Mocap Biped to follow a path

[Anonymous]

I created a mocap file whre im walking in one position. I created a character Biped Which walks in position. Now i want to make that mocap character to move along a path or follow the path. So that i dont need to copy all the keys but instead the animation will loop automatically. Independently of the length of the spline.

thanks in advance!

[Alfred.DeFlaminis · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous,

There are a few ways to animate the biped objects in 3ds Max.  I'll try to include as many links to helpful articles as I can here.  For your case here you may have to get creative a mix a few of these ideas together to get the result you are looking for.   Either one of your needs is simple by itself, but complicate a bit when used together based on your current animation setup.  

The first thing is that if your object is walking in place, (no translate forward keys) you may want to try a path constraint.  Best bet here is to use the constraint on a dummy object, and then link or link constrain your character to that dummy.  The downside here is that you'll have to loop your animation, but you may be able to do that easily with parameter curve out of range types.  (So you don't have to mess with copying keys so much, as long as your walk cycle is seamless loop this is a good option.)

Another option is to check out some really cool tools built in for complex movement of biped already in the 3ds Max environment.  You might check out motion flow mode and the motion mixer for some cool options here.  The problem is that they sort of expect (or are at least more useful if) the bip files include the motion of the character.  You could add the forward movement to his/her clip to get around this and then these two modes will function a bit smoother, otherwise you might not get what you need out of it.  It does have the power to loop clips, edit clips together, blend clips, etc.  If you have a looping and moving animation of a character, these modes are the easiest to create complex animations with.

There is also footstep mode, which creates new walking animations for a biped object based on user input.  Again, not 100% what you need but maybe an option depending on which sorts of issues you run into as you explore these.  

Please hit the "Accept as Solution" button if my post fully solves your issue or answers your question. This lets me know that I was effective in helping you, and thank you for doing so.

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I wanted to follow up here and see if you made any progress on your issue.  How is it going?

Best Regards,