Creating locomotion animations

Locomotion animations are absolutely essential for AI and player actions and animations.

Authoring these assets can be easy if a few principles are understood regarding a very important rig element called the Locator_Locomotion.

The locomotion locator or Locator_Locomotion as the node is called, is used in the engine to describe the logical movement and orientation of the animation. This node needs to be added to motions which translate in a non uniform way, such as a start or stop transition, which have peaks and troughs in acceleration.

Getting ready

• The skeleton must contain the bone Locator_Locomotion if it is going be used in a LMG group later

• Open the file SDK_character_male_foranimation.max

How to do it...

Let's learn how to create the structure needed to support locomotion animations:

1. When using a biped, the easiest way to add the ability to use locomotion is to turn on figure mode and create a prop named Locator_Locomotion.

2. In this way, the animation for the...