Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface

 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
Tutorial: Modeling the Gaaboot’s hands and feet Gaaboot anatomy is still largely a mystery, but we know something about how the hands should look: They have three fingers. To create the Gaaboot’s hands and feet, follow these steps: 1. Select Create➪Standard Primitives➪Cylinder, and drag in the Front viewport to the left side of the body object to create a Cylinder object with a Radius of about 40 and a Height of around 30. Set the Height and CapSegments values to 1 and the Sides value to 24. In the Name field, name this object r_hand. 2. Right-click the Cylinder object, and select the Convert To➪Convert to Editable Poly menu command from the pop-up quadmenu. 3. Use the Scale tool to stretch the hand object’s width in the Front viewport by dragging the X-axis handle. 4. In the Modifier Stack, select Vertex subobject mode, press and hold the Ctrl key, and drag over the vertices in the 8 o’clock and 10 o’clock positions. In the Soft Selection rollout, set the Falloff value to 20 and the Pinch value to 0.0. Then drag the selected
7Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
vertices to the right in the Front viewport with the Move tool, and use the scale tool to pull the vertices closer together to create three fingers. Click the Vertex subobject in the Modifier Stack to exit Vertex subobject mode. 5. Select the Modifiers➪Parametric Deformers➪Taper menu command to apply the Taper modifier. Set the Taper amount to 2.0 with the X Primary axis and a Z Effect axis. This tapers the hand to a point at the end of the middle finger. 6. With the Shift key held down, move the hand object downward in the Front viewport to create a clone of the hand object. In the Clone Options dialog box that opens, name the new object r_foot and select the Copy option. Then rotate the foot object 90 degrees in the Y- and Z-axes, move it down below the character, and scale it to be larger than the hand. Don’t worry that the hand and foot are free standing like the head. We connect them soon enough, and we use the mirror command to make the character not so one-sided, but the result of this tutorial is shown in Figure QS-2. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot hands and feet.max.
Figure QS-2: The Gaaboot character with one hand and one foot
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Tutorial: Adding face details Now that some of the major body parts are finished, you start to add details, beginning with the face. Face details include eyes, a nose, and a mouth. We skip ears because Gaaboots listen by using their feet to pick up vibrations in the ground. This is a design decision that helps simplify the modeling process—a valid trick if you’re also the designer. To add details to the Gaaboot’s face, follow these steps: 1. Select the head and body object, and enable Polygon subobject mode by clicking Polygon in the top of the Modifier Stack. In the Soft Selection rollout, disable the Use Soft Selection option. Enable the Ignore Backfacing option in the Selection rollout, and drag over just the top flared section of the head in the Front viewport. With the Alt key held down, drag over the polygons that aren’t visible from the front in the Top viewport. Then click the Y-axis button next to the Make Planar button in the Edit Geometry rollout. 2. In the Edit Geometry rollout, click the Cut button. Use the Cut tool in the Front viewport to cut the edges needed to create a mouth opening. Right-click when you’re finished cutting, and click the Cut button again to exit cut mode. While still in Polygon subobject mode, hold down the Ctrl key and select all the polygons that are on the interior of the mouth. 3. With the mouth polygons selected, click the Options dialog box button next to the Bevel button in the Edit Polygons rollout. In the Bevel Polygons dialog box, set the Height value to -20 and the Outline Amount to -0.5, and click the OK button. Then click the Polygon subobject button to exit subobject mode. 4. Select the Create➪Standard Primitives➪GeoSphere menu command, and drag at the top of the head in the Front viewport to create an eyeball. Name the sphere eyeball. Move the eyeball to the front of the face. Hold down the Shift key, and drag the sphere to the side to create another eyeball. Name this object eyeball2, and select the Instance option in the Clone Options dialog box. 5. Clone one of the eyeball objects with the Edit➪Clone command, but don’t make it an Instance, make it a Copy, and name it nose. Then elongate the nose object with the scale tool. Rotate and position the nose so it is above the top of the center of the face. With the face details added, the character shown in Figure QS-3 is starting to look like someone who would speak back to you when spoken to. Even more details are added using textures— details such as pupils created using vertex colors. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot face.max. Tutorial: Connecting body parts The final modeling task is to pull all the various body parts together. The easiest way to accomplish this is to cut holes in each part, select the borders of each hole, and connect them using the Bridge feature.
9Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
Figure QS-3: The face details give the character some life and an orientation.
To connect the various Gaaboot body parts, follow these steps: 1. Select the head and body object, and enable Polygon subobject mode. Rotate the view under the head in the Perspective view until the base at the bottom of the head is visible, and select and delete these polygons. Then select and delete all the polygons that make up the very top of the body object. 2. In the Modifier Stack, choose Border subobject mode and drag over the bottom of the head and the top of the body to select the two open border subobjects. Then click the Bridge button in the Edit Borders rollout to seamlessly connect the two parts. 3. Right-click the hand object, and select the Convert To➪Convert to Editable Poly menu command from the pop-up quadmenu. Then convert the foot object also. 4. Change to Perspective view to see the portion of the hand that is near to the body. Switch to Polygon subobject mode, and select and delete the polygons where the hand should connect to the arm. 5. Select the foot object, and use the Cut tool to cut a polygon in the top of the foot away from the foot sides. Right-click when you’ve finished with the Cut tool. Then select and delete these polygons in Polygon subobject mode. 6. With holes cut in both the hand and the foot object, select the hand object and choose the Tools➪Mirror menu command. In the Mirror dialog box, select the X and Copy options and set the Offset to 750. Then repeat this step for the foot object using an Offset value of 195. 7. With the body object selected, click the Attach button and pick the hands and feet. Zoom in on the Left viewport, and use the Cut tool to create a hole in the body for the
10 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
left arm. The select and delete those polygons. Click the Left viewport title in the upper-left corner, select Views➪Right to change the viewport to the Right viewport, and repeat Step 6 to cut a hole. After a hole is cut in the right side, enable the Vertex subobject mode and select and drag the hole vertices down to be roughly aligned with the hole vertices on the opposite side. Select the Top viewport, change it to a Bottom view, and cut two holes for the legs. 8. Select the Border subobject mode, and select the body hole and the hand hole on the right side. Then click the Options box button next to the Bridge tool in the Edit Borders rollout. Set the number of Segments to 6, and click the OK button. Then select the borders for the opposite arm, and click the Bridge button. Repeat for both legs. 9. The final part to attach is the nose. Follow the same procedure using cut, attach, select borders, and bridge to connect the nose. 10. As a final step to smooth all the sharp edges throughout the character, select the Modifiers➪Subdivision Surfaces➪TurboSmooth menu command. In the TurboSmooth rollout, set the number of Iterations to 2. This applies the TurboSmooth modifier, which gives the whole model an organic feel.
The TurboSmooth modifier also increases the density of the mesh substantially. If you need to make future modeling changes, select the Editable Poly below TurboSmooth in the Modifier Stack before making any changes.
At the completion of this tutorial, the Gaaboot finally has arms and legs and looks, well, like an alien, as shown in Figure QS-4. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Connected Gaaboot.max.
Figure QS-4: The Gaaboot modeling is now finished, and despite the brevity of the steps, it looks pretty good.
Caution
11Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
Creating the Landscape Before animating the character, we create a simple landscape for the character to walk about. The landscape helps define the character’s environment and provides some stationary objects to make the character’s motion more apparent. The tutorials in this section include creating a lunar-like surface complete with several craters and adding a backdrop image. Tutorial: Creating a lunar surface A lunar surface can be easily created using a Plane primitive object that extends to the horizon. The crater can be separate objects that rise from the surface of the plane object. Another detail that helps the scene is adding a background image. To do this, use the Environment & Effects dialog box opened with the Rendering➪Environment menu command (or by pressing the 8 shortcut). To create a lunar surface, follow these steps: 1. Zoom out of the Top viewport, select the Create➪Standard Primitives➪Plane menu command, and drag in the Top viewport to create a large Plane object that extends far beyond the Gaaboot character. Select and move the Gaaboot character so that its feet are just slightly above the Plane object. 2. Select the Create➪Shapes➪Box menu command, and drag in the Top viewport behind and to the side of the character. Set the dimensions of the box to 1500 x 1500 x -10 with 24 Length and Width Segments and only 1 Height Segment.   3. Select the Create➪Space Warps➪Geometric/Deformable➪Ripple menu command, and drag in the Top viewport in the center of the Box object. Set the Amplitude 1 and 2 values to -750 and -150, the Wave Length value to 700, the Phase to 0.5, and the Decay value to 0.002. Then select the Box object, click the Bind to Space Warp button on the main toolbar, and select the Ripple Space Warp gizmo in the viewport. 4. Select the Box object, and choose the Modifiers➪Parametric Deformers➪Noise menu command to apply the Noise modifier. In the Parameters rollout, enable the Fractal option and set the Roughness to 0.7 and the Strength in the Z-axis to 60. 5. Drag over the box and Space Warp in the Top viewport to select them both, and drag them with the Shift key held down to another location surrounding the character. Then rotate the box object for some variation. Repeat this step to create a third crater. The simple craters help the scene by showing some depth, and the Noise modifier adds some much needs richness, as shown in Figure QS-5. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot with landscape.max.
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Figure QS-5: The Gaaboot world, complete with craters, is beginning to take shape.
Tutorial: Loading a background image To inform the user that the scene is out in space, we add a space scene as a background image. To add a background image to the scene, follow these steps: 1. Open the Environment & Effects dialog box by choosing Rendering➪Environment (or press the 8 key). Enable the Use Map check box, and click the Environment Map button labeled “None.” The Material/Map Browser dialog box appears. 2. In the right pane of the Material/Map Browser is a list of materials and maps. Doubleclick the Bitmap item. The Select Bitmap Image File dialog box opens. 3. Locate the background image named Space.tif in the Quick Start directory on the CD-ROM, and click it to select it. 4. Click Open to load the background image. When loaded, the image’s filename appears on the button in the Environment panel. Click the close icon in the upper-right corner of the Environment dialog box to close it. 5. To see the background image in a test render, select the Rendering➪ActiveShade Floater. Figure QS-6 shows the test render in the ActiveShade Floater window with the visible space background. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot with background.max.
13Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
Figure QS-6: The background image adds to the alien scene.
Adding Materials to Objects in the Scene After you have all the models positioned within the scene, you can add realism by adding materials to objects. Materials are created and applied using the Material Editor. Open this separate dialog box with the Rendering➪Material Editor menu command (or by pressing the M shortcut). Another way to add color to the scene is at the vertex level with Vertex Colors using the Vertex Paint Modifier, which works well for adding pupils to the character’s eyeballs. Tutorial: Applying materials The default object color doesn’t do our Gaaboot justice, and the lunar surface looks all wrong, but adding materials will help. To apply materials to the scene objects, follow these steps: 1. To assign materials, you must open the Material Editor. You can do this by choosing the Rendering➪Material Editor menu command, or by pressing the M key. The Material Editor shows six sphere objects. These are called sample slots and can be used to hold materials used in the scene. 2. With the first sample slot in the Material Editor selected, click the color swatch to the right of the Diffuse label in the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout. This opens the Color Selector dialog box. Select a dark green color, and click the Close button. Scroll down in the command panel, and set the Specular Level value to 95 and the Glossiness value to 50. Click in the drop-down list where it says “01–Default,” and type Eyeball as the name of this material.
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3. Select the sample slot in the Material Editor directly under the first one, and click the small square map button to the right of the color swatch that is right of the Diffuse label. This opens the Material/Map Browser dialog box. Double-click the Speckle material. In the Speckle Parameters rollout, click the Color #2 color and change it to a dark green color, and set the Size value to 40. Name this material Gaaboot skin. Then open the Maps rollout and click the button labeled None next to the Bump map. In the Material/Map Browser that appears, double-click the Cellular map type. Although the Cellular map won’t be visible in the viewports, it will give the skin a nice rough texture when rendered. 4. Select another empty sample slot, change its Diffuse color to a light brown color, and name the material Sand. Then select the Cellular map type for the Bump map. The procedure is the same as for the Gaaboot skin material, but this time set the Size value in the Cellular Parameters rollout to 50. After setting the sub-material, click the Go to Parent button to return to the base sand material. The Material Editor should now look like Figure QS-7.
Figure QS-7: The Material Editor now includes three unique materials that you can use in the scene.
15Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
5. To apply the materials to the scene, just drag each respective material to the object in the viewport that it goes with.
If you want to see the material textures in the viewport, click the small cube button labeled Show Map in Viewport in the Material Editor.
Aw, you can’t beat that slick green alien skin color with black spots. I hope it isn’t contagious. Because the figures in this book are black and white, you can’t see much change between this result and the last image, so look on your monitor. This tutorial is saved as Gaaboot with materials.max. Tutorial: Adding eye pupils using vertex colors The Gaaboot looks great with its new materials, but its eyes still have that look like some spaceship is shining a bright light right in its eyes. In this tutorial, you add pupils to the eyeballs using vertex colors. To use vertex colors to add pupils to the character, follow these steps: 1. Select the Perspective viewport, and click the Maximize Viewport Toggle button in the lower-right corner of the Max interface (or press Alt+W). Then rotate the view by holding down the Alt key and dragging with the middle mouse button so that you’re looking directly at the eyeballs. Then zoom in on the eyes using the Zoom tool or by scrolling the mouse wheel. 2. Select one of the eyeballs, and choose the Modifiers➪Mesh Editing➪Vertex Paint menu command. In the VertexPaint dialog box that opens, click the Vertex Color Display–shaded button at the top of the dialog box. Set the Brush Size to 2.0 and select black as the color. Then click the Paintbrush button, and drag around the center of the eyeball. 3. Select the other eyeball object, and click the Vertex Color Display–shaded button. The second eyeball already has the same vertex coloring. 4. For the Vertex Colors to be rendered correctly, you need to include them on a map that is assigned to the object. To do this, open the Material Editor again and select the Eyeball material. Then click the map button to the right of the Diffuse color swatch and double-click the Vertex Color map type in the Material/Map Browser that appears. After you re-apply the Eyeball material to the eyeball object, the painted pupils appear when rendered. This simple addition of eyeball pupils, shown in Figure QS-8, help the character seem more realistic, and it didn’t require any geometry changes or creating a new material. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot with eye pupils.max.
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16 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
Figure QS-8: Adding pupils to the eyes gives some life to the character.
Animating a Character Character animation can be some of the most difficult aspects of a production, but the tools that Character Studio has available makes it much easier, especially for animations involving walking and running human forms. The tutorials for this section include creating a biped, attaching a character skin using the Physique modifier, and animating the biped. A biped is a skeleton structure that exists beneath the character. It consists of bones that can be animated easily in lifelike manners deforming the overlaid skin in the process. Tutorial: Creating and fitting a biped The first step in using Character Studio is creating and manipulating a biped skeleton. The closer you can make the biped fit the character, the less work in manipulating envelopes is required.
17Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
Fitting the bones to the skin takes much more time than all the other steps, but diligence in completing this step results in a skin that matches the biped perfectly. The skin won’t need any other modifications.
To create and fit a biped to the character skin, follow these steps: 1. First, hide all the objects that you don’t need to see. Select the character, right-click, and select the Hide Unselected menu command from the pop-up quadmenu. All objects except the skin are hidden. 2. Select the Create➪Systems➪Biped menu command, and drag in the Top viewport to create a biped that is the same height as the character and positioned directly behind the character. In the Create Biped rollout, set the number of Neck Links to 5 (Gaaboots have serious necks). 3. Open the Motion panel, and click the Figure Mode button in the Biped rollout to enter Figure mode. Select the lower leg bone in the Left viewport, click the Symmetrical button in the Track Selection rollout to select both lower leg bones, and then scale the bones in the Y-axis to shorten them. Repeat this step for the upper legs. Then select the Body Vertical button in the Track Selection rollout, and drag the entire body downward until the pelvis bone is in the correct position. 4. Select both upper leg bones again, and use the Rotate tool to rotate the bones to align with the character skin legs in the Front viewport. Repeat for the upper arm bones. Make the arms parallel to the skin arms, but they shouldn’t match up just yet. 5. Open the Structure rollout, and reduce the number of Spine Links to 3. Then select all three spine links, and scale them along the Y-axis in the Left viewport until they are correctly aligned with the skin arms. Select all five neck links, and scale them along the Y-axis in the Left viewport until the head bone is aligned with the skin head. 6. Select the Front viewport, and change it to show the Back view. Then start with the head bone, and scale it horizontally to fit the width of the skin. Continue down the skeleton with each bone until they are scaled to roughly fit the skin. Be careful with the top spine and the pelvis bones because the arms and legs are attached to these bones. 7. Next, move up and down the arms and legs scaling them to fit the skin arms and legs. The hand bones in particular need to be rotated to fit the skin, and the feet need to be scaled in length as well as width. Figure QS-9 shows the resulting skin with the biped bones aligned within it. The effort put into aligning bones is apparent in the next tutorial when we attach the skin to the biped.  This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot with biped.max.
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18 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
Figure QS-9: Notice how closely the biped bones are aligned with the skin.
Tutorial: Attaching the character skin to a biped This next step sounds like it should be easy enough, but depending on how complex the skin mesh is and how well you’ve aligned the biped bones, this could be the hardest step. Each bone has an envelope that surrounds it. All the skin vertices that are contained within a bone’s envelope move along with the bone. If any skin vertices aren’t included in an envelope, the vertices are left behind when the biped moves. To attach a character skin to a biped, follow these steps: 1. Select the character skin mesh, and choose the Modifiers➪Parametric Deformers➪ Physique menu command to apply the Physique modifier to the skin mesh. 2. In the Physique rollout, click the Attach to Node button. Then open the Select Objects dialog box, and choose the Bip01 object, which is the root for the biped. In the Physique Initialization dialog box that opens, click the Initialize button. 3. Using the Select Objects dialog box, select and rotate several bones including both arms and legs to check whether all vertices are moving correctly. If any vertices aren’t within an envelope, the skin stretches as the bone is moved.
19Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
4. To fix any vertices that are outside an envelope, follow this step. In the Modifier Stack, click the Physique modifier to access its subobjects and select Envelope subobject mode. Select the left hand link, click the Cross Section button in the Blending Envelopes rollout, and resize the two sections so all vertices are within the outer envelope. Then click the Control Points button in the Blending Envelopes rollout, and move the control points to control the shape of the envelope so it includes only the vertices you want. 5. To select another link, click the Links button in the Blending Envelopes rollout and click the Previous button to select the previous link in the hierarchy. Increase the Radial Scale value to increase all cross sections and control points at once. If all vertices are accounted for, then you’re ready to animate the character using the biped controls found in the Motion panel. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot with attached skin.max. Tutorial: Animating a character’s motion For the animation sequence, we don’t get very complex; we simply use the biped’s footstep mode to have the character walk across the lunar surface, but it shows the power of the biped animation features. To animate a character walking, follow these steps: 1. Before moving the skin, unhide all objects by right-clicking the viewport and selecting the Unhide All option. Then select the Gaaboot skin object and select the Editable Poly entry in the Modifier Stack. Click the Options button next to the Attach button and select both eyeball objects from the Attach List dialog box. In the Attach Options dialog box, choose Match Material IDs to Material to maintain the applied materials. You need to see all the hidden objects, so you may want to hide the skin mesh to see the biped clearly. Select the skin mesh, and then choose Hide Selection from the quadmenu. 2. Press T to switch to the Top viewport and zoom out until the biped and all three craters are visible. Then drag the biped to the center of the screen. 3. With the biped selected, open the Motion panel and click the Footstep Mode button in the Biped rollout to enter Footstep mode. In the Footstep Creation rollout, select the Walk button and click the Create Multiple Footsteps button to open the Create Multiple Footsteps: Walk dialog box. Enter 25 as the Number of Footsteps and click OK. When the Create Multiple Footsteps dialog box first opens, it automatically determines the correct stride length for the given biped. 4. Select and rotate the first several steps so the character walks in front of the top crater before turning to point in the right direction. 5. Click the Create Keys for Inactive Footsteps button in the Footstep Operations rollout to create keys for the available footsteps. 6. Click the Play Animation button to see the biped walk across the surface. Figure QS-10 shows the footsteps taking by the character in the Top viewport. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Gaaboot walking.max.
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Figure QS-10: Animating the character is as easy as making it follow the designated footsteps.
Rendering the Final Animation Rendering the final animation can take lots of time, depending on the output resolution and the power of your computer. The final output is started through the Render Scene dialog box, which you can open with the Rendering➪Render menu command (or by pressing the F10 key). The Render Scene dialog box offers several options for customizing the output. But before rendering the final output, you should create a preview animation to make sure that everything looks okay. Tutorial: Creating a preview animation Before rendering the final scene, it is a good idea to produce a Preview animation. Doing so helps to eliminate some problems before the time is spent rendering the entire animation. The Preview is simply the viewport scene stitched together into an animation. The shading options are the same as those available for the viewports. To create a Preview animation, follow these steps: 1. Right-click the viewport, and select Unhide All from the quadmenu. Then select and hide all the biped bones. With the Perspective viewport active, choose Animation➪ Make Preview.
21Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Creating and Animating a Three-Fingered Gaaboot
2. In the Make Preview dialog box, you can select the Active Time Segment, which includes all frames in the animation. Set the Image Size to 50 percent, and select the AVI Output option. In the Display in Preview section, make sure to check the Geometry and Background check boxes. Select Perspective as the Render Viewport. 3. Click the Create button. Max begins the rendering, opens the default Media Player when finished, and plays the preview. 4. Choose Animation➪View Preview to view the preview again, if desired. As you look at the preview, notice that the material maps aren’t included in the preview, but you can watch for the following types of errors: ✦ Objects moving through one another ✦ Insufficient lighting ✦ Erratic (non-smooth) object motion Tutorial: Rendering the final animation After you’ve fixed all the errors and you’re comfortable with the Preview animation, you can open the Render Scene dialog box and prepare your final animation for rendering. To view the final animation rendering settings, follow these steps: 1. Open the Render Scene dialog box by choosing Rendering➪Render (or by pressing F10). 2. In the Time Output section, select Active Time Segment. In the Output Size section, select 320×240 as the resolution. 3. Next, you need to save the rendered scene to a file. In the Render Output section, click the Files button to open the Render Output File dialog box. Select the location where you want to save the file, enter the name Gaaboot walking, and from the Save as type drop-down list, select .AVI as the format. Click Save.
If you don’t want to save the file, you can render the scene to the Rendered Frame Window. After the rendering is complete, you can save the animation by clicking the Save Bitmap button. The Rendered Frame Window can save animation and bitmap formats.
The Video Compression dialog box appears. 4. Select the Cinepak Codec by Radius Compressor with a Quality setting of 100 and a Key Frame every 15 frames. Click OK to continue. 5. Back in the Render Scene dialog box, check the viewport setting at the bottom of the dialog box and make sure that Perspective is selected. Then click the Render button to start the rendering process. Figure QS-11 shows a frame from the final animation. This final tutorial is saved as Final render.max.
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Figure QS-11: One frame from the final animation of our friendly three-fingered Gaaboot walking across the lunar surface
We could do much more to this animation, such as using lens effects or adding a motion blur, but I wanted to save some effects for the rest of the book. Feel free to load and modify this simple animation as you desire. With the Quick Start completed, you’re ready to dive into the features of Max, beginning with Chapter 1, “Finding Your Way—Exploring the Max Interface.” Summary I hope you’re happy with your first footsteps into Max. This chapter exposed you to a number of important aspects of Max, including the following: ✦ An approach to modeling characters ✦ Applying materials to scene objects ✦ Loading a background image for the scene ✦ Creating, fitting, and attaching a biped to a character skin ✦ Animating a character ✦ Rendering a preview and the final animation But hold onto your seats, because so much of the software lies ahead. In Chapter 1, you start easily with an in-depth look at the Max interface. If you feel ready for more advanced challenges, review the Table of Contents and dive into any topic that looks good. ✦✦✦