Looking for rigging/animation solution w/built in walking/running customization and rapid animation.

sr3d

I've been using 3D Studio Max Cat Rig and it's a god damn nightmare.  Customizing the CATMotion walking layer is just too painful.

Could we create a list of some top tier applications that make animation/rigging a breeze?  Something with built in walking/running functionality with customization options?

musashidan

Apart from biped and cat I don't know of any for Max. If you're going to forgo hand animation entirely then maybe you should look into mocap.

battlecow

Maybe your process is wrong and that's why it's such a pain for you. An animator friend told me to make the few most important poses first and gradually refine the walk going bottom to top, I found that to be very helpful.

musashidan

battlecow said:

Maybe your process is wrong and that's why it's such a pain for you. An animator friend told me to make the few most important poses first and gradually refine the walk going bottom to top, I found that to be very helpful.

Yes, thesee are the 'golden poses' or extremes, then you have the breakdowns, inbetweens, and finally animating on 1s or 2s. (Essentially straight ahead animation)Also, everyone has their own method and it takes a long time and a LOT of practice to begin to refine a workflow. Some people even hide everything but the hips, animate the extremes and breakdowns and then systematically work out from the centre, adding the limbs, spine, head, hands, fingers. 

But OP wants a procedural approach without the complexity of learning hand animation from scratch.

battlecow

There's tons of free MOCAP walk cycles around I guess.
Yea animation is not something for the faint of heart, it's soooo hard  

musashidan

battlecow said:

There's tons of free MOCAP walk cycles around I guess.
Yea animation is not something for the faint of heart, it's soooo hard  

battlecow said:

There's tons of free MOCAP walk cycles around I guess.
Yea animation is not something for the faint of heart, it's soooo hard  

Too right mate. You almost have to enter another zone in your brain!   A lot of fun though when it comes together.  Yes, I defo think mocap is the way to go.

PolyHertz

sr3d said:

top tier applications that make animation/rigging a breeze?  Something with built in walking/running functionality with customization options?

"Make Awesome" button, where are you?
From what I've heard CAT isn't used that often because AD have essentially abandoned it, and it has a number of very deep issues that aren't that apparent when first using it.
The Biped system though is still very solid, but if you want something better then that you're best bet is creating your own custom rig from scratch (instead of relying on random auto-rigging scripts). It's not easy, but anyone who wants to seriously pursue animation should know how to create their own rigs.

sr3d

I want to avoid mocap clean up at all costs.  I'm going to give the cat rig another try.  This is just so frustrating.