Skeletons

[MpProductions]

First of all, i'm just a newbie at 3ds max. In fact, I just received the program a couple days ago, and have been playing with it ever since. I bought a book on it, and it has helped me some, but of course NOT all the info. is there, especially for a program as complicated as max. My question is, specifically the human models that you can make, do you apply a skeleton to it? Before i worked with a low poly modeler called "3d Milkshape" by Chumbalum Soft (quite a big leap eh? low poly 20 dollar modeler to the most popular modeling and animation software that is used by professionals). In Milkshape, you had to apply a skeleton to a model you made so you could move certain parts of it. My question is...do you have to do that in max also??? or do you just animate it by moving the vertices or whatever with the mouse and not have to worry about a skeleton?? Sorry..this is a very odd, first question, but it's the first thing i wondered about. Sorry, but i hope i made my question easy to understand. Any help would be great. Thanks.

Matt

 

[azhdeem]

Actually, you can do both in Max. Up until version 4 the IK system (bones) in Max was very bad and difficult to work with. Now it is much easier and it works well. I am surprised the book you own doesn't cover this. I would recommend "3ds Max 4 In Depth" or "Inside 3ds Max". These are very good books that cover a majority of the program.

Max will also allow you to animate points if you are more comfortable, but for characters, this is very tedious.

 

[MpProductions]

Well, I don't have max 4 i dont' think, i have Release 3, or 3d Studio Max R3.....look at what all i have to look forward to with the ik system!! The book that i purchased is the visual quickstart guide "3DS MAX for windows" by Michele Matossian. It's a really good book, but i would prefer to get the 3d's max bible, but it was like 50 bucks! All of these books wouldn't be so expensive if the author didn't feel the need to add in a cd with tutorial there too....i mean...a book is just fine for me. There are other books that i've seen: How to model a character with 3ds max (which i really want), and 3ds Max Magic (which has 13 different tutorials on complex stuff like flowing water from a fountain, etc.) But they're both very expensive because they have a cd with it!

The book i have only covers basic stuff like objects, transforms, modifiers, animation (basic controls), editing meshes (basics), editing splines, compound objects, lights, cameras, materials, maps/textures, and rendering. It doesn't get into particles or ik system, or nurbs, or anything like that, only basic.

Matt