What skeleton system are you using? Bones or biped?

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

For a bones rig or any max heirachy setup you can save and load animation with a max character node. In max 9 the character drop down menu isnt enabled so,

Go to: Customize menu > Customize User Interface, click the part of the UI you want to add the character commands to (eg, Toolbars, etc.) from the Category drop-down list, choose Characters. then add the commands (namely the create a character command.) select all the objects in your character and use the command. select the new character node and you can use it for things like scaling the whole character or saving a default "skin pose" to jump back to when you want to fix the skinning or, you can use the save animation button which will save the animation for all the checked objects in the rig. when you use insert animation on the other rig the merge animation dialogue opens allowing you to load the animation onto corresponding objects. Its pretty straight forward when you have a simple rig but it can get confusing on more complex ones so keep track of the animated objects and make sure you use a naming convention on your rig. You can also use this tool to paste the animation (relative) onto the end of the existing animation to loop a character stepping forward or stick a bunch of actions together etc..

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Thanks for the replies, and thanks Tyson the character menu was exactly what i needed. I also found you can select the bones and then file, save animation then open your other file and load animation, just another way if anyone else needs help on this subject

Thanks people

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