Floating Bones Rollout

“Floating” bones provide a way to use Physique without using a biped character. The Floating Bones rollout specifies the splines, bones hierarchy, or unattached bones you are using to deform a mesh. For example, Physique lets you animate a mesh by animating spline vertices or a bones system. When you attach the spline or parent bone to Physique, it creates envelopes for the selected spline or bones.

• Select an object that has the Physique modifier applied to it. > Modify panel > Floating Bones rollout

Procedures

To have a spline influence a mesh:

1. Create a spline and place it within a mesh that has Physique applied.
2. Select the mesh, and go to the Modify panel.
3. On the Floating Bones rollout, click Add.

   3ds Max opens a Select Bones dialog.

4. Use the Select Bones dialog to select the spline.
5. Animate the spline vertices to animate the mesh.

Tip: If you want to control the mesh by animating bones, follow the previous steps using bones instead of a spline.

Interface

Add

Displays a Select Bones dialog so you can select splines or bones to use with Physique.

Reset

Resets splines or bones in their initial position: Reset reassigns vertices, but leaves envelopes as is.

Delete

To delete a spline or bone, click to highlight its name in the list, and then click Delete.