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 biped object to drive its animation. The biped consists of a pre-rigged skeleton 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 biped created, position the biped within the skin mesh and match the bone links to the relative size and position inside the skin mesh. The bones do not need to be completely within the skin mesh since you can set the biped objects to not be rendered, but the closer they are to the skin mesh, the more accurate the movements of the character are.

After the biped is sized and matched to the skin mesh, use the Skin modifier to attach the skin mesh to the biped. This automatically sets all the envelopes that govern which skin parts move with which bones. You can also use the Skin modifier settings to deform the skin at certain bone angles, such as bulging a muscle when the arm is raised.

Note 

The original Character Studio package used the Physique modifier to bind the mesh skin to the biped. Although this modifier still exists and can be used, the Skin modifier includes many new features and is the preferred method for binding a mesh skin to the biped.

The next step is to animate the biped using its animation tools, which can include walk, run, and jump cycles by placing footsteps or freeform animation using keys. Along the way, you can save, load and reuse animation sequences including motion capture files. Animated sequences can be combined and mixed together to form a smooth-flowing animation using the Motion Mixer.