Question: Max 9 and the physique modifier ?

snap.crackle.pop

Im reading the tutorial for physique, and i can't find the "initialize" button.

here's what i do:
1) I select the mesh (object)
2) I go in the modifier rollout
3) I apply the physique modifier over my mesh

Now where is the initialize button ? i looked under every tab there is in 3dsMax.

Im dying to know, thanks

Ghostscape

select the mesh
click the little man icon (attach node)
click your root bone
the initialize window pops up.

snap.crackle.pop

Damn i see now ... hahaha

Poor me, all of the time was pushing attach node and waiting for something to happend, you have to select the pelvis (rootbone) ...

thanks to you, i got it now

Jesse Moody

haha snap.crackle.pop when i first started with max thats what i did. I was like shit how long does this take to do. Silly times...

Ryno

Is there some kind of limitation that prevents you from using Skin?

snap.crackle.pop

Is Skin a better choice than biped ?

im using biped because of the ease to rig a mesh, i don't really have any information about Skin, each time someone animates a character in Max its mostly done with BVH and biped

Eric Chadwick

BVH is a mocap format.
Biped is a skeletal rig system.
Bones can be used as an alternative to Biped (or with Biped as secondary bones).
Skin and Physique are vertex-weight modifiers.

Skin is preferrable by most (all!) animators. Mainly for the better UI, more 3rd-party tools, and faster performance. Physique is legacy code, not been updated in ages.

Ryno

Eric's got it. You can use Skin in conjunction with Biped, instead of Physique + Biped. Skin is better than Physique.

Biped is biped. It's got some nice features, but also some limitations compared to a custom rigged bones solution. But for dealing with Mocap, it is a fairly simple process using biped.

snap.crackle.pop

I always taught biped was the "thing" to use under max, some gamestudio only use this for rigging, i only use it because i saw someone make a presentation 4 or 5 years ago. However there's a few thing that i would change if i had a say over it.

Ryno

Max's bones, rigging, and animation tools are totally different from what they were 5 years ago. Biped is still an option but you are in no way restricted to using it for character animation in Max.

Mark Dygert

You can get some good results either way you go, bi-ped or custom bones. You can also get some really crappy results both ways too. It just depends on how much practice you have using the given tools.

Most of the time I end up heavily customizing a bi-ped to the point it's not really a bi-ped. For me it's still faster than creating everything from scratch and I can use some of the bi-ped features.

I think you'll come to learn that max has 2-5+ ways of doing the same thing, one isn't "ALWAYS" better than the others but one could be really good at one thing. Be careful when you hear someone say "thats the only way to do it in max!" Chances are, it's not, and they haven't looked into the other methods yet.