CAT 2.0 or a new equivalent Character Animation Toolkit

[JingleFett]

Based on this thread, CAT as it currently stands won't be receiving any new major updates or new features. This is very unfortunate because CAT is a great concept and it's extremely powerful and there's nothing else really like it on the market. There are some 3rd party tools for 3ds Max such as InstantRig and LH Auto-Rig that replicate the modular rigging of CAT, but they don't have the extensive animation tools. Likewise, most other 3d packages don't really have an equivalent--Cinema 4d has CMotion but that doesn't have all the other great features like foot placement, motion extraction node, etc.

The problem with CAT is that it's a bit outdated. It's buggy in places and can cause crashes. Some things are counter intuitive--for example, Motion Extraction Node is a broken mess unless you select the pelvis and enable "Additive to Setup Pose" in the Link Info, then it magically works for the most part. The interface is dated and clunky. CAT could use additions like an equivalent to Biped's Motion Mixer--manually blending animation layers in CAT is well and good but it's not the same as a timeline editor. CAT can also be slow when working with multiple characters.

So my idea is, if it isn't practical to give current CAT a major overhaul, then build a new version of it from the ground up. Completely new codebase. Something that basically does the exact same thing as CAT and has similar features (CAT motion layer, adjustment layers, motion extraction, etc) but does so with a fresh, clean, and modern codebase that can be maintained and regularly updated. Something that can have a slick new interface that meets the needs of modern animators. Something that can take the lessons learned from CAT and Biped and expand on them and improve them. Something that can be designed from the ground up for modern hardware and make use of multi-core processing or even GPU processing.

One benefit is that this could be a way to unify the character animation systems of 3ds Max and streamline the workflow and interface. Right now it's disjointed, fragmented. First you have the regular bone system which has a bunch of tools. Then you have Biped which has its own set of tools. And then you have CAT, which also has its own set of tools. But then they sometimes share features/concepts using their own implementations (animation layers vs biped layers vs CAT layers). This makes animating in 3ds Max a bit rough or confusing for newer and younger users since there's so many systems to learn, each with their own pros and cons.

Another benefit is that this could provide a framework to more easily add other modern features later down the line in future updates. For example, maybe the new tool could get built-in lip sync in a future update. Something similar to FaceFX? What about something like Clovis Gay's F.A.S.T. plugin for 3ds Max? Maybe the tool could get a node-based scripting system like Houdini to allow for procedural animations beyond CAT motion layer. Maybe a built in crowd system? Maybe the ability to script AI so animated characters can "react" to stuff without the need for manual keyframing? What about a timeline editor like the one I suggested here?

I'm just spitballing of course, but you get the idea--stuff like this could potentially be added in future updates, which may or may not be practical with current legacy CAT.

So to summarize, make a brand new rigging/animation tool, CAT 2.0 or some other name, built from the ground up to take all the good stuff and lessons learned from CAT, Biped, and bone system, and which can be updated regularly. One centralized system to rule them all, which can be the sole focus for future development. 

[Ehsan.Sarahian]

CAT and PFlOW are just unique tools of Max (compare with other package) which unfortunately have not been updated for many years ....

[Tupaia]

CAT has something nice, approachable and 'playful' about it, so +1!

Softimage had ICE Kinematics - why should this theoretical new-generation CAT not be based on the MCG?

[aon.914858227]

It would be nice to have a new and updated toolset for character animation, but i fear they don`t wanna compete with Maya in this area.

I hope I`m wrong about this.

[lightcube]

I agree. I personally feel that CAT should not be permanently removed from the Max roadmap. Even if CAT as we know it is forever retired, the promise of what we all expected of CAT should command some development cycles.

I think that so many of us got burned on horribly crash-prone early versions of CAT that it became a hard sell even after it became more stable--but AD should understand that just because CAT usage has always been apparently low, it has not been from a lack of interest; the Max implementation of CAT was included too early and soured the following interest because of too many bad personal experiences early on (big green buttons that crashed Max, corrupted scene files, easily mangled rigs, etc). Those major bugs are gone but not all the memories of getting burned have been purged.

I'm a fan of CAT and think its philosophy/workflow/toolset should not die.

[GeoffGraham3D]

I agree CAT should be updated and continued. It would be nice to see some good stretch, squash and smear capabilities implemented as well. Also a good rig/bone picker to go with it would be nice, and mirror options for animation mode. There is a lot they could do with CAT, I hope they continue to update it, it's also a great tool for teaching and learning with. I will continue to use it.

[lightcube]

@brentscannell Oh dear... it seems there may be a disturbance in the force. 🙂

[m374llic4]

Even though I have only recently come across it (CAT, that is, not 3ds), I got 3ds max almost purely for CAT. The procedural animation creation for walk/run cycles is second to none in terms of ease of use especially since most of what I have been working on are quadrupeds. The fact it has premade typical animals as well as dragon setups in which you just have to make a few adjustments and you have a complete walk and run cycle in about an hour is easily the most useful thing I have came across in any animation suite to date.

I have been actively trying to find a similar system in any software that I could and have not been able to. That alone is worth keeping alive and expanding on. 

[duydung12k6]

Autodesk, please, please please!! Show us, your customer, some love

[nikocraft]

Improve or update CAT, this guy

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg9aqIQp3EMn9sJP8JQyJ7w

Does not have 5000 subscribers for nothing, he just post tutorials on CAT, CAT that you have abandoned is popular enough to attract 5000 souls.

My self I just bought a monthly subscription to 3ds max so I can use CAT while developing a game. If I see that you give it some love I may even get a yearly subscription and not abandon you for Blender 2.8 once it gets more stable.

Last but not least here is a beautiful animation from my project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ttgrtRb1A

All thanks to CAT, which saved us money and time done in hours instead of days/weeks. Doing this in any other software would take weeks! Be real and update CAT, modernize it's interface, fix any bugs there are and add features that help us work with it even faster!

If you need more reasons why you should resurrect it then watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev4mtnNxpfc

You are killing something so good and with great potential, you could even breath in some AI into these procedural animations. If you do not do this, you'll regret it, some other package will do amazing procedural animation and there will be one less reason to use 3ds Max and if your mindset is not to level the ground with all the competing 3d packages, you may as well pack and go home, blender or Houdini or some entirely new package will put in amazing procedural animation even better then CAT before you know it and then it will be late for 3ds max and CAT.

[mayakillmax]

1. biped, cat not upgrade for nearly 20 years !!!!  Should Add auto facial animation and mocap in them !!! like advanced skeleton for MAYA.

[690089735]

I like CAT design concept,Unfortunately, it is old and has many well-known bugs..But, but!CAT is a really great character animation tool!Please doesn't give up on it!!

[Securom]

Good day. I have been working in Max for a long time, mainly using it to create assets for the UE4 engine and here are my thoughts on the available character animation tools.

I'd really like to see some kind of consistent and stable animation system for creating characters in 3ds Max. What do we have here? Bones, Biped and CAT. All systems are not compatible with each other, and each has problems in use. Of all these systems, I like CAT the most, because of its layer system. Unfortunately, even CAT have usage problems. Crashes happen for any reason. For example, try to animate a character and then make a copy of that layer, application crash guaranteed. And this is in version 2021.2. You are afraid to breathe on the CAT once again. Ok, then maybe try to make your rig with standard 3ds Max bones system and animate? Setting up the rig in this way is awful, if you rotate an axis of the bone for symmetry sake, you get turned out normal on the bones. For each bone, you need to store a zero transform in the controller, which constantly gets lost. Storing rig animations in separate files is very inconvenient, and besides, they cannot be mixed. But trying to use 3ds Max's standard animated layer system is hell. Don't even try it. The Animation layer manager is a very small narrow panel where you need to create a separate set of layers for each individual bone. Could have done so that the animation layer was created for any individual hierarchy in the scene as a whole, and not one bone at a time. Now imagine how you need to get rid of to switch between separate layers for a rig of 40-60 bones. Constantly use selection sets? In this regard, CAT was a good solution, but, like almost everything in this package, does not work. And that's all, because the whole package consists of shreds like a Frankenstein monster, where the parts are barely sewn together. In addition, CAT is written in the Max script, which itself is very slow and unstable. Their core and its API is so highly fragmented.

I would like to see that such basic things as the animation system to be rewritten into native code and unified into a single system that works according to common logic. But I think we will never see it. To create something stable, you need to completely rewrite the Max kernel, revise the data structures for storing object transformations, various data channels, etc. This is a huge work for which no one will pay developers.

I think because of such problems with animation tools, I made the decision to spend my time and finally learn Blender. Yes, there are also problems there and some things are not convenient for me (force of habit). But the package has a unified logic of work, and they are not afraid to completely redo (fix) what does not work well. Moreover, they are distributed free of charge. It's a shame that you have to pay a lot of money for 3ds Max and in the end, you don't even get the functionality that they sold you in working form.

Please excuse me if I was rude. It is accumulated after my last battle with the CAT crashes😓

PS:

Sorry for my English (used google translate).

[Securom]

Good day.

I have been working in Max for a long time, mainly using it to create assets for the UE4 engine and here are my thoughts on the available character animation tools.

I'd really like to see some kind of consistent and stable animation system for creating characters in 3ds Max. What do we have here? Bones, Biped and CAT. All systems are not compatible with each other, and each has problems in use. Of all these systems, I like CAT the most, because of its layer system. Unfortunately, even CAT have usage problems. Crashes happen for any reason. For example, try to animate a character and then make a copy of that layer, application crash guaranteed. And this is in version 2021.2. You are afraid to breathe on the CAT once again. Ok, then maybe try to make your rig with standard 3ds Max bones system and animate? Setting up the rig in this way is awful, if you rotate an axis of the bone for symmetry sake, you get turned out normal on the bones. For each bone, you need to store a zero transform in the controller, which constantly gets lost. Storing rig animations in separate files is very inconvenient, and besides, they cannot be mixed. But trying to use 3ds Max's standard animated layer system is hell. Don't even try it. The Animation layer manager is a very small narrow panel where you need to create a separate set of layers for each individual bone. Could have done so that the animation layer was created for any individual hierarchy in the scene as a whole, and not one bone at a time. Now imagine how you need to get rid of to switch between separate layers for a rig of 40-60 bones. Constantly use selection sets? In this regard, CAT was a good solution, but, like almost everything in this package, does not work. And that's all, because the whole package consists of shreds like a Frankenstein monster, where the parts are barely sewn together. In addition, CAT is written in the Max script, which itself is very slow and unstable. Their core and its API is so highly fragmented.

I would like to see that such basic things as the animation system to be rewritten into native code and unified into a single system that works according to common logic. But I think we will never see it. To create something stable, you need to completely rewrite the Max kernel, revise the data structures for storing object transformations, various data channels, etc. This is a huge work for which no one will pay developers.

I think because of such problems with animation tools, I made the decision to spend my time and finally learn Blender. Yes, there are also problems there and some things are not convenient for me (force of habit). But the package has a unified logic of work, and they are not afraid to completely redo (fix) what does not work well. Moreover, they are distributed free of charge. It's a shame that you have to pay a lot of money for 3ds Max and in the end, you don't even get the functionality that they sold you in working form.

Please excuse me if I was rude. It is accumulated after my last battle with the CAT crashes😓

P.Sorry for my English (used google translate).

[adamzeliaszEBGV8]

Personally CAT is a great tool for procedural animation. The foundation is there, just clean up some of the code to remove bugs and add some additional features. Miloš has 10k subscribers on YouTube, so you have at least that many people interested in it since his channel is solely devoted to CAT. Just my 2-cents...

[thejiggymonster]

CAT has saved me thousands of hours of time when animating all the creatures for my game. It has allowed me to create professional animations without the need to learn complex rigging and helped me avoid spending hundreds of hours practicing walk/run cycles just to get a semi-worthwhile result. CAT animations are so incredibly powerful, my game would not be possible without this tool. With CAT I don't need to hire an animator, I can become one myself!

While it would be great to see new features being added as described above, at the very least I would just ask that this tool be maintained over time so that I can safely update to newer versions of 3DS without the possibility of my old CAT animations breaking.

Thank you for the consideration, vote+ !

[brijen.here]

it is realy good and usefull tool. update it as soon as posible.

[djfaktor]

update please +1

[BardurM]

I've wished and hoped for some real feature updates to C.A.T for many years now - but unfortunetly it's just been left to die.
I love CAT and use it for all my animation work, but it could really use a revamp and be updated!
Please update +1

[bahaka]

kudos to Milos Cerny