Then Convert it to Editable Poly, select the Polygon and extrude it twice, so that there will the overall upper-arm, elbow and low-arm.

Delete each part of the arm first, and then link the borders on two sides together by Bridge tool. Afterwards, adjust muscles according to personal preference. Till now, the arm is basically done!

The hand

How to create the hand? Firstly, select the Box, change its parameters with 4 Length Segs and 3 Width Segs, and Convert it to Editable Poly.

Choose the Polygon tool and Extrude each five sides to the certain length as to mimic the human being’s fingers. Move the Polygon and Vertex to adjust the rough shape of the thumb.

Then Bevel the end of the fingers to make them like the real ones.

In order to activate the fingers, the bones are needed to be added in. Select Bones under the System menu and drag it one by one onto the hands in the top view. Adjust the position of the bones on the left port view.

Apply Envelop tool under Skin modifier to the hand; add all the bones to it by clicking on the button of “Add”, a window of “Select Bones” pops up as below, this function is to enable the bones and skin to be attached together.

Tick the Vertices on the right of the window to check influence of the fingers in between, and adjust the effect by increasing or decreasing the value of the Weight Properties among the relevant joints, so that the fingers will do the activities separately without influencing the others.

By completing the steps above, the fingers can move beautifully in between. However, in order to rotate the fingers towards certain direction, Point under the Helper menu is added here to fulfill this process.

Right click the bone and select “Wire Parameters”, follow “Transform-Rotation-Y Rotation”, then point the line to the green Point on the left side of the screen, a window of “Parameter Writing” pops up, select the second arrow and then click “Connect” button, both two Y Rotation becomes red and green. Connect all the rest bones by create four more Points.

Choose “Select and Rotate” tool to rotate the finger to Y direction.

Learning outcome

Envelop is tool to attach the skin and bones together, it is very important that the fingers can move or rotate respectively without influencing the rest, otherwise it will really break the whole hands’ activity. The direction of the rotation is difficult to distinguish, however, if double check the axis on the left bottom of the screen, we will find it easier that our expectation. For instance, the last picture above is the right hand, move our right hand upward and rotate the thumb and it will point to exactly the same direction as Y-direction shown above. Thus, the character or elements we create in the 3d max follows the same rules of the human being movements! That is the reason we can mimic our unique behavior as well as the emotion through the virtual environment!

THE IDEAS BEHIND

As mentioned earlier, we are going to mimic a person’s behaviour and then create and animate a character on the basis of that person. The idea behind this is to study the emotional expression.

At early stage I had the ideas of imitating the body languages of different performers or singers, especially when it comes to the worldwide, each nations has its own culture and tradition which influences the locals to a great extent ---personal habits and behaviours. Also, the way of sleeping, talking, walking and showing emotional expression on the face differs from one to another.

CLOWNS SHOW

However, all these ideas seemed quite ambiguous somehow and not precise by itself, which cannot make my prospective character have its own identity and personality. Therefore, after viewing and considering various clips online, I end up in having Clown as a representative of my favourite character. My inspiration came from the Clown’s spirit!

“A Clown is an artist or performer who pretends to be a fool or foolish and acts out or acts up, in order to amuse his audience. In short, he's a comedian, someone who tries to make you laugh by being funny…”

“The Clown's character, his Face, is created by the use of makeup, as well as his costume and developing his Clown's personality. In other words, he has a certain look and he acts out, in his own, special way. Once the clown establishes this Face, it becomes his trademark, his personal property, and no other Clown may dress or make up exactly like him.” (http://sunniebunniezz.com/clowning/clowns.htm)

Hence, the clown is a very typical character having his own personality which varies from the others! The reason why he is funny, it is because of his particular makeup, costume and behaviours. He can do many things in his performance.

“Some do slapstick, pie throwing, falling down stumbling, physical humor. Some do pantomime; they don't speak, they act out their skit or story, instead. Some use magic or juggling.” (http://sunniebunniezz.com/clowning/clowns.htm)

OTHERS

(I am fond of basketball even though I don’t play.) Therefore, I am also considering mimicking the movements of the basketball player playing basketball, which would be very exciting project to undertake, as there are quantities of things that could be done. For instance, how he runs, holds the basketball, passes the basketball to his partner, jumps to throws the basketball, defences and offences, etc. All these basketball tactics are great source for imitation.

http://www.betterbasketball.com/newhome/videos.asp?playvideo=BallHandlingTrailer

http://www.betterbasketball.com/newhome/videos.asp?playvideo=ShootingExcerpt

Today is to make basic character modeling, the examples below are the creation of boots, trousers and clothes. First of all, simply draw a box under Create panel to start with heel of the boot, and then right click the box to choose Convert to Editable Poly. A modifier pops out on the right of the window. Select Polygon tool and click on the top of the box to extrude it twice as to reach a certain height.

After that, choose the first box at the side (which was extruded before) and extrude out twice. Then select the Bevel tool to bevel it at the end.

Delete both top and bottom area of the trousers to make it look like a “real” trousers with holes. Use the Symmetry modifier under the modifier panel to mirror the other leg, so that these two legs join together.

In order to make the trousers look smooth on its surface, I applied the MeshSmooth tool under the Modifier list, by changing the parameters of Iterations and Smoothness, the smoothness level of the trousers can be adjusted.

The clothes! Draw a plane, and then Convert it to Editable Poly, select the Edge and press Shift button to drag the other four same planes on one side as copies of the first plane. Hence, at last I will to have front-to-back braces. Afterwards, pick the Edge and use Bridge tool to link two sides together, and then use the Edge or Polygon tool to modify its shape. After that, select Symmetry to do the other side.

Extrude the top two sides out for the arm, and then use delete faces for the neck and arm areas.

Finally use the MeshSmooth tool to make it look smooth on its surface. Clothes done!

Character modeling plays a significant role in 3d animation, it is very important that we master those useful techniques of it. During the whole process of today's exercise, Eitable Poly, and those functionality under it such as Vertex, Edge, Border, Polygon, Extrude, Bridge have been frequently and repetitively applied to adjust the shape and link two elements together. Symmetry modifier acts as a mirror or bridge of two symmetrical objects. MeshSmooth always comes at last which enables the object to have a "shinning" surface and make it look like a real production. It did take some time to get everything finished and have a nice look, as it was a "detailed management procedure", however, if we practice more, the more familiar we get with those functions, then twice as much can be accomplished with half the effort next time.

• Abstract

• 3D MAX Studio

Our first lecture was about how to create a simple biped-based character with footstep animation and use the several modifiers to modify it to have our own preferred biped.

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The default body type of the biped is Skeleton, but we can also choose any one of them, such as Male, Female and Classic.

In order to modify the structure details of the biped, we can go to Motion tab, which can be found under the Create Panel. Under the structure rollout, we can get quickly access to the interface of various parameters of the selection. Here we can also change its body type, height, number of fingers and toes, etc.

Afterwards, it is the time to add footstep to the biped. Click on the Footstep Mode under the Biped rollout (with two- feet icon next to Figure Mode), the icon turns yellow, meaning that the footstep mode is on. By scrolling down to the next section Footstep Creation, click the second icon Crete Footsteps (at current frame), move the cursor onto the stage and “paint the route”. As we can see, the cursor is now with a footstep sign.

Click on the Create Keys for Inactive Footstep under the Footstep Operations section. All the footsteps painted on the screen become less bright. Then click on the Play Animation button at the right bottom, the biped starts to walk by itself. The other two options such as Run or Jump beside Walk are provided as to make the animation livelier. On the basis of the previous work, just simply click on the Create Footsteps (append) ,and then we can apply all those three kinds of footstep mode to the animation.

• Difficulties

However, when I tried to modify my biped, I failed! It sounded hard for me to control it. According to the tutorial, I applied the Modifier tool such as mesh, hair, skin as well as the Physique modifier, but none of them functioned. The biped looked no differece as before! Hence, I gave up at the end.
Also, I have been struggling for "Export the animation" to be video, fortunately, I solved this problem at the end!