Hey all. So it looks like Im going to be getting an art test this coming week that will require rigging and animating a character for games. It's in Max, and I only know Maya. So, Ive been watching tutorials and trying to figure out how Max works to prep myself. The problem is that there are so many things that are different, I`m not sure how they transfer between the two.
The first thing I`m wondering about. Does Max have an “outliner”? And are you able to parent things? I know how to use the Link tool. Is that technically the parent tool? What’s throwing me off is that in my experience, for games, its best to use a single skeleton chain, but when you use the link tool in Max, it doesnt show a bone connecting the two, so it looks like it’s just using what maya would call a parent constraint. Not knowing where or if there is an outliner, its hard to see what is the parent of what.
If anyone knows what’s what, I`d be so grateful if you could help out.
Also, if you have any other tips about going from maya to max, that would fantastic…
This might help a little: http://www.paulneale.com/tutorials/MaxMaya/maxMaya.htm
If you have the time and means, I would really really recommend getting through Paul Neale’s rigging DVDs from cg-academy. They’re a rather old, but they outline the rigging workflow in max pretty well. The tutorials on his site are also worth a read.
My experience of Maya is pretty rudimentary, but judging by the limited experience - Max is simpler and more straightforward in the simple rig department, albeit more limited and takes more trickery for advanced features. And it crashes…
Does Max have an “outliner”?
Sort of…
Scene explorer can be used for checking hierarchies and parenting.
There’s a thing called Schematic view for checking dependencies (controllers, parenting, etc., pretty much everything), but it’s far from convenient or easy to use.
There’s also Track View, which is what animators should be using, but you can hide the curve view and adjust the filters (to not hide non-animated/non-animatable tracks) so you have a controller window which allows you to conveniently assign and instance controllers to tracks. Otherwise you do it in Motion Panel.
And are you able to parent things? I know how to use the Link tool. Is that technically the parent tool?
Yes. It’s for making hierarchies. Though Bones in Max don’t auto-update to show the changes in hierarchy. Position and rotation constraint controllers are sort of similar things to Maya’s parent constraint.
I’d like to help more if you have further questions.
This is a 3rd party tool, that while not quite maya’s outliner, its pretty close, and way better than max’s native scene explorer… you can also make it look like mays’s outliner too.
Rigging in max is pretty different than maya. You don’t have some of the nice, easy to edit/use, tools, that aid rigging, that you do in maya - an obvious one is set driven keys.
Most of the differences are driven by max’s unique method of controlling the transformation matrix; the Controller tree. So in max you’re not just dealing with tx,ty,tz,rx,ry, and so on, on a node, you need to take into account list controllers and other controller types.
One great tool max has, and one you will use commonly, is the expose transform node… this allows you to transpose spaces very easily.
I just finished up a short week long course for someone coming from Max to Maya so it is on my mind…here are some answers.
wire parameters are about = to direct connections with expressions built in.
reaction manager is = to set driven keys
link is parenting, bones in Max are not like joints in Maya, they are full bones a point + length. Maya bones as you know are two connected points that draw the connections between them.
Don’t let the display fool you, a link creates a single hiearchy. The bone tools will let you reset the bone stretch so it looks like a solid skeleton.
Bones are regular transforms, so no hidden “joint orient” stuff, just regular pivots. Max version of “freeze transforms” is done with “list controllers” in the animation menu (think of the list controller as Maya grouping)
The skinning tool workflow could be he hardest to get used to…it is rough.
You can make 3ds Max show a virtual Bone connecting between parent and child objects, just select both of them and in the “Command” panel > “Display” tab > “Link Display” rollout (very bottom) and enable “Display Links” on both objects and it will show you something very similar to Maya’s joints.
Edit: for a Parent constraint you’ll want to use the Link constraint which allows you to change parents objects over time but does not allow you to weight a child object between multiple parents.
[QUOTE=hazmondo;22918]Edit: for a Parent constraint you’ll want to use the Link constraint which allows you to change parents objects over time but does not allow you to weight a child object between multiple parents.[/QUOTE]
Yet that should be used sparingly and only on control objects that you know animators will need to re-link to more than 2 different objects AND will not need to come back and fix earlier linking/unlinking animation in the file. It has stability problems (especially when dealing with trackView editor) and besides complicating editing of earlier animator, complicates saving/loading of animation between rigs or same rig in different scenes. Otherwise, if it’s a free/follow kind of feature (such as eye target control following head or being free), a simple wired rotation/position constraint weight switch (making a control’s parent’s position/rotation blend between a point that is linked and a point that is unlinked) would be better.
+1 to Pal Neale’s stuff. If you can find his DVD series it’s gold
I had to jump deep into character rigging in Max form a Maya background.
So I’ll go quickly list some things that I learned the hard way:
Animation Controllers
As mentioned, Max’s animation controller list is quite a different beast than Maya.
Every time you add a constraint, Max pops it into a “list controller” -an array of transform data.
Worse yet, one of the controller types is “list controller”, so these array can recursively hold yet more lists.
It can balloon into a nightmare if you don’t keep your eye on things (esp if you are scripting the setup of things).
My advice: Make an object, open the curve editor , open the motion panel tab,
and start adding and removing controllers and seeing what it does.
Freeze Transform
Max’s “freeze transform” is in no way similar to Maya’s.
It simply adds controllers to the list, storing the current transform in a “frozen” controller and addign a new “zero” controller.
“Reset Transform” is the closest Max equivalent to Maya’s Freeze transform
Orienting Bones
Don’t waste your time orienting bones Maya style if you use Max Bones. I wasted a lot of time trying to get my right and left side limbs to rotate in mirrored fashion
only to see bones flip and invert looking odd and cause future problems.\
Also, CGTalk seems to have a much more vibrant Max / Max Script Community than Tech-Art, at least these days.
Another tip:
In Maya you group things constantly for organizational purposes.
a Max “group” is not = Maya “group” node.
In Max, use Point Helpers and parent things to that.
Once a point Helper is created you can turn off the “cross” tick display and it effectively becomes an empty transform, like a maya group node.