Autodesk 3ds Max - Rigging

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

I have a problem. So I put the bone into the correct position of arms, wrist and finger.

And I want to move the arms, but it only allow me to move the bones in the arms so I can move the arms too. If I move the arms, the arms will be as still as un-rigged and leave the bones behind. Which what I really want is make the bones lock into the arms and make the bones disappear, so I can move the arms wherever I like.

Wish I make it clear enough.

#2

Isn’t there some function in Max to skin the mesh to the joints? Maya has quite a good paint weights system, so I’m sure 3DS does too. I’ve done some rigging in Maya before, but can’t really help with Max as I haven’t used it.

#3

Damn. This reminds me that I should FIX MY DAMN 3DS MAX.

JUST GOD DAMN BOOT YA TWAT ASS PROGRAM

#4

Tell me about that function and I will see if I can find it in max.

#5

It’s called quite intuitively the “skin” modifier. :wink:

#6

I get the skin function but I still dunno what to do there… :frowning:

#7

Im a total noob and i dont fully understand what your asking but here goes nothing.

Animation --> Bone tools --> create bones
Make some bones

Click on model, select the skin modifer and youll see bones: add / remove.
Select add, find whatever bone you wanna link that model to.It should now move with the bone.

#8

Here are two screenies with some numbered steps below:
https://img835.imageshack.us/img835/710/bones1n.jpg

  1. On the modifier panel, click add bones
  2. From the selection window, add the bones you wish to add
  3. The bones should appear on your active bones for that modifier now, here you can select which bone should be active for editing.
  4. From the quad menu, select envelope to edit the envelopes for the currentyl selected bone link

By default, 3d studio does a pretty good job with estimating the envelopes for the skeleton. With minimum modification to these envelopes you can have a very good starting point. You can edit the envelopes by simply dragging them in your viewport, or changing the different fallof values in the modifier panel.

https://img692.imageshack.us/img692/1659/bones2.jpg
To edit specific bone weight on vertices, select a bone link, and make sure you are in the envelope mode (otherwise you won’t see the results).

  1. click on paint weights
  2. click on the … next to paint weights
  3. this should bring up the brush settings panel that lets you specify various settings of your vertex paint brush
  4. in viewport, paint the weight for the vertices associated to your currently active bone. Warm color represents bigger weight, cold colors less.

It took me a while to get the ‘feel’ of the brush, so at first you might want to just experiment with the envelopes, or look up some online tutorials. Once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy tho.

#9

I also get the bone in position, I just want to make the bone disappear and I can only see the arms so I can move the arms.

#10

There’s not much point in doing that. Usually it goes the other way around: the animators do the rigging and then hide the mesh so they only have to work with the skeleton. They only unhide the mesh for the rendering and possible effect settings (tough normally that’s already done at this point).

What you can do I guess, is create some helper dummies and link certain bone joints to it, then hide the skeleton and you can use these dummies for movement.

Alternatively, you can configure a proper IK chain and use the pointers provided, but even that is quite restrictive if the whole of the skeleton is hidden. Why do you need to hide the bones anyway?

#11

So I can animate the arms without clicking on the annoying bones?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDTq7j7b4fg&feature=channel_video_title

And I want it look like that, no bones showing at all.

#12

vivanto: I don’t believe that animators work only with the skeleton. They might for basic blocking and such, but when you get to the finer details, especially if things are interacting (such as a hand pushing a block), you need that detail of the mesh to see where the the boundaries of the fingers are so that the fingers don’t sink into what they are interacting with or whatever.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.