Animation with 3d studio max, tips and tricks?

Sean McBride

I've been wanting to get into animation lately. I was wondering where you guys get your animation referances and what you use. Physique vs. Skin ect... Also, is character studio a good route to go our not? I've been using character studio because its easy to setup a rig but sometimes I find it sort of limiting...

Eric Chadwick

Used to be some long-winded threads here debating Biped vs. Bones, seems they're gone. Basically, most agree Biped is good for quick one-offs since it is fast to setup, and easy to save/load anims. But bones are much better all-around for everything else.

Many think Skin is much easier to use than Physique, although some say the initial weights in Physique are better. There are many more free scripts that extend Skin than there are for Physique.

As for reference, many animators I know have learned the best reference is from acting out their characters themselves. Some like to use video they shoot of a friend or themselves, but most just wing it. You learn how over time to break down animation into pieces in order to build up the whole. There are some excellent books about animation, essential reading for the aspiring animator. These traditional animation techniques are used any digital animator worth their salt.

Richard Williams
http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/

Preston Blair
http://www.freetoon.com/

Keith Lango
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/tutorials/lango_keyframing/lango_keyframing_01.asp

http://www.animationmeat.com/

Etc....

thomasp

for starting in character animation, biped is not a bad choice. however, it's not really tightly integrated into max (curves, controllers & stuff) which can sometimes get you into trouble.

if you want to just practise animating, i'd recommend it over bones for a starter. as soon as you've gained some experience it will be easier for you to use standard bones and customize your own rigs to your preferences.

as for skinning, skin seems to be the way to go. old dogs like me might prefer to setup envelopes in physique first and then convert that weighting to skin, works a little better there or maybe it's just out of habit.

physique seems like abandonware for a few years now, it was probably only put in for max7 because of compatibility reasons.

Wrath

I wouldn't reccomend starting with biped simply because it's a very inflexible system that uses some archaic controller types and is very propriatary. If you get to reliant on it, it's very difficult to work with a more standard bone rig.

IMO, Skin is an easier system to use for vert weighting and I don't care how good the initial weighting of physique is I would almost always hand weight every vert anyway.

Either way you go, practicing the principles of animation can be done with either system...and that's really what's important.

NoSeRider

Character Studio is the devil.

Rick Stirling

Sinc eI came from a physique background, I find it slightly easier than skin, but IMO skin is better. These days, like thomasp suggested, I use physique to setup the basic rig - envelopes are very fast to use, and I can have a character rigged in 10-15 minutes in physique.

Then I convert to skin and use all its blending and painting facilities to smooth out the nasty bits and tweak it.

Sean McBride

Thanks for all the info guys. its much appreciated.