page 2–843).
Attach the Skin
• Position the biped character within its modeled
skin. Use Figure mode (page 2–982) to scale
bone lengths and to orien t the skeleton correctly
withintheskin’svolume.Scalebonethickness
as desired to achieve a good initial fit. Then save
a fig ure file, so it’s easy to return to this pose.
• Use Physique to attach the skin geometry
automatically to the biped or a 3ds Max bones
hierarchy. The attachment is ty pically made
to the root node in the hierarchy: the pelvis
object on the biped or the root node on a
bones hierarchy, not t he center of mass. The
attached skin is deformed as the biped or b ones
hierarchy moves.
• Thelinksintheboneshierarchyareusedto
create a system of 3D envelopes that enclose
nearby vertices. Envelopes typically overlap