Hey, I’ve been in and out of these forums for a long long time, and finally decided to ask a question! I’m a casual user of MAX, done mainly as a hobby.
I build model rollercoasters on MAX, which i’ve gotten pretty good at, but animation always gives me pains. I know absolutely nothing about scripting, so I’m wondering if you guys could help figure out a script for me (if it’s easy to do).
To do speed on the animation, I place the train along a spline, then keyframe every 1% of the line. Then i move the keys closer when the train is going faster, and vice versa. Anyways, it’s a pain framing every 1% of the spline. Is there any easy script (maybe even one that’s already been done freeware) that would allow me to place a key on every 1% of a spline?
I know this sounds like a charity request, but im not asking you to spend hours figuring it out. If it’s something that can be done in 5mins and you have some free time, I would greatly appreciate the time spent.
Thanks guys
No way! Learn to use the track vew. You’ll do the same animation in a fraction of the time. You’ll only need a few keys … just let max do the interpolation.
I’m stopping short of writing an animation tutorial here…
Trackview eh? Ill look into that.
I basically have a Dummy along a Spline. Is that good enough to use Trackview for the animation?
If you’re using a path constarint, or a path deform, it’s a piece of piss.
Time is along the bottom, values (% along path) up the side. If you go quickly, the curve will be steep as you’re covering more distance (%) in a shorter amount of time (frames).
Positive incline mean you’re going forwards, negative inclines, backwards.
If you’re going from 0 – 100 % your graph will go up steeply when your rc is going downhill, then slacken off (but still go up) as the car slows down. If you want your car to stop, the graph will be horizontal.
Adjust the curves as you would a spline. Easy.
And I said I WASN’T going to write an animation tutorial
Ahah! I have used that before. I found sort of hard to notice the differences in the speeds though. We’re talking a difference of +/- 20MPH in a 100ft section of a 3,000ft track! I will play around with it for sure though, sounds like it could assist in my keyframing problems.
Thanks!