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924 Chapter 14: character studio
(If the rollout is already expanded, the bar
showsaminussignattheleft,insteadofaplus.)
3. In the Display group, turn Objects off
and then back on again to hide the biped
finger/toe/head dummy objects.
To clone a ski nned biped:
1.
Save a copy of t he scene that contains the biped
you want to clone.
2. On the Structure rollout, change the or iginal
biped’s root name, as described above.
3. Merge the saved biped, as described in the
previous procedure, “To merge a skinned
biped.”
The original biped, with its Physique modifier,
is cloned. It appears in the same location as the
original biped.
4. OntheMotionpanel,ontheBiped
rollout, turn on Move All Mode.
5. Use Select And Move to move the clone
to a new location in the scene.
Combining BIP Motio ns
character studio provides two main ways of
combining BIP files to build more complex
character animations.
• Motion flow (page 2–1026) uses BIP files as
clips in a script. The motion-flow script joins
clips together using transitions. Transitions
can be unconditional, they can be chosen at
random, or they can be governed by rules such
as collision detection. You can control when a
transition b egins and ends. You can use motion
flow to animate a single biped, or a crowd of
bipeds.
Motion flow scripts are saved as Motion Flow
Editor (M FE) files.
•TheMotion Mixer (page 2–604) also uses BIP
files and MFE files as clips . In addition to
creating transitions f rom one BIP animat ion to
another, over time, M ixer scripts can combine
the upper-body movement of one biped with
the lower-body movement of another , adjust
the timing of movements, and provide a
number of other effects. The Mixer is especially
useful when you work with motion-capture files
(page 2–1059).
Mixer scripts are saved as BIP files or MIX files.
Loadi ng a nd S avi ng S T P Files
Step (STP) files save footsteps, but don’t save b ody
keyframes.
The STP file format is an ASCII format that
enables developers to write programs that generate
step files for biped motion. The online do cument
stp.rtf,providedwithchar acter studio in the
..\cstudio\docs directory, describes the STP format.
Procedures
To load footstep data:
1.
Select the biped to animate via saved
footsteps, go to the Motion panel.
2. On the Biped rollout, make sure you are
not in Figure mode, then click Load File.
3. Inthefiledialog,chooseStepFiles(.STP)asthe
file type to load.
4. Cho ose the footstep file to load, and then click
OK.
Thefootstepsareloadedontothebiped,andnew
default keys a re generated to match the footsteps.