[3ds Max] Lock Movement on one axis

MechBgum

So, I have this little problem - I need to tweak a lot of already existing walkcycles for game character to add new weapons. All I have is raw animation data, so I imported all the walkcycles and rigged the upperbody.
My problem is that I need to make some kind of switch between locking and unlocking Y movent of the root bone, so I could preview my animation walking on point and then export it walking on line.
All I could find is locking Y movement with boolean or on/off controller but from what I understand, once you put it, it collapses all the frames and can't be switched between locking and unlocking (how misleading :poly127:).

monster

I'm assuming you only need to lock/unlock movement on the root bone. It's pretty easy to setup. We are going to use a Position List controller to create a set of two position controllers. You can then turn the controller with the motion on and off.

1. Select your root bone, and go to the Motion Panel.
2. Open the Assign Controller rollout.
3. Select "Position: Position XYZ" from the tree list window.
4. Press the button above the tree list.
5. Select Position List from the pop up dialog.
6. In the tree list, open the Position controller and select Available.
7. Press the button above again.
8. In the pop up dialog choose Position XYZ
9. Open the new Position List rollout below.
10. Select the second Position XYZ and click Set Active.

Now you can animate the character moving forward.
When you want to "lock" the movement, change the weight to 0.

MechBgum

Thanks, actually I found another solution - I created float limit controller for Y position of the root bone and wired it to a trigger I made in the scene so it sets upper and lower limits to zero. Thanks for your input anyway!

monster

I'm glad you got this working. Another way to do, for people that search in the future, is to use Animation Layers. They basically do what I mentioned above, but it's all behind the scenes.

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/files/GUID-4C8B42F3-5EF1-458B-B806-E1234CEA87B6.htm