Tutorial 10 - 30/03/2011

Today is about making bipeds. Firstly, a basic man be built, but this character was downloaded as part of the tutorial. Next, a biped is placed by going to create > systems > biped. The biped should be made as close to the height of the character as possible. With the biped selected, go to the motion panel and activate figure mode. Now the biped can be positioned inside the mesh. Use wireframe view for this.

After all of the bones are positioned and sized appropriately, make sure to deactivate figure mode. Apply the physique modifier to the character and select 'attach to node'. Click the diamond near the biped's pelvis (com) and a dialogue box should appear. Click initialize and yellow stars should appear at the end of each limb and head.

When a bone is moved, there is likely to be stretching where a bit of the model is left behind. This is fixed by going to 'envelope' under the physique modifier and increasing the envelope of each bone by increasing the 'radial scale'. Once this is done, the character should move nicely with the bones.

Now just go back to the motion tab with the biped selected and activate footstep mode. Under footstep creation choose your walking mode then click 'create multiple footsteps...'. Choose the amount of steps and click OK. Then select 'create footsteps (append)'.

Finally, click 'Create keys for inactive footsteps' under footstep operations and thats it. For my video, I cloned the body to make three and gave them each a different movement style.

And now we've got three happy bipeds having a frolic in the field.

My earlier attempt using my own Bond model can be found in this very blog at:
http://alexchapman.blogspot.com/2011/03/rigged-woo.html