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Editing Footstep Motion

The topics in this section deal with the editing of footstep motion when animating bipeds.

Topics in this section
  • Editing Footstep Placement
    After you've created footsteps, there are several ways to edit their placement in the scene.
  • Editing Footstep Timing
    You can edit footstep timing in Track View.
  • Editing Active Footsteps
    One of the most powerful features of footsteps is the ability to adapt keyframes automatically to edits you make to your footstep pattern. By analogy, the footsteps become a kind of gizmo for manipulating the keyframes of your character's animation. In most cases, edits you make to footsteps act upon your keys in an intuitive fashion.
  • Splicing Footsteps
    You can copy the motion of a biped footstep sequence, and paste it either at the end or into the middle of another footstep sequence. This technique is called splicing.
  • Animating Legs and Feet
    When you activate footsteps, keys are created for the legs and feet according to the footstep pattern and timing. Leg and foot keys are set at each Touch and Lift frame, and between footsteps.
  • Animating the Upper Body
    When you use footsteps to animate the legs and feet, animating the spine, neck, head, arms, and other upper body parts is accomplished in the same way as for freeform animation. Simply turn on Auto Key and start moving and rotating body parts. See Animating by Moving Links and Animating by Rotating Links.
  • Adjusting Body Keys in Track View
    When you activate footsteps, 3ds Max creates keys for biped body parts. After activating footsteps, you can also create keys by turning on Auto Key and animating body parts. To view all these keys, use Track View in Dope Sheet mode.
  • Shifting the Biped's Balance
    After footsteps are activated, you can adjust the biped's overall balance.
  • Adjusting Vertical Motion
    A ballistic gait is any footstep pattern in which there are periods with no feet on the ground, causing the biped to become airborne, or ballistic. Running and jumping are ballistic gaits, while walking is not.
  • Saving Footstep Animation
    After you have animated the biped with footsteps, you can save the data in either a BIP file or an STP file.
Parent topic: Footstep Animation

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