Sunday 15 April 2012

3D- Bipeds and Skinning

One of the last things Ken taught us this year was Bipeds and Skinning, two essential processes needed to animate models in 3D Studio Max.

The first process, the Biped, is basically a humanoid skeleton you can shape and manipulate to fit the proportions of your model. Its basically a template you can use to rig a character. Ken had us practice with this function using a model from his previous work. Some of you may recognise it as Muldoon, a minor villain from an old animated kids show called Butt Ugly Martians.

The Biped I created to fit the model

The model of Muldoon Ken gave us to practice

The model in Wireframe view with the Biped

The next step is Skinning. To put it in simple terms, Skinning is a modifier (similar to the Edit Poly Modifier  that you use to actually create a model) that attaches the biped to the model itself and that allows you to choose which parts of the model move with which parts of the Biped by controlling the weights of each of the model's vertices. To be honest, it is pretty hard to explain without going into detail and if I'm honest I'm not particularly fond of this process to begin with...
Regardless, I've included a sample of what Ken taught us with the image below, which shows an arm with some of the verts already weighted.



Now that I'm reaching the end of the year, I'm going to start posting some of the main deliverables that Ken has asked for this semester. These will include a character, who I have modelled, textured and animated, as well as four major assets. These models are all based on another project we have this year, which involves actually making a game, so the deliverables will reflect that. I will also try and post some of the other models I made for that project.

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