3ds Max Wire Parameters and reaction manager

[Tarik2d]

Hi All,

I am finding it hard to find out about wire parameters and reaction manager in 3ds max. I am looking to rig several characters and robots and guns. The characters have armour on so I am trying to find out to make armour react with the movement of the shoulder depending on how fast the shoulder moves.

Could anyone help me please.
Kind regards
Tarik

[Munkybutt]

with reaction manager you can define exactly how you want the secondary motion to go, as it records an animation curve which allows you a lot of control

if you want to use wire params then you will need to know quite a bit of maths to get a similar stable effect.

it will be trial an error I would say, both will have their distinct advantages.
Most distinctly is that reaction manager is a bit of a bitch to work with and eventually will get a bit slow if you have a lot setup
where is wire params thread straight through the cpu and are much faster to compute, but like I said you will need a bit of maths to get it working that way.

As to tutorials, the max help should be pretty self explanatory.
the reaction manager one even has an example in it.

[poopipe]

i tend to use wire parameters wherever possible because it's considerably more stable and generally less arseache. I use expression/script controllers for things like twist bones and only really use reaction manager for things like ik/fk blending and situations where i want a progressive reaction (eg damped clavicle raising in response to arm movement ) .

I recommend you set your rigs up so they can be manually animated to do what you're after and then worry about adding automation where it's required later. automation can restrict animators which is a bad thing so use it only where it will save time and effort and always ensure there's a way to manually override it.


also - if you don't freeze your transforms and save skin poses everything will be more difficult and your rig will explode in your face so dont forget to do that.

[Tarik2d]

Thank you very much guys for the time to reply. That's great to hear what you have o say. I will attach a picture tomorrow to show you what I will be work on. I read there is a Pdf by Theo Calvin and Omer Barr. Using wire parameters and expression controllers.

I will have a good read of the max helper this week.

Cheers

[Tarik2d]

I have attached an image of one of the models I am working on and will be rigging soon. I want his armour to move slightly he walks and I want to put some higher shoulder pads on him that are more loose than what he has on now.

Cheers

[needse]

hey tarik good to see you back on this project

i found a video of the pdf you spoke of if you wanna check that out although the guys a little annoying at the beginning

http://designreform.net/2008/04/3ds-max-wire-parameters

[Tarik2d]

Thanks needse for the link. Ive just watched that now. Its not bad, I will watch it again later to get my head round it all. I'm sure ive read somewhere there is a way of making driven object move differently depending on the speed of the driver object. I think its something to do with the writing something in the wire parameter box for the driven object. Does that ring any bells with you at all?

[Tarik2d]

I tried skinning this guy just the anatomy with CAT with max skin. I'm finding it very tough to get anything half decent. Is it worth buying bones pro, its a lot of money so I'm looking for some assurance mainly

[poopipe]

in answer to your earlier question - you can write any expression in the wire parameters box eg. <whatever is already in the box>*0.5 will halve the values coming out of that controller



show pictures of the rigging problems..

97% of rigging problems are caused by incorrect joint placement and dodgy topology.
(the other 3% are caused by CAT exploding in your face)