Animating question

[Time-to-die]

Does anyone know how to turn off the damn auto curve for 3ds max? I like make a slight movement, and then in between the keys it makes it go backwards like -3x, and then goes to where I moved it. And it does not display anything in the curve editor. I don't even have to move it and it will still do it, just creating a key down the line will make it move automatically.

 

[XDogg]

Well are you using a TCB controller? when in curve editor or dope sheet, there is an assign controller under movement rotation and scale...

TCB really sucks... ive had movement all over the place until I used a linear controller instead... Warcraft also supports Bezier.


Linear
Bolean (bezier not bolean)
TCB

This is a picture from the dope sheet i like to use, for curve editor just go to controllers/assign

After swapping all the limbs to linear from tcb (pain) the feet would stay in place until told to move.

Dont forget to set keys for all body parts at the start and finish of each key animation

 

[Time-to-die]

Ahh, yeah they are all on TCB cause some other tutorial told me to. But I am done with that haha. Thanks for the info!

 

[skrab]

Well are you using a TCB controller? when in curve editor or dope sheet, there is an assign controller under movement rotation and scale...

TCB really sucks... ive had movement all over the place until I used a linear controller instead... Warcraft also supports Bolean.


Linear
Bolean
TCB

This is a picture from the dope sheet i like to use, for curve editor just go to controllers/assign

After swapping all the limbs to linear from tcb (pain) the feet would stay in place until told to move.

Dont forget to set keys for all body parts at the start and finish of each key animation

Its Bezier not Bolean... and TCB doesn't suck.

 

[XDogg]

Its Bezier not Bolean... and TCB doesn't suck.

yea your right on first part... but i would have to disagree with tcb not sucking... I had nothing but problems with it... once switching everything seem to work much better. Tcb likes to guess movement in between making parts move when they shouldn't. So when in between two simular keys you will find parts sliding when they should be anchored. Ive used it plenty with many characters and haven't had the success I have with linear... I haven't tried bezier but it may work just as well.

Thats why I reccomend making something other then TCB the default for animation. I'm used to biped, but Unfortunately I am doing characters the old fashion way (Art tools way) and I dont mind. Just saying for me linear works best, still have yet to find any problems with it. I have set it to default on Position, Rotation, and Scale.

FYI: I'm using boxes and not bones, I haven't tried bones with TCB or Linear for that matter. I never did like bones, when we used them at college they were the worst experience I had . Biped lifted my spirits.. Horraaay!

(Edit) : Come to think of it I recall using TCB in college and the teacher didn't like it much either, but wanted us to experience different animation controllers.. I think we ended up using bezier... Also in that tutorial he mentions bezier is a alot more controllable. (I haven't used bezier currently though, I'm sure it probably works just as well if not better)

 

[skrab]

I always use TCB because I want my animations to be smooth not robotic. I use linear when I animate robots or buildings..

Btw XDogg, why do you use Art tools style bones?
I saw your joshy model. Why don't you use IK bones or biped? You have 3Ds max5 right?

 

[XDogg]

I always use TCB because I want my animations to be smooth not robotic. I use linear when I animate robots or buildings..

Btw XDogg, why do you use Art tools style bones?
I saw your joshy model. Why don't you use IK bones or biped? You have 3Ds max5 right?

it doesnt really matter each results the same basically, except the bones way you dont have to break the mesh. Yoshi had TCB controllers but once the foot did funny things on another model I went back and checked yoshi and converted to linear.. same animations but no sliding.. (of course some animations I had to rekey. )

Had a bad experience with bones in the past.. plus I followed blizzards tutorial... (I dont think I liked IK ) I see no real advantage of using bones instead... except for the fact that you don't have to worry about breaking the mesh or the mesh breaking if you screw up frame 0.

 

[Mechanical Man]

The problem with TCB is that you don't have direct control over the keys, since the hermite interpolation looks like this.

while linear

which makes it very hard to certain things to stand in place. But as you can see from the graphs, add another frame just at the start and end of the stand still animation.

You don't need max bones if you are not animating IK, but the thing is very unstable and tend to crash often and save and undo may not work, so you have save very often, plus you need to have some knowledge how to handle the bones.