Adding bones to Biped for Hair on my Character

kunglao

I too have a question on this.I have just started rigging my character using Biped/Skin in 3d Studio Max 2011
She has long hasir (Shoulder length). At the moment I have weighted the hair to the head.Is it possible to add bones to the biped for the hair?

I am relatively inexperienced with rigging/Animation and would appreciate peoples thoughts on this.

Bruno Afonseca

you can create a ponytail chain of bones inside biped, check that out!

kunglao

Thanks fonfa.

Neox

also there are extra and prop bones inside biped that you can use

Mark Dygert

You can also create max bones and link them to the biped.

This is useful because max bones can be rigged up to follow dynamic simulations like cloth, spring controllers and the flex modifier so you don't have to hand animate the hair. You can also hand key max bones that are following a simulation, depending on how you rig it up.

Objects linked to biped can be saved and loaded so they always stay with your animation, you can choose to ignore them too and only the biped will load.

The disadvantage of objects linked to a biped is that they don't show up in the copy/paste pose library or biped work bench so you end up animating them like normal objects, copy keyframes for those objects after you paste poses. Which if the animation is handled by a dynamic solution then you're not really animating it at all and its a non-issue.

Biped extras and ponytail bones can't follow dynamics so you're stuck trying to animate realistic hair with bone rotations, which can be frustrating and difficult to pull off. But they show up in the copy/paste poses library so if you're going to do the hand animation thing then it's best to go that route.

If you're going to simulate, then you want to use max bones.


Also if you decide to use CAT you can attach tails to just about any hub and they work well ponytails too. Bipeds tail just doesn't work like that, its stuck to the pelvis and you can't change it... well you can try but it won't be pretty.

kunglao

Thanks everyone for your advice

Saman

Don't forget to name your extra added bones correctly(non-biped ones). Bip01 hair01 etc. Some engines might have problems with non-correctly named bones.