Week_2 Two Sets of Tools
In 3dsMax there are two available sets of Character Creation and Animation Tools.
They are Character Studio and CAT
We will have a brief look at these and then build a week-by-week basic ability.
CAT
What is CAT?
Character Animation Toolkit_CAT. The library that CAT provides, are a set
pre-set rigs and of animation tools both quick and easy to use, also they have a high level of
control over the rigging and animation process. It is able to create and
animate with a wide variety of rig types. You can create bipedal characters,
which can be the basis of many rigging aplications.
CAT is not limited to Bipeds. You can create and animate rigs for four and
multi-legged characters such as insects.
You can even fashion rigs from scratch to work with our own character
designs no matter how many limbs that they may have. All of CAT rigs, have
IK/FK systems built in, as well as using CAT's procedural motion generator.
CAT has power and flexibility when it comes to handling animation through
its animation layer system. Giving the ability to blend multiple animations
together to produce an excellent final result. CAT also works with motion
capture, should the project require it. It might be thought that CAT is a
rigging and animation toolkit for beginners. This might be a truth given the
easy to use nature of the tools, it has also to be noted that it is also a very
powerful set of tools from which anyone, with experience can produce fantastic results.
Where is CAT locate?
Activate the Create tab by clicking on it, and drop down and across to
select Helpers icon. Expand the list inside the Helpers, there you can see the CAT
Objects option. If we click to select this, it will reveal all of CAT's object
creation tools. Choose the CATParent tab.
Select the CATParent option, in the viewport, drag to create a
CATParent object. With the Helper in the scene, make sure it is selected and
then open the Modify tab.
All the options for this CAT object are available. To access options for
CAT rigs, you need a rig. With the CATParent still selected, double- click any
rig option found in the preset rig list.
Immediately there is fully-featured rig
loaded.
Select any part of the rig bone structure. Options in the Command panel
change and are now specific to this particular CAT bone. The same basic pattern
would be followed if you worked with CATMuscle of the Muscle Strand objects.
So select the newly-created CAT feature and use the Modify tab to access its
options. With a bone still selected, you can now use the Motion tab, once in
Motion you have access to CAT's Animation layer system. With a CAT bone
selected in a viewport, right-click, you will also get a menu that has options
specific to this CAT bone. At the top of our 3ds Max UI there is also a
drop down menu system to access CAT
tools.
Introduction to Character Studio
Most three-dimensional characters are animated by first creating some kind
of skeletal system that is then used to drive the wire frame mesh. Once built,
the skeletal in the measuring place, a process is used to glue or weld the wire
frame geometry down to the bone structure. Moving the mesh is then controlled
by manipulating that underlying skeleton.
How do you get the skeleton, used to
dictate the movements of the mesh? One of the ways you can do that witin 3ds
Max is with Character Studio.
Character Studio is a full strength solution to animating characters. In
addition to being able to rapidly create predesigned tools like skeletons on
fly, it also offers the complete set of tools to both bind and adjust the three
dimensional mesh models to that structure. There are tools for automatically
creating footsteps, options for loading motion capture files, all kinds of
valuable features.
Character Studio tool set is kept under the Systems icon over in the
Command panel. The icon kind of looks like little snowflakes. The process
starts by first creating the skeleton. Character Studio refers to that as a
biped; click on the Biped button will position our mouse on the middle of the
grid hold down and pull up. Now if you look in the Command panel you have a
series of options, under Body Type. This allows you to control the number of
bones or what are referred to as links on the skeleton, you can adjust these to
best fit your needs.
If you are creating a character for an example with a different neck, add a
few more neck links in. We will go to the default value of one. You have
options for the leg links. You can add a tail or remove the arms. A number of
possibilities to build your character are possible.
You can see the body parts have been linked together indicated by the way
they are indented and moved down to the right. There are also the property
names as you can very easily pick and choose which one you would like to work
on. Linking things in this fashion makes it very easy to now manipulate the
biped skeleton. If we for an example we select the lowest bone in the spine, go
to our Rotate command, you can see it controls the entire upper body, just what
you would expect in a child parent relationship. Selecting the head and
rotating it from side to side, you can see how you can make adjustments here,
and you can do similar things with the arms, the legs back and forth and the
calves and feet.
IK_The biped is also configured with Inversed Kinematics. Using the built-in icon the hands and feet
can also control the movements of the biped. If you select the hand, go to Move
command you will notice just like the way we work if you move our hand,
everything up to the shoulder moves with it.
The same thing can be done with the foot you can move that up and down and
notice how that also adjust the position of the calf, the knee and the thigh.
The biped skeleton can be reshaped to the best fit for the mesh you are
using (that is the one its supposed to control). In order to do that you have
got to go to the Motion column and activate what is referred to as figure mode.
It is the little icon of the man with the white head(figure mode) under the
biped role out, click on that. Now from here for an example if I would like to
scale the thigh bones I can select those, go to my Scale command and I'll make
those taller or shorter or wider around. If I would wanted to adjust the arms,
I'll select one, hold the Ctrl key down to grab the other and the same thing
can be done here. If we need to give our skeleton broader shoulders, I can
select the clavicles just in the inside of that and scale them outward.
Same thing with the legs, select the pelvis and scale this also.
This would be ideal when you have maybe a large lumbering character. Add a
Tail and to have a dogs curved tail rotate the 1st tail link.
Once the biped is properly resized to accommodate your mesh, it is time to
marry them together. That is done by applying a special modifier to the mesh
called Physique.
Open both set of Tools and create two different creatures. Setting up various particular features for each.
