Question: Is there a "Pose2Shelf" for 3dsMax?

Scott Ruggels

I have recently become employed again. That's the good part. The company use4s 3dsMax8, which is not bad, but since the game I am now working on is an "action game" involving a lot of swords, and stuff, I have found that i need an equivalent to one of my favorite Maya tools, "Pose2Shelf". I am working with Biped, and they have something that is supposeed to work like it, but it is so buggy, as to be nearly unuseable. Now, if we were not using biped (a distinct future possibility), is there a way to have that Pose2Shelf functionality in Max? Also anyone have tips for making good "skin and bomne" skeletons, with the ability to copy and paste animations between different characters, using a similar, if differently scaled skeleton (i.e same bone names, mostly).? Thanks.

Scott

MoP

Type "character" in the Index section of the Max8 Help file. Clicking the first topic there will give you all the info you need. The Character tools are what you want - they allow defining of custom skeletons, importing/exporting animations on custom bone rigs etc.

SkullboX

[ QUOTE ]
Type "character" in the Index section of the Max8 Help file. Clicking the first topic there will give you all the info you need. The Character tools are what you want - they allow defining of custom skeletons, importing/exporting animations on custom bone rigs etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Has 3D max 8 really improved so much on the subject of Non Lineair Animation that it can do all this stuff properly? I still have to use the 'merge animation' function, which works great on identical skeletons (ie different instances of the same base file) but it wouldn't work on any similar rig with different prooprtions.

FatAssasin

I haven't used CS in a while, but I never remember the copy/paste pose tools being almost unusable. In fact, that was always one of the best features of using Biped. That, and the combo IK/FK limbs.

MoP

Yeah, true actually, I never ever had problems with Biped's copy/paste pose or posture things. Plus loading and saving .BIP file animations is very easy.

Scott Ruggels

The problem with the copy paste pose, posture, thing is that Bip01's psotion is not saved, and there are inconsistencies with the feet, and often the curves go haywire. Max's implementation of the curve editor is a bit bass ackwards in som cases, nbut it does work, and it's better than not having one, but it's far more problematic editing mostion curves on a Biped, than a regular object. Also the usual Pelvis animation difficulties haven't been solved all that well in the 3 years since I last used Max. Bip files, oddly I never had a problem with.

But thanks for the heads up on Character, as that seems to cover the material I like, especially with the cut & paste within a character assembly in the same file.

Scott

Scott