who can find an easy way to get all biped Xtra bones? it’s a good chance to browse the mxs help for hidden things.
’bout time you posted up the answer Denis, don’t think anyone is that interested though
first of all I’m a little disappointed. it looks like people don’t know how to use and script the using of biped extras. biped xtras as opposite to linked to biped objects can be saved and loaded with biped file (absolutely correct). it’s a great way to extend biped skeleton.
but… well… if no one interested where is a point for me to give an answer?
Is biped still widely used in max? It seems like more and more people are throwing together custom rigs, considering the biped has some corky limitations. Those limitations putting a handicap on the creative minds and exaggerations that animators like to implement into their work.
your are absolutely right. the biped as a rig is not in favour today. but the biped skeleton creation tool is currently the best in max! i’m using the biped skeleton to generate my custom rig. all settings for my rig i store in biped data. using biped xtras i can design any skeleton: six legs, four arms, ten tails… any!
the biped stores any config for me, helps me mirror bones, color the sides, name and auto rename xtra chains… it does do anything. the only thing that i do is generating a rig what i want.
Really?! Maybe I’m not understanding your usage, but I’m glad I dumped biped for skeleton creation awhile ago, simply because making precision adjustments to pivot locations was frustrating. I dislike “scaling” the bones to affect their length, as opposed to using Bone Tools to simply move the end of a max bone where I want. I find it much easier to get my joint pivots to be at precise locations with other rigging tools.
Biped does have some very nice tools, but I never regarded the skeleton creation as fully baked. Perhaps I’m undervaluing it?
The best skeleton creation tool is always your custom made.
But to make it really good you have to make a lot of things. At least you have to support all features that Biped has (structures, script-ability, save/load, mirror bones, symmetrical transforms, custom bone shapes, name controlling, etc.). Also you have to make UI.
I just saved my time using what Biped already has by giving it a new sense.
So how does that work production wise?
Do you have someone us the biped to match the proportions of a character and then just run a script over it just converting it to geo and then rewiring it to use as a rig?
I’m curious to know how this use of biped as a skeleton is done.
after a rig is done i don’t need a biped skeleton and don’t use. I keep it in a character setup file in case of any changes.