I’ve got ~1500 frames of free form animation of a biped (my first real biped project), and I need to lock it down to a quad now, after the first few shots. When I try linking the COM to the quad, it goes off to nowhere land. The biped has planted keys for both the hands and the feet (feet walking, plus hands gripping the hadlebars of the quad when he mounts it).

The scene wasn’t originally mine - it was passed down to me, and he mentioned that the character had been scaled, and surely not perfect anymore. The shot is not near 0,0,0.

Is there a quick and painless method to fix this, and make it work?
I need the character to stay seated/planted on the quad as it drives away, then get off the quad for a last shot.
The quad isn’t dynamic - the wheels and suspension are stiff (I’ll turn the wheels, though). It’s going in a straight line.

Intel q9550 OC 3.4
ATI Firepro v4800
6GB Ram
Win7 Pro x64
Max Design 2011 x64/Composite newb… I also use Blender.

3 scenes...one for the geting on, one for riding, and one for getting off. Start pose for one is the end pose from the other.

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

thought of that… trying to keep it one scene for GI rendering purpose.
that said, I got it figured out with some extra dummies, and thanks to a comment on CGsociety:

First of all:
Move the biped COM to [0.0, 0.0, Z.Z]
Create a helper and aling it with the COM.
Link the biped COM to this helper.
Never unlink the biped COM. Always link/ unlink the helper to the moving object.
Its better to apply a linked constraint to the helper. This way the biped will follows the moving object in some part of the timeline and moves by itself in another.

Intel q9550 OC 3.4
ATI Firepro v4800
6GB Ram
Win7 Pro x64
Max Design 2011 x64/Composite newb… I also use Blender.

antimatt3r 26 August 2011 06:00 AM

thought of that… trying to keep it one scene for GI rendering purpose.

Not quite sure I understand but I am glad you got it.

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