The topics in this section deal with the creation of freeform animation for bipeds.
To animate your character with freeform methods, you need to know how to select the body part you want to animate, as well as the type of movement you want to affect for that part of the body.3ds Max and Biped provide a number of different methods for selecting and moving these animation tracks. Several involve using the 3ds Max Track View, a powerful environment for viewing and managing the geometry and motion data in your scene.
Use the standard 3ds Max Move transform to move biped links.
Use the standard 3ds Max Rotate transform to adjust a biped's posture by rotating its links. Use the main toolbar button, or right-click and choose Rotate from the quad menu.
You rotate multiple biped links to produce curling effects such as fingers curling around a glass or a tail curling up and down.
character studio lets you add 3ds Max controllers to the biped object tracks. This allows you to mix the biped animation with standard 3ds Max animation techniques.
Props are objects that a biped could be holding or carrying, such as a gun, sword, or briefcase. They are represented as boxes that are additional links in the biped hierarchy, an extension of the biped structure you can access at creation time or in Figure mode. If you are loading motion-capture data that contains prop information, this will transfer to the biped prop.
