Link Mocap walk cycle to a path?

[Morne Erasmus]

Hi all

 

It's been a while since I last did this. So, I have some mocap of a walk cycle that I added to my bibep. How can I use that walk cycle to make my biped walk on a spline path?

If it's easier with CAT, then by all means let me know the "steps" with that instead (hehehe, steps)

[Nicolai Bongard]

When animating/moving the biped you could just link the diamond shaped thingy that is in the middle of the crotch area of your biped to some object that you have animated along the spline. Then the rest of the biped, with its animations should follow. You of course have to time the animation so that the biped doesnt slide along the ground.

[Morne Erasmus]

When animating/moving the biped you could just link the diamond shaped thingy that is in the middle of the crotch area of your biped to some object that you have animated along the spline. Then the rest of the biped, with its animations should follow. You of course have to time the animation so that the biped doesnt slide along the ground.

 

Yeh the sliding is an issue. My terrain is HUGE, and not flat. The standard footstep mode kinda suck as you have to tweak the walk too much. But if all else fails I may have to do this and then stick a path deform on footsteps. Wonder if I can do that. I remember that you could bend or rotate the entire range of footsteps one shot, but for the life of me I can't remember how.

[Nicolai Bongard]

Its been ages since i did any animation, but here is a link that you might find helpful.

 

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/12/ENU/3ds%20Max%202010%20Tutorials/files/WSf742dab04106313311b7d0e3112a19e3350-7ff6.htm

 

To make the path pretty accurate you could make a copy of your terrain, draw the path in the top viewport, extrude the spline (path) so that it goes through the terrain, and use it to cut the path into your terrain, then select that spline, and move it up the height of the diamond shape on your biped. But you would still have to adjust all the footsteps.

[Morne Erasmus]

No ways. That aint gonna fly. Will see how far I can get with CAT. I need something more automated. When you see my terrain, you'll understand. It's VERY uneven (and HUGE). And I need to do this for at least 50 characters

 

But thanks anyways for attempting to help

[Nicolai Bongard]

Ah, with 50 characters i can see why you would want something more automated. Looking forward to seeing the results, hope you will post when finished! Good luck!

[Morne Erasmus]

This looks interesting. Think I will try that:

http://download.autodesk.com/esd/3dsmax/cat-help-2010/index.html?url=WS7af5cac11814013a-2ee5b21011fde8c01a2-7ff5.htm,topicNumber=d0e6680

[Morne Erasmus]

Whooohooooo this works NICE!

Thanks for stearing me in the right direction John (from another forum)

 

So if others are interested you can replicate this like so:

Draw a spline with curves up and down or whatever path you want your dude/dudette to walk on

Measure the spline length with the measure utility in the utility panel.

With John's calculations, take the length of your spline (in meter) and divide by 2 and then multiply by 24 (24 frames a second) so you know how many frame it will take to walk the length of the spline

Create a dummy and path constrain it to the spline

Select your CAT object

In the globals panel for your cat rig (after adding motion layer) enter the number of frames you calculated earlier as "end"

Pick a node (the dummy) and tick "Walk on Path Node"

 

I'm sure you guys can figure out the rest

 

Will test a bit later if this also works with mocap