Creature Base


What is a Creature Base?

Creature Bases are skeletal-like characters on which you can attach components or body parts to make a robot or a monster.
It's a similar idea as CloneBone but the bone structure is not limited to iClone standard character bones.
You may create skeletons of any forms for all kind of real and/or imaginary creatures.
Creature Bases work like all Non-Human Characters in iClone,  you may attach accessories to them, edit their poses and animations, even have characters interact with your creature bases!

000 

You may visit Sci-Fi Robots to get more information about the pack.


How to build your Creature Base Non-Human Characters?

Now we will show you the process to build your "Creature Base" Non-Human Characters from 3Ds Max into iClone. Here is an example from "Sci-Fi Robots & Machines" Creature Bases.

First of all, you have to sketch the front and side views of designed Non-Human Character.
It's always better to design first on paper or in any image editor.
Sketch the front and side views of designed Non-Human Character.

In this case, we suggest that you should get ready with a mapped image plane for reference.
In 3ds Max, map the sketch images to the corresponding planes for bone building reference.

00

Start with creating bones

There are four keys we must take care before starting.
A. Local Axis of Pelvis
B. Decide Mirror Plane
C. Rules of Spine Bones
D. Mirror  tools of Bones

A. Local Axis of Pelvis
First start with creating the Pelvis Bone. In this case, we are going to use a Point Helper as the the Pelvis Bone.

Open "Helpers" floater under "Create" toolbar. Press the “Point” button, then click in the Perspective viewport to create it for center of iBlock. Right-click to end Pelvis Bone creation, and name this Pelvis Bone “Center”.
00a     00b

It is important that the axis of Pelvis Bone must be aligned to the World Axis in local space because baking animation is based on Z-up transformation in 3Ds Max. You may not create this Pelvis Bone at simple situation, just like the older pipeline of Non-Human Character.
01a

01

B. Decide Mirror Plane
If you want the Non-Human Character to do a perfect mirror control of IK and FK, the following concept should be kept in mind. The reason is that iBlock is a symmetrical model base on the right and left symmetry. Thus the process for creating the Spine Bones must be in the Right or Left viewport. (The symmetrical plane is colored in blue, the right side in green and left side in red.).

02

Let's start to build hierarchy bones of the iBlock in the Right viewport. You should be familiar with Bone tools in 3DsMax.

C. Rules of Spine Bones

First, start from Pelvis Bone to construct the upward and downward Spine Bones. Please make sure that the local XY-plane of Spine Bones is parallel with Mirror plane.

03

D. Mirror tools of Bones

Create the left part of leg and upper bones. Starting from the same direction of each Spine Bone.

04

Select the the left part of leg and upper bones. UseMirror” in Bone Tools and set Z-Bone Axis to Flip. The right part of bones will be generated correctly.

05a 05b
05c

    Rename all the bones for the iBlock, then use "Select and Link" button to make these bones as hierarchy structure.
    See the image below or the accompanying "00_biped_bones.max" for reference.
          06a

          06a

         
Create Mesh and Skinned Model

This section is to create the mesh model because bones aren't rendered in iClone viewport.
We have to connect with appearance mesh and bones by skinning modify.
The appearance mesh could be designed to your favorite.

There are a few key thoughts to keep in mind before skinning.
A. All body mesh must be a single one
B. Initialize Mesh Model
C. Reset pivot of Mesh

      1. Before a mesh model for this iBlock is ready to skin, it is important that Transform/Rotate/Scale of this mesh must be initialized.

          07

      2. Open ”Reset XForm” floater under “Utilities” toolbar. Press the “Reset Selected” button to initialize before selecting the mesh model.

          08

     3. Right-click on the iBlock, select "Convert To" > "Convert to Editable Poly"  to convert the model into Editable Poly.
         09

    4.  Add to edit skin modify of  the mesh with all bones after adjust the pivot of model is align to the center of the iBlock.        
         10

     5. Delete the mapped planes for reference, then save this model with skin and bones. Name this 3Ds Max File " 00_biped_export .max" and ready to export for iClone.

Export  the Model from 3DsMax

        Now You may export this iBlock character and test the motion editing capability in iClone.
        About how to export an Non-Human Character and build its *.ini file. Please refer to Export the Model and Definition of *.ini file.       
        If you are still not sure how to build the ini file. Here are the files for you to download.
        Download iBlock.iAvatar & iBlocl.ini at the same folder.
       sample
The following sessions will show you the process for rigging, animating and baking animations for the iBlock character.

Create rigging for animating the character

It will be easier to animate the character in 3Ds Max when the rigging of bones is useful.
Rigging a character is a major topic and is impossible to be covered in this tutorial, please refer to tutorials of 3D total.
In this case, we set up some controllers for this iBlock as in " 00_biped_rigged.max".
These controllers include simple IK, FK and Footstep system made by "Look At Constraint" and "Orientation Constraint".
You could build them on Motion control panel of 3ds Max.

       11
Export animated bones from 3Ds Max

After animating the rigged iBlock by using controllers, save this 3DsMax file, as in "00_biped_animation.max".
It can't  directly export animations to *.iMotion for iClone because iClone exporter can't  translate animated keys of these controllers.
We have to bake animations through  Collapse of transformation in FBX, then reload this FBX file to export iMotion with the same hierarchy.

Over step by step:

         1.  Install the last version of FBX exporter for 3DsMax. (FBX verson  2009.3 or updated )

         2. Select all bones except the mesh and controllers at animated 3Ds Max file "00_biped_animation.max".
            Press "File" > "Export Selected" to save this hierarchy bones as FBX format.

            12

         3. Please follow the settings in the image above when exporting.
            13

        4. Reset a new 3Ds Max file, press "File" > "Import" to load the previous FBX file you exported.
            Please follow the settings over in the image above when importing.

            14

        5. Save the current 3Ds Max file "00_biped_baked.max".
           
The animation of iBlock has been baked through FBX translation after importing.
           
Although these bones are not skinned with mesh, they are the same structure and names as 
iBlock.iAvatar.
           
We could export  animations of  these bones as
jump.iMotion for iBlock to iClone.

        6. Open "
00_biped_baked.max" to export baked animations as iMotion files.
          
Go to "File > Export", then have "Non-Human Character" in selection.
           Finally Export with "Animation Only" selected.

           16

        7. Select the iBlock, then go to "Animation > Import" to apply jump.iMotion into the iBlock Character in iClone.
            You would see the motion translated from FBX will be played.