Rigging and Animation Workflows Using CAT in 3ds Max
In this tutorial, we will learn how to take a character mesh from rigging to animation using the Character Animation Toolkit (CAT) in 3ds Max. Software required: 3ds Max 2012.
What you'll learn
In this tutorial, we will learn how to take a character mesh from rigging to animation using the Character Animation Toolkit (CAT) in 3ds Max. Throughout the tutorial, we will discuss workflow for an animation pipeline. We will start with rigging with 3ds Max's CAT system and learn some tips and tricks for skinning along the way. We will then talk about planning a shot and setting up basic cameras. Finally, we take all of our assets and create a two shot animation utilizing the rig we created. Software required: 3ds Max 2012.
Table of contents
- Introduction to Cat and Setting up Our Pelvis and Legs 12m
- Creating a Spine and Arms in Cat 25m
- Setting up the Hands and Fingers on a Cat Rig 14m
- Completing Our Base Rig and Creating Additional Bones 9m
- Creating Controllers and Customizing the Cat Rig's Appearance 10m
- Creating Cat Twist Bones 8m
- Skinning Tips and Tricks 21m
- Making Adjustments to the Rig After Skinning 9m
- Planning Our Shots and Introduction to Cat Layers 11m
- Creating a Base Camera Rig 11m
- Setting up a Shot File 14m
- Blocking in the Animation 24m
- Animation Timing in Our Shots 11m
- Taking the Animation from Blocking with Step Keys to Spline 13m
- Animation Workflow Methods to Address Issues in a Shot 23m
- Switching Between IK and FK Using the Cat Rig 12m
- Polishing and Finalizing Our Shots 22m
About the author
Ricardo "Rick" Vicens is currently a Character Animator at Bethesda Game Studios. He graduated from both the School of Visual Arts and AnimationMentor.com. He has worked on everything from commercials, TV shows, game trailers, films and now video games. Throughout his career, he has had various responsibilities ranging from character design and storyboarding to modeling, animation,and supervising. Some of the most notable projects that he has worked on have been Skyrim, Ice Age 3, and the B... more