Animating Real- Time Game Characters-P13: My intent in writing Animating Real-Time Game Characters has been to share my work methods, thoughts, and ideas about animating real-time characters in 3ds max 4™ and character studio 3®. Any factor that affects the animation process using these two tools has been covered. | Chapter 8 Using Motion Capture 351 animation and adjust the head so that it s always facing somewhat forward Figure . FIGURE The head will always try to face forward so the eyes can see the target. Once the head adjustments are finished collapse the Layer and fix the feet where they go through the floor in Frames 35 to 40. Making Adjustments with the Set Multiple Keys Function While Layers are one way to make adjustments to a mocap file to bend it to your needs Set Multiple Keys is another way. Open Track View and select all keys for just the Betty R Thigh track from Frame 40 to 89 Figure . With the keyframes selected close the Track View go to a Front viewport and advance to Frame 59. Zoom in on the right foot and look at the way it s bent along the Z-axis Figure . 352 Animating Real-Time Game Characters FIGURE Select just the keys for the right thigh of the appended got-hit motion. FIGURE The right foot is rotated throughout the animation due to floor matting. If you study the animation the foot is at an unnatural angle because of the soft floor pad that the motion was performed upon. You can quickly and easily fix this problem using Set Multiple Keys. Chapter 8 Using Motion Capture 353 Turn the Animate button off and select and rotate the foot along the Z-axis until it s flat on the floor 1 . Then click on the Set Multiple Keys in the Keyframing rollout menu 2 and the Biped Multiple Keys menu will appear. Click on the Apply Increment button 3 and the rotation is applied across all selected keys in the Track View Figure . Use Set Multiple Keys to have a transform function affect a specific number of keys. Whenever you use Set Multiple Keys and Apply Increments the immediate results sometimes seem to stretch or deform the geometry. See if the Apply Increments worked by scrubbing your Time Slider back and forth or hitting the period . key and comma key a few times. Also remember you have to rotate or move the selected .
