with a character model made from seperate objects and with the struggles of skinning and rigging being quite large ones to overcome you could approach this one by animating the individual parts directly. you would need to skin any parts that are continuous like the hands and fingers but if you get the pivot points in the right spot you could rig him more like a robot character. You may need to rethink his structure a little to get it to work. You need to link the objects together in a heirachy and either animate them with FK (forward kinematics, where the limbs are rotated one by one) or use an Ik solver (Inverse Kinematics, where a point helper object is moved and the rotations for the objects are solved backwards down the hierarchy) I had a student once that was self taught and a very talented animator who had never heard of skinning or IK. he had a whole showreel of amazing character animation that was entirely done with seperate objects and forward kinematics, quite amazing when you see how much Ik solvers and other rigging tools can speed up the workflow, but the work was very impressive none the less, just shows what can be achieved guerrilla style.

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I appreciate the reply, but I'm really a novice when it comes to animation - a lot of those terms (linking objects in a heirarchy, FK, IK) are new to me. What do you mean by skinning?

Would it be a good idea to use Union Booleans to combine all of my body parts into one object?

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Oh by the way, let me rephrase my first question - by seperate objects I mean I will import all body parts into the same MAX file, just want to know if they need to be physically connected or whether they can remain seperate polys that are positioned/grouped together to appear as one character.

The idea for my project is that the character will be walking around and looking at things in a 3d environment I am modelling.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

yeah, its a complicated area. theres alot of things that are vital to understand if you are going to succesfully move a character. its probably better to start with simple examples and work up but I'll try and explain some bottom line things.

1. A hierarchy is where you link a series of objects together, when you rotate or move the base object (parent) the other objects (children) move along with it but when you rotate the children the parent isnt affected. using hierarchies you can set up linked objects that drive the mesh.

2. Skinning is the process of making the objects in your rig influence the vertices of your character mesh. you apply a skin modifier and add the bones to it. each bone has an envelope of influence that effects the mesh, overlapping at the joints to create smooth bending action.

3. Ik and FK are two different ways you can apply rotations to the objects in a heirachy.

FK is where you explicitly apply rotations to each object. as in you rotate one after the other to achieve the desired result. eg. rotate the arm then the forearm then the wrist then each finger etc...

IK in the example of an arm is where you have an object at the wrist that you move and the elbow joint bends automatically.

I wouldnt use booleans to join everything together that would mean skinning the mesh which also means building a rig. Both processes are very involved. if you need to achieve something soon I would recommend using the method of linking all the objects into a heirachy and animating them directly. hope that makes some sense, its a huge big area of 3d that is best covered in simple examples that build into a complete character, otherwise it is understandably daunting.

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Thanks for the reply.

Right. I understand the concept of the heirarchy - and assuming the eyes are children, it should be simple enough to change them and apply new ones as children, which will move in relation to the head which is a parent - am I right with this?

Do I *need* to skin my character? I understand the concept now, but I assume it just gives a better effect rather than being a necessity? Obviously if its not too complex I could try it, but I'd like this to be as simple as possible since its my first real animation.

I believe I've heard of IK, although not had much success - where bones are linked and then a movable object is created to pull the limb like a puppet-string?

I have a little while to work on this yet, I just find it incredibly daunting and I'm worried its going to be a little bit more complicated than I can handle :/

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

yes the eyes are usually linked to the head bone and will follow the motion of the head but rotate independently.

You can avoid skinning only if you set up your character in a way similar to a robot or a doll. a poseable doll usually has hard body parts with ball joints to facilitate movement. Usually for an organic character you would create bones that drive the mesh but with a robot you could directly link all the objects that make up the mechanism, for example have a knee made from two cylinders and a sphere. The pivot of the lower leg is moved to the centre of the sphere and the pivot of the upper leg is up near the pelvis. the objects are linked in a heirachy, lower leg to the sphere, sphere to the upper leg, upper leg to the pelvis. know when you rotate the upper leg the rest moves along with it then you can bend the knee by rotating the lower leg.

That is really the simplest way to move a character, I can't think of anything else that would make it less complicated. you could use a biped and link all the objects to a corresponding biped bone then animate the biped. but then you have to learn character studio which is also an undertaking in itself. If you like you could send me the max scene with your character and I could build a very simple heirachy and maybe add some extra objects to get you started.

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If you need an example, I made a robotic arm with no skinning. I did go a step further though, I used bones to set up my rigging and then linked the individual parts of my arm to the bones. You can see it here... [Link to www.3dartconcepts.com] then select "Animation Gallery".. It will start automatically.

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]

Thanks. I think I'll try the un-skinned version first, and see what I can do. Any chance someone could explain how to assign different polys to a heirarchy (in simple steps)?

Edit: Sorry if your link covers this already, SpitFire, I'm just doing a quick post before I go to sleep and intend to take a proper look in the morning.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

to make a hierarchy you just need to link the objects together using the select and link tool. (on the toolbar top left) turn on select and link then click and drag from the child to the parent. click the parent and let go. now there is a simple hierachy. a hierachy is any parent child relationship. then you can continue click draging from child to parent creating a larger hierarchy.
Typically you would have a foot, shin,and upper leg linked in a chain to a base parent object for the pelvis.
then for a spine you would have two or three objects linked in a chain down toward the pelvis also.
then the pelvis becomes the parent for three branches of the heirachy. Like the grandparent.
then you have arms, a palm, forearm,upper arm and a clavicle. link them in a chain starting from the palm going down toward the clavicle. link the clavicle to the top spine link. now when you move the pelvis the whole thing will move but the arms spine and legs can all be posed independently. Then the head and neck are linked, head to neck. then neck to the top spine link.

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I'll give this a shot - if I can't get it working I'd be happy for you to take a look at the scene if you can help me with the pointers

EDIT: I just realised that although my arm attaches to the body in a simple way, the whole arm is one edited poly - meaning if it were to be animated, the actual poly would have to bend like an elbow. Should I seperate the arm into two (upper and lower arm) and add a sphere for an elbow joint?

Also, I have the leg object stored as a seperate max file. How do I move this into my main character's max file? I tried exporting it, and then importing it into my scene, but for some reason all the poly's lost their colour and were a simple grey.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Use the merge command instead. to merge objects from scene to scene.

If you are going to go with my suggestion and avoid skinning the character you will need to use some sort of joint. its a compromise for sure but maybe a more achievable goal for a first attempt. Just make a choice as to the look of the joints and follow it through with all the other limbs. maybe look at a toy for some ideas. the elbow could just revolve in a groove rather than having a sphere there. whatever looks and works best.
I noticed the hands were all one mesh too. you could try skinning some part of the character to learn how to do it. the elbow or the knee are the easiest bits to skin. This toy has some joints that still look cool without needing to be flexible.

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Hey, I've been looking around at different methods, and I was wondering if its possible to use a Biped to attach the various parts of my model to, in order to animate? I have yet to try making joints and going from there, but I believe a Biped would make for easier animation if I can get it working.

At the moment I'm really just looking for the easiest way to animate as I don't have much time (this project got put on the backburner for too long because of my dissertation). I'm willing to try making joints, but if a Biped could be potentially easier I'd like to know.

Thanks

Edit: Or, is there a way to combine all of my objects into a single mesh? I've found various tutorials on using bipeds but nothing on using a character modelled from multiple polys

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

yeah you can just link each piece of mesh to the corresponding biped body part. the only trouble is learning how to animate the biped which can be frustrating until you understand how it works. Its quite different to animating regular max objects in several ways.

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Hmm.. well I'll give it a shot. I've got barely any experience in regular animation, so it wont be conflicting with current knowledge ><

I've just edited the biped to fit the mesh, and am attempting next to apply them and hope it works :/

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Are you using physique to skin the model?

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Yep, been using a tutorial from youtube - [Link to www.youtube.com]

Its shown me how to use Physique to apply the model to the biped. I *believe* I've now applied it and sorted the envelopes to a degree that theyre not conflicting terribly. Just looking to animate the biped now to see how it looks.

Supposedly, Max should come with some inbuilt biped animations for a tutorial, but I dont seem to have the files. Is there anywhere I can download them, or another site with equally good biped animations I can use?

Thanks

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

I've actually figured out how to use the inbuilt footspets tool so I'm not sure I'll be needing those files now. One thing though - I've been using footsteps, but at a certain point in his walk, I'd like to "exit" footsteps mode so I can move him manually to do something else. Basically I want him to freeze at a certain point (as he is about to step on something) and let me keep him in that position so that he can then move his head to look down, then allow me to move his body as if he is going to pick it up.

Thanks again

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Its been a very long time since i used character studio but I think you can convert footsteps to free form and continue animating from there. the procedure for animating a freeform segment between footsteps is a bit more difficult. see "freeform animation between footsteps"

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Well really, all I want to do is keep everything where it is at this frame so I can animate from here - is there a way to erase all animation except this frame so that I may save as a new file and work from there? I can piece seperate parts of the animation together afterward. Thanks

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

well yeah I think if you convert the footsteps to freeform you can then just select everything and delete the keys. then move the keys to frame zero or something like that. just create some footsteps>generate them >then hit the convert button (next to the save file icon in the biped rollout)
dont check the box to generate keys on every frame and you should end up with footsteps with keys similar to if you had animated them manually. ie: a combination of free keys and planted keys on the feet. planted keys make the feet stick (IK mode) free keys put the leg into FK mode.
this is biped's answer to IK/FK blending (not the most user friendly thing in the world to say the least)

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Sorry, I'm a little stuck. tried clicking the "Convert to Freeform" button, not checking the box, and then deleted all keyframes after that point. However, his leg seems to finish off that step, rather than freeze at that last keyframe (I think its something do with me using the footsteps tool). Clearly there is some animation after that keyframe that isnt represented by another keyframe, and I have no idea how to change it.

Thanks - sorry I'm a bit slow but I am slowly making progress. I really do have a major void when it comes to animation.

EDIT: Actually I figured it out. I had the character selected, but I selected everything and found a couple of extra keyframes I'd missed. I did try selecting everything from the start before, but I somehow managed to glitch the whole thing and had to restart from the beginning. I'm going to try and animate from here, and hopefully make further progress.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

yeah man. animation is pretty hardcore to learn. I'm learning maya at the moment and its a real epic so I know how you feel.

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A little success! I've managed to have him stop (just before he treads on something), pull his leg back and look down, bending his back as if hes getting a better look.

Its not exactly professional looking but its the first real character animation I've ever done.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

For future reference - does anyone know how to add a video into a scene? I've seen it done before, I would like to put something on a TV screen as part of the animation. I assume its simply applied to a plane or something. Also, I'd need it to start mid way through the scene (the TV screen switches on during the animation)

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Yeh, just apply it as you would any other bitmap. Make sure the screen is self illuminated.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Sorry, I have another problem that I wish to resolve but its quite hard to explain.

After my first shots of my character walking, I then want to create another shot from a different perspective - the character is now going to be holding an object but otherwise I want him to be in the same position as he ended in the first section. So, I guess what I want to know is whether its possible to take the final frame of my first animation, but save this as a new file with the final frame of the first scene as the first frame of the new one.

Basically the scene is like this: Minotaur walks into a room, almost steps on a tv remote, but recoils his foot before he does so, leaning down to pick it up. Next shot, the remote is in his hand as he stands up - it would be seen from a different camera angle so the missing animation of him actually removing the object from the floor should go unnoticed.

Not sure if that makes sense, but it'd be great if anyone can answer that!

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Sorry about all the questions, I'm just asking them as I go along since I'm encountering a lot of problems - I eventually solve or get round the majority but I dont have much time so any help is appreciated

I'm having trouble moving an object in the characters hand. Basically I simply want his hand to turn, and the object (remote) to move with it.
So I:

Set keyframes at the first frame, using AutoKey I simply rotated the hand into position and moved/rotated the remote to sit in it.
I then clicked the timeline to Frame 10
I then rotated the hand to the end position I wanted - the hand now animates the rotation properly.
I then move the remote (using the Move tool) so that it sits in the hand properly at the end position in frame 10.

However, the move tool seems to affect the first frame as well, and only the rotation animates as it should. However, since the remote is smaller than the hand, it needs to move position, not just rotate on an axis.

I hope thats clear. How can I get my remote to be in the right position on frame 10, so that it moves from where it is on Frame 1 and ends up where it should be at the end?

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Link the remote to the biped hand object (press select and link>click the object you want to link>then drag to the biped hand)
then animate the hand. The remote object will automatically move with the hand object. the hand is now the remote objects parent in a heirachy. If you then want to put the remote down thats another story. I can explain that too but i think there is a thread about that somewhere here already. you use link constraint.

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I managed to get it animating alright using Key frames - as he only holds it for a couple of seconds I thought it would be easier for him to drop it afterwards.

I've made decent progress today, but I'm having trouble applying an .avi file to a plane for the TV screen. I went into the texture map window, selected a blank slot and clicked the diffuse square, and then chose the .avi file to apply. I then dragged the texture onto the plane. However, when I play my animation in the viewport the screen just flicks between different colours, and when I render it just looks grey.

Any ideas?

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

well it could be that the avi is in a strange format for max to read. what codec is it? if in doubt I would convert the video file to a targa sequence with premier or some other editing software virtual dub is good for all sorts of little video procedures. then load the first frame of the sequence ie my_video.0000.tga
and check the "sequence" check box. at the bitmap level of the material there is a time rollout which lets you loop, change the start time, and playback speed etc..

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Sorry, I dont really know much about codecs and video technicalities. I used Windows Movie Maker to piece a few clips together and then saved it as DV-AVI (PAL). Is there a best format to save it in from Windows Movie Maker? If you want to have a look, I can send you the avi file as it currently is.

Thanks

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Max should really open any videos with standard windows codecs
Just try exporting to a codec that max can render to. like say cinepak for instance. or my favourite is quicktime sorensen 3.

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What program can I do that with? I cant seem to find an export option, and when Saving as Movie File I cant see any options that relate to either of those codecs.

I've done some animation on my biped, and I now want to use footsteps for a second time. However, the option is now greyed out and no matter what I do I cant seem to figure out how to let me use it! I've selected the pelvis of my biped but nothing, I've also tried deleting all keyframes in the scene as I simply need a shot of him running.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts to say the least

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

As soon as you hit save when you are about to render to .mov (or anything else) it brings up a dialogue. different for each type of file, where you can set up compression. if you need to change it there is a setup button. The setup button is greyed out until you hit save. so if you need to change settings after the first box pops you may need to hit save again then cancel and hit setup. Any video editing program can export to different compression types. premier is the most common. theres also vdub which is free for pure video processing, as I mentioned before.
check it out, its very usefull to have in your kit. [Link to www.virtualdub.org]

Mixing footsteps and freeform and converting back and forth is a serious pain in the arse, all i can suggest is either.

a) check out the max reference on "footsteps and freeform animation" which basically says you can use freeform animation during airborne periods of the footsteps. I'm really not sure how it all works because I never use it.

b) save your freeform animation as a .bip file and load it into the motion mixer. which is a whole weeks worth of messing around but allows you to mix clips of animation like a non linear editing program. pretty cool but you need to learn it which takes some time.

c) Animate something simpler by hand because all this biped stuff isnt really animation anyway.

Sorry to say that last bit but the truth is you will learn way more about animation if you do a nice simple walk cycle than messing with biped footsteps and getting frustrated by it. Been there done that .

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Lol, well sadly I'm in a bit too deep to stop now haha. Never mind, I sort of got it working, and I dont have any more walking to do. I'll look into those tips for the video format - hopefully if I can solve that I should finish fairly soon. I'll post up the video once I have done, although I wouldnt expect too much ><

Man, only now do I appreciate how much I enjoy modelling, haha!

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

I've put the video so far up for download:

[Link to www.sendspace.com]

I put a couple of blank descriptive images in there for a couple of scenes I still need to do, but thats basically it so far. I'm very strapped for time so wont be making any major changes, but if theres any little bits of advice I'd be glad to hear it. Its not too heavily textured because we're not getting marked on that too much - and it makes rendering take longer.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

As a first try, it's coming along pretty well. If you've got time I'd suggest you go over it and try and animate the whole body. There are times such as when he's walking that the head is still and the arms and hands are a bit stiff and he looks a bit wooden. There are a lot of other things that could be improved, but they'll probably take too long to be implimented in this project. It really depends on how much time and effort you want to put into character animation. Is it something you want to do more of?

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Not really, to be honest. I much prefer environment modelling to animation. This is just one of those projects that needs to be done, but isnt really my thing, lol.

Still having trouble getting video to work within the project- I downloaded virtual dub and converted the video to a .tga image sequence. I've then applied the tga sequence to the Diffuse channel of the map I have applied to the screen, and tried to render it - but the screen is completely black.

Any ideas why this is happening? If I can get this working I can finish my project ><

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

Oh by the way, if I click the "View Image" button under the cropping section of Bitmap Parameters, it does show me what appears to be a frame of the video clip - so it seems theres no problem with the .tga, it just doesnt seem to be rendering.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

you've done well man. theres quite alot of character in the little guy. A nice sequence. I know how you feel, some areas of 3d are just not as natural for each individual, animation is one of the more specialised areas, most of the animators I know tend to be just animators, they can rig and model and all but they really live to animate, its like being an actor, they have a character struggling inside them. You can't spread yourself too thin with 3d. I say focusing on modelling and texturing to start with is really the best bet, theres always time to learn animation down the track right?

I can't really think of any reason why your .tga wouldnt appear in the render. can you get other texture maps to show up?. maybe try a new material. and or a new object.

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Thanks Tyson, your words are very encouraging I know its not perfect but I'm glad to hear you think he has some character as I think this is a part of how we are marked

I finally fixed the TV screen problem - I had looked into video tutorials in getting this to work before, and one of them had suggested using UMV Unwrapping or something somewhere along the lines - somehow this was still active, and turning it off fixed the screen and it worked fine.

I'm just going to put a bit of backing music over the top, and I'll post the finished thing up soon. Thanks to everyone who helped, this has easily been the hardest project (for me) that I've ever done, and youve been a great help.

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

[Link to www.filefactory.com]

Thats the link to my finished project

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My latest 3D project:
[Link to ja3dface.blogspot.com]

pretty cool some of the movements not perfect but the characters definitively has a personality

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"I change my mind so much I can't even trust it. My mind changes me so much I can't even trust myself."

can you put it on youtube or something. i know it'll be a massive drop in quality, but i dont have the bandwidth to download a 115mb file at the moment.

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.