Lecture 9 - Biped and Physique Modifier

Character Studio – Biped and Physique

Biped can be found in the Systems rollout. Click on biped, and in the perspective viewport click and drag a biped skeleton.

The different bones of the biped can be selected and moved, rotated or scaled. The biped has a built in IK and FK system, making them very easy to manipulate and move.

To re-shape the biped to fit your mesh

With the biped highlighted go to the motion panel. Within the motion panel you need to click onto Figure Mode. Look down the motion panel to the structure rollout. Here you can select the bones and control how many bones the biped contains. Here you can specify whether your biped should have no arms (if you were making a hen for instance), a tail, several neck bones etc. If you click bend links with the tailbones highlighted you can make the tail bend.

What is FK and IK?

When using FK, any chain of links is dominated by the initial link (or the parent). When the parent moves so do the children. If you scale the parent, the children will scale as well.

IK is the reverse of FK, in other words it is the child that can affect the movement of the chain and transfer that movement to the parent.

Biped is cleverly set up with both systems.

Physique

You should make sure that your model is placed in the Da -Vinci pose, with arms and legs outstretched before you use the physique modifier. Make sure your model is in see-through mode, by right clicking the mesh and checking the make see-through box in the object properties dialogue box. (Or use alt x)

The bones of your biped can be around three quarters the size

of your mesh, or can even be larger than your mesh.

With your mesh highlighted, go to the modify panel, and scroll down to the physique modifier.

To identify the biped, you need to attach the node, by clicking the attach node button in the rollout and then selecting the pelvis. When you have done this orange lines will run throughout the biped.

Adjusting the envelopes

More than likely when you move the arm of the biped down to the side of the model, you will see how the mesh pulls. This can be remedied by entering the sub object level of the physique modifier. Click on the small + sign on the physique modifier in the modifier stack. Here you can click on envelope. If you make sure that your model is in smooth and highlight mode, you can see how the mesh will react to changes in the envelope. The envelopes weight and influence the mesh.

Select your mesh – and change to wire frame mode, so that you can see the bones clearly. If you click on the yellow line running through the bones, you will activate the envelope. Where the envelope is influencing the mesh 100% it will be red in colour, if it isn’t influencing it will appear purple.

You can alter the envelopes using radial scale, parent overlap and child overlap, and you can influence the outer or inner side of the envelope or both sides at the same time. You will see the mesh snap back to the bones. If you check shading on the display area of the rollout you can see the weighting quite clearly on the mesh with a colou

r code, in a similar fashion to soft selection.

Creating footsteps

Footsteps can be created automatically or manually.

To produce automatic footsteps, select a bone on the biped, this will activate the motion panel. Click footstep creation button, and a dialogue box will appear with several options for creating footsteps including how many footsteps you require. Click OK and you will see the footsteps have automatically appeared.

If you go to playback the animation nothing will happen until you activate the footsteps. In the motion panel click Create Keys for biped footsteps. The animation should now work.

To produce manual footsteps, select a bone on the biped, click on footsteps, now click on creat footsteps at current frame button. Click and create the footsteps in the top viewport.

You can choose walk, run and jump. Create Footsteps append will add in footsteps if you wish to make your walk sequence longer.

Lecture 8 - Pulling the Curtains - Cloth Collection

Set up a scene using two planes for your curtains with plenty of segments, a pole made out of

a long cylinder, and the curtain hooks made from small cylinders. Make sure that you name all of the parts.

You can only use the cloth modifier with a 2 dimensional shape like a plane, with plenty of segments.

Select curtain and assign a cloth modifier - looks like a t-shirt in the toolbar.

Now we have to put the curtain into a Cloth collection. Run a preview of the animation.

Press P for playback. The curtain drops like a stone because it is not attached to the curtain hooks ( A rigid body).

Go to vertex mode on the cloth modifier, in the stack the top entry has a plus sign to its side. Click on the vertex sub-object level. Scroll down to the constraints area. Click on button which says 'Attach to rigid body'.

Click on Attach to rigid body in the box and change the name to RT1.

Select a few vertices that surround the hook. The vertices should turn red. In the 'Attach to rigid body' box click on the NONE button and in the scene click on the hook. You should then see hook RT1 on the none button. Do this process to the rest of the clips on the Right curtain.

You now need to put hooks into a rigid body collection. Select the clips and add to a rigid body collection.

Once all three clips are attached go to the preview. You can see

that the curtain has got some substance to it and the cloth is attached to the hooks.

Repeat the process for the second curtain.

Animation.

Home in on the curtain clips. Increase the time frame to 250 frames.

Turn on autokey place the slider at frame 150. Move the second hook to meet the first hook.

Move keyframe 0 to keyframe 30 for a one second delay before the curtain opens

Do the same for the other hook.

Highlight each hook one by one, and in the property editor, make sure that ‘unyielding’ is checked.

Preview the animation. Press P.

Lecture 8 - Introduction to Reactor

To access the Reactor tool bar you need to left click on the blank space next to the Render Production button (The last button with a teapot on it) on the main toolbar at the top of the interface. You can then dock the toolbar either at the side of the interface or at the top, which ever you prefer.

To access Reactor, go to the Utilities panel and click on Reactor.

Your toolbar has six different functions: Reactor Collections, Reactor Modifiers, Reactor Objects, Reactor Constraints, the Property Editor and Playback and animation tools.

Click and drag a shallow rectangle into the perspective viewport and angle the rectangle slightly.

Place two spheres above the rectangle.

Because we want the spheres to fall and run off the rectangle, we need to make them rigid bodies.

At the top of the Reactor toolbar is the Rigid Body Collection. Click on this and then click in the view port. In the modify panel, you can see that a box called Rigid Body Properties has opened up. Click on Add, and from the search by name button, highlight the box and the two spheres. Click Pick. The three objects are now in the box.

At the bottom of the toolbar is the property editor, this allows you to add specific physical properties to your objects, here you can provide Mass, Friction and Elasticity.

• Inactive - remove the object from the simulation calculations
• Disable All collisions - causes the object not to collide with other objects
• Unyielding - makes the object immovable
• Phantom - makes objects so that they have no impact on other objects in the scene.

Simulation Geometry:

Before deciding on the collision boundary to use, you need to determine whether and object is concave or convex.

Click on the first sphere, and give it a mass of 5.0 and under simulation geometry change from mesh convex hull to bounding sphere. Repeat this with the second sphere and give it a mass of 15.0.

At the bottom of the toolbar click on preview animation. Now press P and the animation will play.

Lecture 7 - Using the Dope Sheet

The Dope Sheet can be accessed from the graph editors rollout.

Click and drag a teapot into the perspective viewport. Convert to edit poly, and add a squash modifier via the modifier panel. Animate the squash over 100 frames. Also add a coloured material and animate the colour change over 100 frames.

Open the dope sheet, on the left hand side you can identify the teapot object that has been used, open up the transform track and the material track.

The keys in the animation are colour coded:

Green - Rotation

Blue - Scale

Red - Move

As this rollout is so vast, it is easier to concentrate on the areas you want to work on, so go to the left hand corner of the dope sheet and find Filters. We want to check, Show only selected objects and animated tracks.

If you click on edit ranges you can see black range bars which can be moved.

Modify subtree, will allow you to see the black range bars and the keys together.

If you move these bars or keys you can see your animation cha

nge in the timeline. If you right click on the keys you can make changes to the animation, in a similar way to the curve editor.

Lecture 7 - Using the Curve Editor

Click and drag a sphere in the front viewport. Turn on Autokey and move the sphere to the centre of the bottom of the viewport at keyframe 50 and then to the top right hand side of the viewport at keyframe 100.

Right click on the sphere and in Object Properties click on Trajectory.

• The white boxes represent the key frames for the animation
• The white dots represent the frames.

You will notice that the white dots are very close together at the beginning of the trajectory and wider spaced in the middle at frame 50.

• Frames which are close together the animation is slow
• Frames which are far apart the animation is fast

Therefore when you look at this trajectory you will see that the sphere starts slowly and gets faster by frame 50, by frame 100 it is slowing up again. Realistically this w

ould not be the case, if this sphere represents a ball bouncing, the ball would get faster when dropped from a height, would be at its fastest at frame 50 and would bounce out fast loosing its acceleration by frame 100.

This can be changed by using Key Tangencies. If you right click on the key at frame 50, sphere 01 X position, you can use the control box to change the tangent to Fast in and Fast out. When you change this watch the trajectory on the animation and how it changes.

Curve Editor

You can access the curve editor by going to the Graph Editors pulldown or clicking on the small graph sign on the tool bar. This displays the function curve of the animation.

The red graph = X value

The green graph = Y value

The blue graph = Z value

If you right click the small grey boxes on the curve - up comes the same control box to change the tangencies of the curve. To change the slope of the curve manually you use the small handles, and the curve will match the tangent chosen.

Click on the graph icon and Out of Range Tangent Types dialogue box appears. This allows you to step your animation, loop the animation etc.

Lecture 7 - Using the Path Constraint

Go to the create panel > shapes > circle and drag a circle in the front viewport.

Now click and drag a sphere next to the circle.

With the Sphere highlighted, go to Animation on the top toolbar and click on Constraints > Path Constraint.

You should get a dotted line which is coming from the sphere. Click on the circle and you will find that the sphere will jump to the circle.

Now if you play the animation, the sphere will rotate following the path of the circle. 3DS Max has tweened the animation for you.

In the motion panel, you will see that the path constraint has been added to the position list. In the Path parameters you can add weighting to the object that is animated on the path.

If you click and drag a long box and allocate a path constraint to it, you can then see that it has difficulties following the path. Therefore you have to check the ‘follow path’ option and the box will follow correctly.

Using the path constraint with a camera

Now click and drag a teapot into the centre of the perspective viewport. Click and drag a circle around the teapot in the top viewport.

Go to camera > target camera. Click and drag the target camera to the centre of the teapot. With the camera highlighted, go to animation > constraints > path constraint. Then click on the circle. Now the camera will snap to the circle and you can get a rotating camera-eye view of the teapot.

If you want to produce a fly through camera action use the path constraint with a camera. Try setting up some objects and get the camera to fly around them using a path.

Lecture 6 - Animation Basics

There are three main areas of the 3DS Max interface which is allocated to animation. They are:

1. The Track Bar
2. Key Framing Controls
3. Playback Controls

Using AutoKey.

At the base of the 3DS Max interface on the left hand side you can see Auto, Set K and a button with the image of a key on it.

There is also a time line at the bottom of the interface, with a slider, which is called the Track bar.

Autokey is an automatic way of animating with 3DS Max. Click on the Autokey button and you will notice that the track bar and the viewport you are using for your animation will turn red. This is a warning to say that you are in animation mode.

Click and drag a sphere onto the desktop and position it at the top of the front viewport.

Now move the trackbar slider to frame 25. Now move the sphere to the bottom of the fr

ont viewport. Move the trackbar slider to 50, and move the sphere across to the left side of the viewport., repeat this at 75 and move the sphere to the upper left hand side of the viewport. Now turn autokey off.

Now if you slide the slider of the trackbar, you will see your animation, or you can turn on the animation using the Play animation buttons. If you go to the motion panel, and click on the

trajectory button, you can see the trajectory of your animation.

You will notice that everytime that you moved the sphere, a key was created in the trackbar. Shift and click on the key at 0 on the trackbar. This will allow you to copy the key, Drag it to 100 on the trackbar, and now the sphere will return to its original position.

Autokey always places a key at 0 automatically.

Using Set Key

Set Key is not an automated process, and is useful if you want more control over your animation, for instance if you wish to pose a character.

Therefore at 0 on the trackbar you need to click on Set K (this will turn the trackbar red) and then press the button with the key on it. This then sets the key in the timeline

Now move the trackbar to 25, move the sphere, and press the button with the key on it. Scrub the trackbar to see your animation.

Week 5 - Reminder that you hand in work at the end of Week 6!!!

Just a small reminder that you will be handing in work on the 4th March - three models that you will be using in your James Bond animation placed on a disc or memory stick along with a print out of your blog.

Lecture 5 - Camera modify panel

Within the modify panel, you can specify which lens you wish to use, there is a choice of nine lenses. The smaller the lens, eg 20 mm the wider angle you will see. The larger ie 85 the smaller angle you will see. Try toggling these amounts to see the difference.

Field of Depth

When you place an object in the distance in 3DS Max you can see the background object just as well and in focus as the forground object. This is not what happens in real life. If you look into the distance it is harder to focus then when looking at closer objects.

With Field of Depth you can make the background objects blurr to give a true to life representation.

Lecture 5 - Cameras - Setting up your camera

When you set up your scene, you have placed your camera/s, and changed your perspective view to camera view, you will see that the little symbols at the bottom of the interface have changed and are now specific to the camera. What is nice about these functions is that you can animate them.

Dolly camera - This allows the camera to move backward and forward without changing the lens length.

Field of View (FOV) changes the lens length without moving the camera.

Perspective view toggles different combinations of view.

Walk through, allows the use of the up, down, right and left arrows on the key board.

Orbit - The camera rotates

Pan - Rotates the target around the camera.

Lecture 5 - Cameras - Setting up your camera

To access and place a camera in your scene you need to go to Create > Cameras.

3DS Max offers two types of camera, Target and Free.

The most useful is the Target camera, as you can position the target onto the scene you wish the camera to look at.

Free cameras are better for animation, i.e. fly through animation where the camera can be aligned to a path.

You need to be careful as to which viewport you initially place your camera within, as they can be misaligned.

Target camera is click and dragged in the top viewport, so that it is to the ground.

Free cameras should be clicked into the front view.

In order to see the view that your camera is providing, click on 'perspective' in the perspective viewport>cameras>camera 01 and your perspective viewport will now react to any changes that you make to your scene with the camera.

Lectrure 4 - Skylight system

In the create panel > lights > standard > Skylight. Click to add skylight in the front viewport.

With the light highlighted go to the modify panel and under the render panel click shadows.

Now render your scene - a lovely matt finish!

Lecture 4 - Gamma Correction

If you use photoshop you will probably know about the 'levels' adjustment that is offered there. This allows you to make your photograph darker or lighter, in other words it adjusts the Gamma of the image. Gamma correction is built into products such as computers and televisions and it is set at 2.2. Mac computers are set to 1.8.

The Gamma setting is built in to compress the information produced in shadow areas (light and shade). The Mental Ray rendered used for Raytracing has to know the correct Gamma, otherwise rendering can take longer than it needs to. Also the with the correct Gamma the colour of bitmapped shapes is richer and more saturated. Gamma does not affect ordinary colour, only the colour of the bitmaps in your materials as they appear applied to geometry.

You therefore need to turn the Gamma on:

Turning Gamma on

Go to the customise drop down, and click on preferences > Tab - Gamma and LUT (look up table).

Check enable Gamma,

Also under bitmap files - Output and input 2.2

Enable Affect colour Sections

Affecct Material Editor.

Toggle the UI setting in the render panel to see preference box where you can change settings for test renders which will decrease render time.

Under Limit trace depth keep Max reflections at 2 and Max refractions at 4.

Lecture 4 - Understanding Raytracing - Chrome & Glass materials

Raytracing is when light from a source or camera (in 3ds Max) bounces off other objects, and is reflected/refracted in and from the pixels in the scene.

To produce a chrome material

Open the material editor, select a slot. In the Maps rollout, click on reflection > in the maps rollout click Raytrace. Drag the material to the object, and render.

To produce a glass material

Open the material editor, select a slot, click on background so that your material shows up. Make sure that you have your diffuse colour as black. Go to the Maps rollout, click on refraction and choose Raytrace. Click and drag to the object and render.

Lecture 4 - Lighting

Max has two default lights in

the viewports which enable the user to see their models in a basically lit environment. As

soon as you start to add yo

ur own lighting, that default changes, and Max updates t

he view to whatever lighting

that you specifiy.

Make a small scene, click and drag a plane in the perspective viewport and place assorted standard and extended

primitives on that plane, so that you can test out the di

fferent lights.

Go to the Create panel, and

click on the small lighting

symbol. Where you can see Photometric, click on the side

arrow and select Standard.

In the Front viewport click and drag a target spot.

In order to see your lighting update it is a good idea to change one of the viewport

s to Perspective view - Active

Shade.

Target Spotlights are very useful for mood lighting, free

target spots can be used for car headlamps, streetlamps

etc. A spotlight illuminates an area within a cone, similar to a

stage light. Target Spotlights point at a target that you aim at

, whereas few spotlights are targetless, so they can be

moved easily. You can align a target light to a path and

animate it if you wanted to.

With your target spotlight highlighted, go to the mo

dify panel, and it will reveal a target spotlight rollout.

Under general parameter

s, you can change the light to either an Omni light or

Directional light. An Omni light

radiates light in all directions and is ideal for general sunlight, or an overhead light in a roo

m, the light radiates from the

one source. Directional lights use a cone of illumination and the sides of the cone are

parallel rather than radiating from a single source like spotlights.

You will also notice that you can add shadows. Just check the box next to shadow and

miraculously you will get

shadows within your scene.

Here you can specify different shadow types using different

rendering techniques.

In the next box you will find Intensity/Colour Attenuation.

Here you can change the intesity of the light by changing the Multiplier spinner, and if you click on the colour square you

can change the colour of the light. Here I have changed the colour of the light to green, and

have added an extra target spot to illuminate the scene even more so that you can see the changes.

You can also change the attenution. You can change your spotlight from a round

stagelight to a square light in the spotlight parameters box.

In Advanced effects you can add a map to your spotlight. Check the projector map box

and click on the map box to add either a proceedural map or one of your own. I have added a map of fence wire to

mine and here is the effect it provides.

Omni lights and Directional lights have the same rollouts and parameters, so it is a good idea to play with these to see what sort of lighting effects that you can produce.

Lecture 3 - Making a leaf

This tutorial can be found on the VLE under Module Documents. You will also find the relevant map of a leaf to download.

Lecture 3 - Producing a High Shine metallic material

1. In the Create panel go to Extended primitives. Click and drag a torus knot in the perspective viewport.
2. Open the Material Editor. Pick an Anastropic shader as this is ideal for metal materials. Check on the diffuse button and change the colour to a dark blue. Make sure that you have a high specular level approx 60 and a high anastrophy approx 80.
3. Navigate to the maps rollout further down the panel, Click on Reflection > None and click on Material Library. In the Material library there should be some environmental maps - pick a scene such as Hong Kong. This will now add the Hong Kong image to the reflective map channel.
4. Drag the material from the slot to the torus knot.

Lecture 3 - Producing a Multi Sub-Object material

This technique is great when you have a poly model that requires different

materials - such as a character wearing clothes.

1. Click and drag a teapot into the perspective viewport.
2. Convert the teapot to an editable poly.
3. In the modify panel, check element.
4. Scroll down to polygon properties to Material ID
5. Click on the teapot spout and allocate ID 1
6. Click on the lid and allocate ID 2
7. Click on the belly of the teapot and allocate ID 3
8. Click on the handle and allocate ID 4
9. Come out of editable poly.
10. Open the material editor.
11. Click on Standard to pull up the proceedural map menu > choose Multi/sub object material > OK.
12. You now have 10 material slots. You add materials or maps to the first four slots. Click on Material#standard and either add a map or make your own material. You then see these materials in the sample slot.
13. Click and drag the sample slot material to the teapot and the different materials are automatically assigned to the different elements of the teapot.

Lecture 3 - Making your own materials

In order to make your own materials to import into 3DS

Max, you need to use Photoshop.

Make a new file, approx 3cm x 3cm. Using the brush, make a random pattern within the f

ile. Save as a bitmap.

In 3DS Max, click on the Material Editor. Click on a

slot and got to the diffuse slot. Next to the slot is a small box. Click on this and it revea

ls the material editor. At the top of the material editor is Bitmap. Click on Bitmap, and a

dialogue box appears to allow you to find the image you made in Photoshop. The image w

ill appear in the material slot. Click and drag it to your object.

Lecture 3 - Shaders

In order to start making materials you have to chose the relevent shader to make that material. Shaders are similar to the different types of background that you would chose to paint on, for instance, watercolour paper for watercolour paints, sugar paper for pastels, board for acrylics, or canvas for oil paints. You need to use the correct shader in order to produce the right balance of refraction/reflection to make your chosen material.

Anastropic

The anastropic shader is ideal for metal materials, because it changes the shape of the specular from round to elongated via the anastrophy spinner. You can also change the direction of the shine. It works very well for hair where the shaft of the hair catches the light.

Blinn

This is the standard Max default - A basic shader which can be used for most materials, it has a no anastrophy.

Metal

This was in use until the Anastropic shader was introduced, it is more simple in the way it works, there is a dimple in the specular graph, which means that the shader is useful for dull metal materials such as brushed stainless steel.

Muli-layer

This is very good for metalic objects, particularly cars, as it has two layers of specularity. You can also change the colours of the specular layer to add subtle tones.

Orin-Nayer-Blinn

This is much softer in tone than Blinn and produces a very soft feel to the material. It is ideal for organic materials such as skin, velvet, as it slightly absorbs light.

Phong

This is one of the original shaders and is not really used anymore. Gives a plastic feel to a material.

Strauss

This is good for plastic, or can be used for metal, but there are not a lot of parametres and is not utilised much.

Translucent

This is a fun shader - and can be used to produce psychodelic influences on the material, glowing effects etc. It offers translucency, and opacity plus filter colour.

Lecture 2 - Making a linear array

Producing a Linear Array
Make a shape like a piece of picket fencing in the perspective viewport. Make sure this is highlighted.Go to Tools > Array and this opens an array dialogue box.
Make sure that the Preview button is checked

In array dimensions, check 2D, and in the Count select how many copies of the fence post you require. Then click on the X spinner. You can now see the fence post being cloned. Take the X spinner up to 25.

Now check 3D, and choosing the Y spinner, you will see the set of fence posts being cloned, take the spinner again up to 25.

Lecture 2 - Loft

Modelling a coat hanger using Loft

In the front viewport, using the line spline tool, draw out the shape of a coat hanger.

Also in the front viewport, click and drag a small circle (spline)

Go to Creat > Compound Objects > Loft.

Make sure that the coat hanger spline is highlighted, and then in the Loft properties box, click on get shape, and then click on the circle.

You now have a complete coat hanger.

Lecture 2 - Boolean and Pro-Boolean

Create a large flat box.

Now create a letter from Spline text. Turn the spline into an editable poly. Extrude the letter so that it is deeper than the box and cap the end.
Place the letter in the middle of the box so that it intersects it.
Go to Create > Compound objects > Boolean
In the Boolean parameters it will tell you that the box is operand A. Click the Pick Operand B button and choose the letter as Operand B. In the properties dialogue you with to subtract B from A.
Now you have an letter shaped Boolean through your box.
If you have more than one shape that you wish to boolean, use the pro-boolean tool which asks you to keep picking operand B until all the shapes are removed.

Lecture 2 - Use of splines and lathe modelling

Lathing

Go to the create panel > shapes

Using the line tool, set Initial type and Drag type to smooth – this will provide you with a curved line.

Click and drag your shape in the Front viewport.

When you have produced your shape, you need to change the pivot point from the centre of the shape to the base of the shape so that the lathe modifier rotates around the base of the bowl. Navigate to the modify panel/list, pick the lathe modifier.
This will automatically lathe around the Y axis, but you can change this if needs be in the lathe properties panel.

Lecture 1 - Primitive and Low Poly Modelling

1 - You are to produce a building using standard

primitives.

2 - To produce an apple using Low Poly Modelling

Click and drag a sphere into the perspective viewport
Go into sub-object level, and enter the Soft Selection part of the Editable Poly rollout. Using soft selection and vertices, you can alter the shape of the sphere to represent a typical apple. The shape should be fairly random – no apples are completely perfect and round!

Still in Soft selection select the top vertex of your apple shape and drag the cursor down to produce the dent in which the stalk sits.

If you are going for total realism, pull out some bumps at the bottom of the apple.

Next add a stalk, which can be achieved using an elongated cone, placed in the top of the apple. Add a leaf if you like.

To make a banana

Click and drag a box into the perspective viewport.
Go to sub-object level, and using the extrude and bevel tools gradually build up the tapering shape of a banana.

Then using soft selection tweak the banana to make the shape more random.
When you are happy with the shape try using the meshsmooth or turbosmooth modifier to reveal a more organic shape

Welcome to 3D Modelling and Animation 2011

You are to select a James Bond film, and produce a 30 second animated trailer for your selected film.

The assignment is in two parts.

Assignment 1 – Weeks 1 – 6

You are to produce a moodboard, research board and storyboard. From your storyboard, you are expected to model at least three artifacts which will star in your trailer. You should also show three different specific modelling techniques, ie lathe, chamfer, boolean etc.

Assignment 2 – Weeks 6 – 12

You will now continue to make your trailer incorporating your models and animating them within an environment. You are expected to make use of three animating techniques such as reactor, morphing, fly through, key framing etc.