Animation
Time
- Very deep channel and time control is provided via Track View facility.
Track View can be multiple floating windows or it can be assigned to viewports.
It provides complete function curve (with precise keyboard input if desired)
over every animateable parameter in a MAX. Any parameter adjustments are
instantly seen in the 3D viewports because Track View is dynamically and
modelessly linked to the scene.
- Because function curve editing is a system service for any animateable
parameter, all plug-ins use a consistent set of time editing tools.
- In addition to keyframe animation of the hundreds of different parameters
possible within each scene, parametric animation is provided via noise
controllers and expression controllers.
- Expression controllers can link up any arbitrary channel to any other
channel, so virtual machines can be built that don't require any keyframing.
- Sound can be brought into the Track View function curve editor for
integrating animations with soundtracks (including dynamic scrubbing).
Sound plug-ins can control specific channels, providing capabilities for
automatic lip synch and sound-based animation triggers. A metronome is
built into the system.
- Precise acceleration/deceleration timing control is possibly by applying
Ease Curves. These are double-interpolants that can be combined to allow
arbitrary layered timing control. (You can apply ease curves on top of
ease curves infinitely.)
- A wide variety of out-of-range looping conditions can be set for individual
channels (cycle, loop, ping-pong, constant, linear, and relative repeat).
Multiplier curves even enable control over out-of-range animation.
- Pluggable animation controllers give you parametric control over an
infinite variety of animation methods. Default controllers include: Look
at, Linear, Bezier, TCB spline, Euler angle, follow along path (with banking),
expression, and noise.
- List controllers can be used to combine the effects of any number of
different animation controllers. Controllers can be layered together, or
they can be set to blend between each other over time.
- Animation controllers can be copied and instanced between tracks.
- Channels can have constant velocity operations performed on arbitrary
ranges of keyframes.
- Automatic keyframe reduction system is built-into Track View.
- Note events can be added to any track within the system for keeping
track of complex scenes.
- Fast, full-color motion tests can be created with locked, frame-per-second
playback control. NTSC, PAL, Film and Custom frames rates supported.
- 3D object metamorphosis (morphing) is supported, with the ability to
morph between morphs. Each morph target can have its own animated set of
procedural modifiers, providing n-dimensional morph capability.
- Thousands of sub-frame increments provide high-resolution time for
accurate scaling operations.
- Animation from libraries can be applied to any object.
Inverse Kinematics
- True 3D inverse kinematics can be used with manual keyframing or by
automatically computing an optimal IK solution by following another object.
IK ordering can be either Child-to-parent or parent-to-child ordering.
Joint types can be sliding or rotational with limits, precedence and joint
damping parameters.
- Inverse Kinematics highly interactive, and are available at any time,
for any hierarchy, in real time.
- IK joints can be made of splines, to create unique wire-joint effects.
These splines can be animated, providing a dynamic IK solution based on
animated joints.
- IK system includes the ability to 'pin' objects so that they don't
move until the kinematic chain is fully extended. Closed loop solutions
are supported, as well as branching hierarchies.