2009

When the foot is in a footstep, you can animate or reposition the leg and foot
to some degree:
■ You can rotate the foot around its pivot point within the footstep.
■ You can animate the pivot point with the Select Pivot option in Key Info
rollout > IK bar. See Animating Pivots on page 4272.
■ You cannot move a foot out of a footstep. If you do not want the foot to
be in the footstep at a particular frame, change the timespan of the footstep
key so it does not include that frame. See Editing Footstep Timing on page
4200.
Animating the Upper Body
When you use footsteps to animate the legs and feet, animating the spine,
neck, head, arms, and other upper body parts is accomplished in the same
way as for freeform animation. Simply turn on Auto Key and start moving
and rotating body parts. See
Animating by Moving Links on page 4239 and
Animating by Rotating Links on page 4242.
You can also click the Set Key button on the Key Info rollout on page
4367 to set keys for selected body parts at the current frame. This option allows
you to move body parts as you like, setting keys only when you have decided
to do so.
WARNING Do not use the 3ds Max Set Key button to set keys for the
biped.
Animation on the center of mass (COM) works differently, depending on
whether the biped is in a footstep at that particular frame.
■ If at least one foot is in a footstep, moving or rotating the COM will
animate the entire body along with the COM, except a foot that is in a
footstep. A foot in a footstep will stay planted in the footstep and the leg
will bend or straighten as the COM is moved up or down.
■ If the biped is airborne (no footsteps at that frame), the COM can be moved
horizontally and can be rotated, but cannot be moved vertically. This is
because character studio automatically calculates how high the biped can
go based on the biped's height and the current gravity setting. To make
Footstep Animation | 4209