Hi,

I’m trying to setup some custom Animation Controllers for my Character using CAT in Max2011.

What I want are the following things:

-A root node, that allows to move the whole Character similar to what the Transform Layer Gizmo does.
-Two handles for controlling the hip. One that rotates the spine together with the hip and one that rotates the hip independent form the spine.
-A bone that is linked to the hand that can be unlinked.

I managed to get all these things working but not exactly like they are supposed to.

-For the root node I set all parts of the rig that get translated(pelvis,IK handles) to Animation Controller and Additive to setup pose in the hierachy panel. Then I assigned link constraints to each part using the assign controller tab in the motion panel. Then I linked all parts to the root node(a normal spline).

This works with Absolute Layers but not with CATMotion Layers. When I assign a CATMotion Layers
all of the linked part get tranlated to 0 on the Z axis. They are also translated in various directions on the other axis’ and rotated 180° around the up axis.
I read some threads here and got the impression that adding custom Animation Controllers shouldn’t mess up your stuff this much.

-For the hip part I created an additional CAT bone. I linked this bone to the root node and changed the link of the pelvis to be linked to this bone. Then I constrained the Spine Ribcage to the newly created bone using an orient constraint.
This doesn’t only break the CATMotion Layer but also the pose and animation clip loading.

-For the linkable bone I simply created a Link Constraint. This works but when I create a layer the Link Constraint options disappear. They reappear when I return to setup mode. Is it not possible to create a Link Constraint in setup mode that can also be used in animation mode?

Any help will be appreciated. Sorry for the wall of text I hope it’s readable.

you cant do that with catmotion. you use a delegate, point helper, whatever you will. to move the whole rig with catmotion.

its not that you cant use a spline as a path node. but you dont need to link everything to a central point anymore. not when using catmotion

and a better way to link everything in an absolute layer. is to use a point helper/delegate, whatever you will. align it to the animation transform layer. then put a position and orientation constraint on the animation transform layer. to the proxy object.

this is most likely what catmotion does, and why you can move the whole object by moving the path node

Hi tyree,

thanks for the reply. Unfortunatly that doesn’t solve my problem.
What I want is to setup this stuff layer independent. So I don’t have to setup all the stuff again in case I need to delete all layers.
I knew about the path node you can pick when using CATmotion. But what I want is a root node that I can use when I’m animating with absolute layers, that will be ignored when I use CATmotion and is layer independent.

Does choosing animation controller instead of static matrix on a bone that gets used in CATmotion break CATmotion?

Another thing that isn’t really related to my problem are the twist joints. For the wrist they work like I think they should. But for the upper arm/shoulder area they don’t. They work exactly like for the wrist, but this means that you have to rotate the fore arm to twist the upper arm.
This way you always break the elbow joint when trying to twist the upper arm.

It only works if the the fore arm is perfectly aligned to the upper arm or if it’s rotated exactly 90° relative to the upper arm.
Is this working as intended? I think it would be much better if it worked like in the CS rig.
So that you rotate the upper arm and the twist joints twist by themselves.

I don’t need a solution for this problem since I already have one. I’m just interested if I’m missing something here or if this really doesn’t work.

what I posted is for an absolute layer. position and orientation constraints for the animation transform layer to a proxy object

with animation controller. thats best for you to try it yourself. results arent always the same depending on operating system and version

have you tried using a spine for the arm instead of twist joints