Biped Footsteps question

#1 got it. (adminstrator can you remove this thread?)

#2 It would be better if you told where you got the answer and what the answer is, so the next person who needs this answered doesn't have to do the same work you had to - that's the purpose of these forums - to share info.

#3 good idea, David. I didn't really find a useful tutorial out there. I just kind of muddled my way through it.

Give me a bit and I'll try to post a coherent explanation of what I did.

#4 Hi, David. I agree that I should post how I solved this. The problem is that I haven't really solved it yet, at all. I just sort of 'hacked' a work-around which serves my immediate goal of getting a 'decent' looking playermodel with a run animation into the engine.

I still do not understand the same basic issues that are represented in my first thread, but I have answered a couple of other key issues which were plaguing me to no end. ;)

So, for what it's worth, here's my story.

Step 0. Created the Bounding box, set the y-axis to the front of the player, the x-axis to the player's right, and the z-axis pointed up at the player's head. I then lowered the pivot to the base of the box just below the mesh's feet(click the heirarchy tab, pivot, affect pivot only, and move down to the base of the Bbox).

Step 1. Created the mesh

Step 2. Created the Biped and linked the Bbox to the Biped Pelvis (inherit y-axis only).

Step 3. Applied the skin modifier to the mesh (found under the Modify tab, then the Modifier List rollout)

Step 4. Added all of the biped structure, with the exception of the footsteps (select the mesh, go to the Modifier tab, click on the skin modifier in the stack, then click add bones under parameters and select all of the biped but steps)

Step 5. Moved the biped around a bit to see which vertices were ripping (weighted incorrectly) and fixed them by editing their envelopes (that's a whole other story).


Now, here comes the hack...


My ultimate goal is to be able to build different types of footsteps, assign the biped to them and then go back and handtweak the animations, but I haven't been able to figure all of it out yet, so in the short-term what I did was...

Step 6. I loaded a biped file (.bip) found in the Character Studio installation folder. (select the biped, then click the folder icon in the Motions tab)

Step 7. This created a series of footstep animations which I needed.

Here is where the problems started for me...

Step 8. Originally I had linked the Bounding (Bounds) box to the Biped Pelvis and had limited it to only inherit the y-axis values. Here is a pic of the "Link Info" under the heirarchy tab.


When I loaded the biped file and ran through the animation, my Bbox went nuts. What happened? AArrrggghhh.


In all of the documentation that I've read concerning the bounding box, it specifically states that the Bbox is to only inherit the Y-axis values, so that's what I originally did. I unchecked everything in the x and z categories but had all of the y-axis groups checked.

As the player model moved forward through the animation, and as the pelvis twisted and rotated, the bounding box would become skewed and flip upside down.

Depending on the biped file I loaded up (and I went through all that I had ;), the Bbox would even move backward in the animation!

What I came to realize (after many failed attempts) is that all I really wanted was for the player to move forward correctly. So, I deleted my original bounding box, created a new one at the keyframe where the mesh was most spread out (making sure to enclose the entire mesh) and then linked that Bbox back to the pelvis. I went into the link info under the Heirarchy tab and unchecked the rotate and scale options under the Y-axis inherit and it worked! (see pic below)


After much pondering I have a theory as to why this occurred. Here's my deduction: If the pelvis in the biped does not rotate, pitch, or roll, then leaving all three y-axis boxes checked shouldn't matter (there is only y-movement). However, as I'm sure you all know, hips rise, drop, and turn as each leg is picked up and then put back down. The roll (y-axis rotation) that this produced was causing my bounding box to flip over. I 'believe' that this occurred because it was bound to follow the pelvis but could't rotate with the x and z axes of the pelvis and was thus 'snapping' around itself as it moved through each new frame (hope that makes sense.)

Once I changed the y-axis setting things progressed smoothly, with the exception of one small hitch, which I'll cover at the end.

Step 9. I then added the eye and cam dummys and linked them to the head.

Step 10. I added a sequence dummy and kept it at the root (child of the world) level and added start and stop keys in the track view (find the sequence dummy object, expand Object and add begin and end keys at the right frames in the Editor). [thanks, Joe]

Step 11. Then I exported the .dts and .dsq files and I was done.

For the sake of those of you who are a bit lost like I am, I've included a bunch of the steps which most would think are no-brainers. Joe Maruschak's tutorial will be much more thorough and coherent, I'm sure. ;)

Now I've got new problems...

The model looks and moves well in the world, but it bounces forward and backward when I stop running. I think this is due to the fact that I don't have a 'man_root.dsq' to give it a resting animation. That's the next hurdle for me.


Maybe now that you've read my meandering explanation for what I did, you'll wish the Admin guys had been quicker on the delete trigger. :)

I hope this helped those of you out there who, like me, are still figuring Character Studio out. If anything I've posted is confusing or erroneous, I'd love to hear about it. And if anyone wants to send me a link to an even half-way decent biped tutorial on the web, I'd be grateful.

Thanks again, David, for reminding me that there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer.

Now, who's first?... ;)

#5 Ok. I'll go first. Here's a pretty decent tutorial that shows how to set up 'bones' in a dinosaur. The nice thing about this one was, for me at least, that it uses the skin modifier to assign the vertices. Every other tute that I saw used the Physique modifier. So, for those of you who are using bones and the skin modifier, this one's for you.

www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/type/tutorial.asp?id=26086

(then click on the dinosaur at the bottom of the screen)

Enjoy!

#6 actually there is no need to limit any of the axises I haven't and it works fine for me
Anthony

#7 does your model's 'Biped Pelvis' roll left and right in the animation sequences? Maybe I've got it all wrong. Ahh well, it's a learning experience.