I’m trying to make a “skipping along” cycle.
Something like in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjr1eNK78JM

So here i have to lift the foot/knee twice during the cycle. first high, and while the knee is high, the other foot should leave the ground a little.
But the Lift control under PelvisGroup - Legs - FootPlatform has only three points.
Is there a way to add points so that i can make it lift twice on one cycle?
I would need 5 points for this. Or maybe 4 points if i could break up the tangents so that they aren’t “tangent”.
And if not: why? why can’t i add points to these controls?

Edit: btw i’m on max 2010.

	Video

As the whole body would “jump” for the skip motion, I would add a pause in the step and key frame the pelvis up-forward-down, and then continue with the walk motion, repeat...not sure how to pull that off though. My 2 cents...take it for what it’s worth.

3ds Max 9 thru 2013
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit OS SP1
Dual Intel® Xeon® 6 core X5650 @ 2.67GHz CPU 36GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
450GB HDD (x3) and 2TB HDD

3ds Max 2012 Certified Professional Models to Motion

There are ways to do that. I would animate the basic motion in CATMotion, as if there would be no second jump and the feet will remain on the ground and only lift up once. Then I would add a relative layer to animate everything that’s needed for the second jump, and go into detail. At the end you can connect the relative layer via TimeWarp to CATMotion so the cycles are matching all the time.

My CAT demoreel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfq-4VoeAPU

after giving the character a delegate and path. why not just adjust the foot prints wouldnt that be simpler

No, you will loose flexibility as footprints are often changed afterwards to match timing etc, and as soon as you animate them, they are kind of “frozen”. Furthermore, the resulting animation quality wouldn’t be good enough.

My CAT demoreel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfq-4VoeAPU

Thanks Gräck. This seems to work fine.
But any idea how i can link the Time Warp to the Max Step Time in the motion layer?
I have animated the adjustment layer, and applied out of range repeat on the Time Warp.

But if i change the stride parameters, i have to change the Time warp in the adjustment layer(s).
Any idea how to wire or link these?

Edit: and there is a problem if i change the stride params, and then change the time warp on the adjustment layer. Because if i want to change the animation on the adjustment layer, the keys aren’t in the corect place on the timeline anymore. They stay in their original frame.

Edit2: Its also a problem when i use ‘walk along path’. because the velocity changes along with modifying the path length etc.

Anyone?

So i found a solution.

I did as Gräck said, made a catmotion layer with single step, and a local adjustmentlayer below with the second foot jump, and some other adjustments. i then went in the dopesheet and used out-of-range-type: cycle on the adjustmentlayer.
Then i wired the Time warp of the adjustmentlayer to the Time Warp of the catmotion layer.
This works until i use a path node to drive the animation.
The solution here:
I use a point helper and a path constraint as in the tutorials. But on the path constraint i place a Float List Controller and place a Float Script below the Bezier float. (maybe no need of the list, but i like to use them)
here’s the script:

I’m not sure why i have to divide by 2 in the end though…

And something strange happens when i update/evaluate script after changes; i have to untick/tick ‘allow upside down’ on the path constraint for the path to update with new values from the script.

Anyway this works. To change the speed i adjust the timewarp on catmotion. and to change stridelength i adjust Max Stride Length in catmotion layer. And i’m free to change the shape and length of the path, without messing up the stride length and speed.

But one thing annoys me; if i want to adjust the animation in the adjustmentlayer, its a mess. Because after adjusting the time warp the keys aren’t in the same place as the movement. I’s possible though, when isolating the movements in the curve editor to find the correct point on the curve to adjust. but it could be easier…
Wouldn’t it be possible with a link between the TimeWarp and a scaling of the animation on the timeline of that layer?

Any comments on this solution?

Yes, good solution!

You could add the time warp track in a list controller and turn of the the weighting temporarily. Then you could adjust your animation in the relative layer. When done, you could turn the weighting of time warp back to 100%.

My CAT demoreel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfq-4VoeAPU