CHAPTER 39

Animating Characters with CAT

IN THIS CHAPTER

Learning the basics of creating characters

Creating and editing a CAT preset rig

Creating a custom CAT rig

Animating using CAT

Working with muscles

Max has always had a great way to create and animate characters, but in early versions of Max, it was available only as a separate plug-in known as Character Studio. Happily, Character Studio has been integrated into Max to the point that it isn't distinguishable as a separate package. Character Studio was a good first step, and it still exists in Max, but it has lots of shortcomings that make it difficult to work with.

Another plug-in package known as Character Animation Toolkit, or CAT for short, has been embraced by many Max animators, and now CAT is embedded within 3ds Max. CAT offers a simple interface that gets great results whether you're building your own custom rig or animating an existing preset rig.

Although Max includes other features for rigging characters, if you plan on animating a character, then CAT is definitely the way to go. It's an incredible time-saver.

Character Creation Workflow

A typical workflow for creating characters in Max involves first creating a skin mesh object. After the skin mesh is complete, you can create a skeletal rig to drive its animation. The skeleton consists of a pre-rigged set of bones that provide an underlying structure to the character. Animating these bones provides an easy way to give life to the character.

With a skeletal rig ...

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