Third Tutorial

Newest Tutorial is available to be watched HERE!

Not gonna work

While I had the idea of having a biped stroll through some automatic doors... its not gonna work.
I tried for hours to figure out a way to make the Biped a "master" object (while animating in a basic walk cycle) that moves the "slave" object doors.
It did not work. I'm disappointed!

So, looks like I may doing something more basic... sigh.

Third tutorial idea

After watching the video tutorial HERE I like the idea of working with the reaction manager in 3Ds Max.

In this tutorial the user creates an automatic sliding door effect by sliding a teapot.
As the teapot moves close to the doors, the doors open and let the teapot slide through. After the teapot has passed through the doors, the doors close behind it.

I really like the idea of trying out this sliding door with the reaction manager.
Instead of using a teapot, however, I would like to try using a walking biped.
If all goes to plan, the biped will trigger the doors to open when it walks close to the doors. Not just when it is slid towards the doors, as it was with the teapot.

I plan to test this out now and I'll report how it goes!
Fingers crossed!

3Ds Max Animating abilities

While I have not completely decided whether or not I will do all 6 of my tutorials with 3Ds Max, I figure I should look up different tutorials I could do with this program. Just in case.

With my background in animation, I would really like to stick to animation-based tutorials.

I did some research and found some interesting possibilities for future tutorials:
I may look into working with the Reaction Manager- which is the tool that a classmate showed in his last tutorial (where he had a fridge door swing open and knock down a stack of boxes).
If not the reaction manager, I may work with rigging my own simple model.
My third option is to work with particle effects and animations, as 3Ds Max seems to have a wide variety of effects it can create with simple particle manipulation.

With my findings, I am feeling fairly convinced that I may just continue working the rest of my 4 tutorials with 3Ds Max.
But who knows? Maybe I'll find some more interesting things I can do with the 3D software Messiah!

Second tutorial

My new tutorial is available HERE!

Tutorial 2

For my second 3Ds Max tutorial I covered some basic information on how the timeline works and how to animate with the biped skeleton.

It was great to go back to my animation routes and make things move- however, I am a little rusty with 3D animation. Definitely something I want to focus on more.
I didn't want to get ahead of myself and demonstrate something too intense, but hope my next animation tutorial will have much more to show.

The tutorial will be posted soon!

Planning tutorial 2

With my first 3Ds Max tutorial complete I am now contemplating what I will cover in my second!

I have decided that, instead of working with three separate 3D programs, I will be focusing my attention on 3Ds Max and perhaps Messiah.
I understand what in choosing to create tutorials for 1 or 2 programs, as opposed to three, my tutorials will need to be more advanced. So I will be looking into that further.

For the time being, I believe I will work with the Biped character more.
I intend to demonstrate in our next tutorial how one can tweak the already programmed walk/run and jump cycles to make it different/your own.

This week I will also be looking into Messiah a bit, to see what this software has to offer!