Dumbass 3ds Max Question

Scott Ruggels

long story short. Need to staple a biped's left hand onto the foreend of a pump action shotgun, that is linked to the biped's right hand. I remember people laughing at me about not being able to do that back in 1999 with Max 3, by missing the anchor button, and since I have used it. now at the new job I use Max 8, and the interface in biped about IK blending (which now has a new definition) to objects seems to be gone, or hidden. It's been three years since I have used Max so it's a bit... Um.. stressfull :-). Can one still Stple the left hand to a gun held in the right?

Scott

animatr

i dont know a ton about biped, but how I would do it in maya, would be create a dummy object, and then link that to the shotty, then point constrain the L hand to the dummy, then move the dummy till the hands grips the foreend.
should work...

Scott Ruggels

I wish I was using Maya for this, because then I'd sort of know what to do (Beg the TD for a decent skeleton, the put the constraint on the shotgun as you said. :-)) But no, this is max.

Scott

Scott Ruggels

Okay, found it, and I pass it along to folks that may need it.

1.) Pick a Biped Bone and click the little wheel at the top of the side panel.

2.) go down until you see the "KeyInfo" tab. Open it up.

3.)Below the key icons there is a list of Options.
+TCB

---

+IK

---

+Head

---

+Body

---

+Prop

---

4.) hit the plus next to IK.

5.) Hit Select Pivot. then hit H, and pick the Hand bone.

6.)Select the radio button that says Object, and then pick that. (in this case the slide for the pump action).

7.) check the box that says [_] Join to Previous IK Key.

8.)Dial the IK Blend valute up to one.

9.) then animate.

The order may be wrong, but I can ask for clarification.

Scott

Mark Dygert

hahaha you're too fast, I was just about to type that up. I just used this a month ago to get a suffer to wax her board.

yup thats how you do it, or at least how the book "3ds Max Animation with Biped" told me how to do it.

You don't need to "select pivot" if you have the hand selected already and I'm not sure what the "Join Previous IK Key" check box does. I have never checked it. Maybe its for if you already have keys set and are linking after you have done some animation work? I set this up before doing any animating so I guess its ok to leave it unchecked... /shrug.

Scott Ruggels

Yeah I had a walk cycle and a gunless idle done befroe I did that. But it worked.

So is there then a way to "bake the Keyframes" as there is in Maya, so that when I remove the gun (there are going to be a number of guns that have to snap to the players right hand), so that the left hand retains it's proper orientation even when the gun is removed?

Scott

Scott

aesir

saving a .bip file and then opening that on a new rig without the shotty ought to work

Scott Ruggels

Doesn't save the animation if the keys of the off arm are being puppeted by the gun onthe near arm. So the short term solution is to animate it, then Key every frame of the off arm then remove the shotgun.

I am not liking this game engine...

Scott

sprunghunt

[ QUOTE ]
Doesn't save the animation if the keys of the off arm are being puppeted by the gun onthe near arm. So the short term solution is to animate it, then Key every frame of the off arm then remove the shotgun.
I am not liking this game engine...

Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

Try this:

hit the save bip file button
- check "save segment at current position and rotation"
- check "a keyframe per frame"

This will save the animation to a bip file with a key on every limb for every frame. You can re-load this now if you want but what I would do is open it up using the 'load motion capture file' button under the motion capture rollout. This allows you to use the motion capture key reduction to reduce the keys automatically. You might use up all your animation memory in-game if you don't key reduce it but you could just hand reduce the keys.

animatr

i knopw what you mean scott. the fact that you cant bake keys in max is dumb. I bake all the time in maya. i am always constraining stuff, baking, reverse constraining, baking again etc.
I sure do love maya.....

Sage

I thought they added that to Max, or hoped they did by now. You can't do this with the a custom rig yet? XSI does this very well. Sorry I could resist, I still love/hate Max.

Alex

Scott Ruggels

Well Not wanting to make a new thread, I'll use this on, because this is the same problem. The difficulty was tht using "planted keys". did not transfer in the Biup file. leaving the hand on the Shotgun haanging solidly planted in space. So how can I get the info out of one file to another accurately so the left hand does not skate on the foreend of the weapon?

The good news is we can use a custom rig... for the next project. Not this one. Biped to finish this before May 1

Scott

Scott Ruggels

Okay I'll answer the question. Just like in avery other game, the characterm hoilding a we4apon usually has a weapon bone,. The reason for all of these gyrations was because the code team did not want to add an extra bone to the skeleton. Now with the proof that it is nigh unto inpossible with Biped to get the left hand to move correctly without an object to LK bind to, they have conceded, and I have added a shotgun shaped bone to the Biped for the left hand to blend to.

Now, how to do the same thing with a custom rig in 3ds Max?


Scott