Page 51 - Kitab3DsMax

QUICK START

Animating a Walking

Dinosaur

hen you first got your hands on 3ds Max, you were probably focused
on one goal—creating cool 3D images and animations. I know that IN THIS CHAPTER
Wmany of you bought Max to make money, claim a tax write-off, earn a
way to Hollywood, or impress your girlfriend or boyfriend, but I’ll just ignore Planning the production
those reasons for now. The goal is to create something cool.
Gathering models
If you’ve perused this book’s Table of Contents or thumbed through its many Applying materials
pages, you’ve seen sections on modeling, materials, dynamics, and other topics.
But if you’re like me, you don’t want to wade through tons of material before you Adding a Sun & Sky system
have something to show off to Mom. (Actually, if you’re like me, you opened
straight to the special effects section, in which case you won’t be reading this.) Animating a CAT rig
The purpose of this Quick Start is to give you a taste of what Max can do. This Rendering the final animation
soaring view of the software from 20,000 feet is intended to show you the big pic-
ture before you delve into the details. It exposes you to some of the most common
features and, I hope, whets your appetite for the more in-depth chapters to follow.
This part of the book is intended for those new to the software. If you’re an expe-
rienced user, then your mom no doubt is already impressed with your work, so
you can happily advance to whichever chapter appeals to you. (Forgive me for
catering to the “newbie,” but we were all beginners once.)

Walking Dinosaur—Planning
the Production

For this Quick Start, you’re going to animate a dinosaur walking across a land-
scape. This gives you a chance to set up a scene, work with a character rig, and
do a little animation.
The first thing to consider is setting up the scene. For this sequence, we need a
dinosaur and a landscape for it to walk on. We need to model these two critical
pieces, but we’re going to cheat. Yes, that is allowed, because it saves us some
time. If you can locate some models that fit your needs without having to model

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