max8 rigging tutorials

[flipside]

Hi,

I'm trying to learn character animation in max8. I did all of the included tutorials, result: information overload.

As a first small project, I'm trying to setup this character:
http://www.aversis.be/vrayrhino/robo_hdri.jpg

Altough it works, I can't control it well enough (compared to a standard biped skeleton where you can animate pivot points etc...).

I'm looking for tutorials on this matter, but not the 100th tutorial on how to setup a human character because I can't apply that workflow to my simple small robot...

Anyone has some suggestions on really good books or something?

Or if someone is interested in setting up this character, and explain how & why over msn or skype or something, please let me know! I'm even willing to pay for it if you really know what you're doing

Thansks,

wouter

[Adam H. Stewart]

Custom rigs

I wanted to tell you that this is a cool character. I did a character animation class in Maya for about 6 months. The basic principles are the same in Max. Just names and workflow vary. I will try to dig out some of my Maya tutorials for you - there was one in particular that was rigging a foot that I could see being very useful for you.
The very basic start is - what are you looking for this character to do ? What range of motion do you need from it ? Do you have storyboards of how it interacts with it's environment - kicking things, falling over ect.
Rigging is a little like - how long is a piece of string ? This little guy could have very basic or a very complicated range of motion. An overly complex rig will make animating a nightmare and character animation is so completely different from you're bog standard anmation, it is all about timing and tweak, tweak, tweak.
I just remembered I got the LOR DVD awhile back - not sure if it has rigging details or no.
Sorry about the rambling reply, hope it helps - I'll see what I can dig up.

[flipside]

Hi thanks for the reply

That's maybe the problem, I'm trying to rig this because I thought it was an easy first start. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet... But to start, it should do a walk cycle, but perfect and not that sometimes the heel or tip of the foot sinks in the groundplane for example. I cannot seem to have the control over the foot that I want, and I'm sure it has to do with how I set up the rig since I probably don't have the right way of thinking.

[Adam H. Stewart]

Ruined by Character Studio

The old school animators stil think of the walk cycle as one of the hardest things to pull off. That is a problem with Character Studio it can do walk cycles so easy, when you try to do one from scratch yourself it seems almost impossible. What does your current rig look like ? - do you have controlllers on the feet ?

[Morbid Angel]

Hey you can check out this one
http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials/ri...Rigging101.asp

and also at www.3dtotal.com in free section/tutorials there is a few good ones for max.

[tom schuelke]

I think there are lot of ways to rig characters.

of cours a custom rig could do this with the advantage, that after learning, you could rig whatever you want.

on the other hand you could consider, the work to progress advantage of out of the box programs like characterstudio...

and if you would decide to do so, you should consider CAT...

We tested it, and while it is still a bit buggy, it has very strong parts. If you wont specialise on this part, it realy does do the job.


Tom

[joconnell]

Wouter - no problem at all - my msn is digital_joc@hotmail.com . I've rigged a good few characters at this stage so I can give you some sample files and different setups depending on what you want. I should be releasing a solid scripted rig quite soon too (If I can break my addicition to the old series of 24 - halfway through season 2 at the moment - dammit)

[tom schuelke]

by the way, look at the character rigging tutorials from the cg-academy..

intermediate rigging one two three and four..

its done with max 6, but its realy a good starting point i think...

Tom

[joconnell]

Absolutely - I've gone through all of them except the facial one and they're all well worth it - what's quite nice is that Paul show's you the reasoning behind why he's doing things and the pitfalls of other methods so you can troubleshoot a lot better.

[roppin]

Flipside. After looking at your very nice model I have been thinking; It could be a good idea to have another moving part in the legs. as it is now, the model has quite reduced movements in the legs as there is only a one way rotation of bouth the feet and the "hipp" joints. or will it be able to rotate the the whole upper part of the leg? or will it be able to move it up and down?
Anyway, I´d be glad to look at it...

[joconnell]

Roppin I was thinking the exact same thing, it's only got one type of movement possible which is more or less a triangle made by the legs with the head sitting at the point of it - it doesn't have any joints or pistons to allow it to walk properly - I was going to do an expression so that the feet are moved in an ik fashion and the body / head position is automatically calculated - I can't think of any other way it'd work at the moment.

[flipside]

Yeah it's true, if the leg would have a 'knee' it would be much easier I think.

But still I wonder about the feet too because there are also only 1 piece, and I don't know how I can control or animate the pivot point on it so that I can let him stand on it's tip or heel.

Roppin, I sent you a pm too.

[joconnell]

Heya Wouter - I reckon the only way that this can be solved is using expressions - The head / body object must always be in the center of the two legs so effectively you'll be animating the two legs first with foot helper objects which will make a triangle. The head object will be place at the top of this triangle positionally and can have a control to animate the rotation afterwards. It mightn't be the best thing to animate in the world but it's the only way I can think of allowing you to drive the animation from the feet upwards.

If you think about how this object would work in the real world it walk in a really awkard fashion too - Even having some kind of ability for the leg to slide up and down on the hip pivot point would give it a far better range of movement - as it stands at the moment it'd probably be quite unbalanced.

[roppin]

so I said I look at it, and I have. Cant come up with a nice solution on how to rig him Joconnell´s solution sounds OK I think but I´m no good at expressions.
I would put in a nother joint,preferably a ball joint. on his hipp. otherwise I cant se him do anything but walk straight forward or turn in a sheating way- the feet will slide. However. if you want a setup for the fot I can send you a max 8 file.

//Daniel

[flipside]

I'm still trying, but I indeed added another joint for the knees. Not a ball joint, walking in a straight line would already be a great achievement for now

If you want, I can send you the new file with my current setup. Like before, it works but still I have to choose if I want the front or the back of the foot as pivot point, I would like to be able to animate this so I can change it's pivot depending on where the foot is. Also, the IK solver in the leg pulls the leg very straight always, isn't there a way to set it up so that the hip and bottom leg never go into 180° position? The knee should always be bent a little bit. Because now when it goes from 180° to a little bit bent, it looks awkward.

Thanks all for your time

ps: i ordered the cg academy dvd's, can't wait untill they arrive!