3DS Max Biped - Some fingers bones greyed out, cant move them
Possibly being a massive noober here, but is there a reason several of my finger bones are greyed out? I started off with the premade skeletal biped rig, then edited for my own uses, in this instance raising the number of fingers to 5 and links to 3 - yet only the single finger that came with the rig seems editable?
Replies
Im new to biped, been a blender user mosta my life, so please forgive my noobery.
[edit 1]
Solved, just had to reduce the number of fingers to 0 then jump back into my rig layer and add them there. Derp.
[edit 2]
Nope wait, that isnt working, fingers are still going into my mesh layer.
[update]
Even when the mesh layer is frozen, and Im in my rig layer, fingers and toes keep being created in the mesh layer.
"Fingers and toes keep being created in the mesh layer"
What you can do is, select those bones then Go into the Layer manager, select the layer you'd like them to be in. Highlight that layer, then click the Plus symbol in that window.
This will remove them from your mesh layer, and put them into the layer you selected.
In the Max Layer Manger the column with the check in it is how you set which layer is the default.
Personally I don't like Max's layer manager and I use "Outliner" instead.
Biped has a separate mode for adding/removing bones its called "figure mode". Anytime you need to make changes to your biped you should be turning on figure mode (select a biped piece, click the motion tab and in the Biped Rollout click Figure mode).
From there you can add and remove bones like fingers, twist bones, leg joints, spine bones ect... and scale the biped pieces to fit your mesh. The setup pose should match your bind pose (the pose that you "bind" the mesh to the skeleton), that way you can always get them back into a similar pose.
Using setup mode allows biped to track what is actually created and added to the biped so it won't be surprised later when it finds out that you chopped off its fingers.
If you have extra bones you don't want you can do what fonfa suggested and hide them, sticking them on a layer is an easy way to do that. I do this with the dummies at the ends of the bone chains, you can't animate them but they are necessary because a bone is actually defined by two pivot points, if you don't have some kind of node at the end of the chain, its actually shorter than you realize.
Jus wanna say, this community is fantastic, you guys are awesome. So many responses, an so quickly. Very refreshing indeed.
@Stephen, Cheers bud, Im sure that will come in handy in the future knowing its quite likely Ill be accidentally putting more stuff in the wrong layer heh. Tho that outliner plugin mark suggested looks pretty awesome, perhaps with it I'll be able to handle all these lil problems with the layers more intuitively? Hmmm.
@Fonfa, what do you mean? (will probs earn several noob points for these questions) Im rigging/skinning this stuff to use in Unity 3d, thought I needed to include the bones and stuff when I exported the rigged character? You mean when I export just the characters animations?
@Mark, Thats interesting know, was wondering why deleting one bone from layers deleted all of them. I've also been in figure mode this whole time, as far as I know, thats the mode I should always be in when building/editing my rig right?
Pose mode and bind - not sure I follow, tho I suspect this tut series Im watching will eventually explain these, hopefully haha. Im still at the start of this tut series. Ill also keep the hiding of unnecessary things on other layers in mind, tho you next statement creates even more questions - I need to add dummies to my already existing bones? I thought all that stuff was already included just not shown?
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Quick question regarding character addons, my character has a backpack seen below..
Ive separated this from the body, so I can remove all weights connecting it to the rest of the body, then planned to give it its own heavy/stiff weight - is this the correct way to go about handling addons/attachments? Or should I add a few bones for the backpack?
So what you need to do is include ONLY the bones that actually deform the character, leaving the unused stuff out and hidden on another layer.
Try making some tests, exporting to FBX and importing back again on max to see what carried over and what didn't