3DSMax Biped Rig for HeroTPP (Default Blue Man)...

I wanted to share this, since I think it’s probably quite useful. Since Epic basically focus on the Maya tools and there’s no ready to go Max version of Blue Man. When I was working on my Game Jam project, I kinda wished I had the Blue Man rigged in Max and it was too time consuming to do it for that project, but I decided to do a Biped setup for him now anyway, for possible future use. I thought a CAT rig would be cool or even a custom rig but I think Biped is maybe the most globally useful, concerning motion capture… etc.

So anyway, here is the link to grab the file. Although I did the setup in Max 2015, I saved it out backwards compatible to Max 2012, which is the lowest it’s able to go. So anyone with Max 2012 and up, should be able to open this, I wasn’t able to test it on lower versions though.

DOWNLOAD for Blue Guy

DOWNLOAD for Grey Guy

EDIT:-

I’ve updated the download link, it now has 2 files in the archive, a Biped and a CAT rig.

EDIT No2:-

I’ve also created a biped rig for the new “Grey Guy” Epic added since version 4.8. You will see there are now 2 download links, one for the blue guy and one for the grey guy.

This video shows the Biped rig setup, how it works and how it exports. The CAT rig works the same way for exporting.

2 Likes

BIG thumbs up on this one, whilst i don’t use max anymore i know a lot of people do and i always found the biped system so helpful even when linked up to the b_bones from the ut3/udk rig. if i get the chance i’ll give it a go, i’ll also pass the word around when i see/spot the max users i know.
Thanks again

Cool Geodav, sure, share as much as you can… :slight_smile:

Just wanted to mention that I’ve now also created a CAT rig and updated the first post with a new link that has both rigs in there.

The CAT rig works the same way, as far as exporting and all that goes. It’s of course much better aligned to the Hero_TPP skeleton since CAT is very easy to configure, compared to Biped. I’ve set it up with the twist bones included, even though the blue man does not use them, they are in the original skeleton, so I did also set that up. So if you happen to skin a custom character to it, it will work. I didn’t mention it before, but the Biped also is set up with twist bones. And of course the CAT rig is also set up for root motion, just like the Biped rig.

They both accomplish the same job, animating the default Hero_TPP skeleton, though in their own unique ways.

Thanks for this. I was wondering how I might get some animations onto the blue guy, so this saves me a step :slight_smile:

this is awesome! thank you!

Cool… :slight_smile:

You just helped a poor programmer guy to get some placeholder anims into his prototype :slight_smile:

This is excellent! However, with your CATrig, I can’t get my hands to translate over. Is this normal?

Can you explain a bit more?. You mean transferring the animation?.

I’ve uploaded a new file, if you want to check it out. I made changes to the palm twist and the fingers. I’m not sure the exact problems you have but the rig now should be more correct. The palm twist was a decision I made based on how the forearm behaves, but I think ultimately, the twist should be neutral with the palms facing down, for this rig, where normally, it actually would be neutral with palms facing forward.

Anyway, try it out and see if it works better. Otherwise, please let me know the exact problem. This feedback is useful, since I don’t personally use the CAT rig.

Will download and report back! :slight_smile:

Edit: You fixed it! Kudos! :stuck_out_tongue:

Cool, glad to hear… :slight_smile:

Hello! Mister Obihb. I have a question.

I downloaded your Catrig Skeleton. But it seems to be missing a Root Bone on Catrig. I tried to move the bone named Root but everything related to it doesn’t seem to work.

Maybe I am getting all wrong as I am pretty new on Catrig, but my main problem with my models is that, when I first created them they had no rootbones. In UDK I could make a root motion from pelvis and it would work all fine. It seems ( I am not sure ) Unreal 4 requires you to have a root bone that is connected to the system, at the very top. Also if you try to make a root motion from pelvis, the rotation rotates the entire skeleton >.<

Long story short, is there a simple way to add a bone on top of the bone system which sits at 0,0,0 coordinates in 3dmax, and make the whole skeleton move with it? Thank you for your time and reading!

I’m not sure I quite get what you mean. Can you maybe say what type of animation you want to do that isn’t working for you on the current rig?.

The root bone is part of the HeroTPP skeleton, and is rigged to the pelvis on the CAT rig. It is not directly animate-able. You would only animate the CAT rig. If you wanted to move the whole thing, you can grab the pelvis and feet platforms to move it. But if you just want one bone to do that with instead, you can add that in there, it won’t mess with the HeroTPP skeleton, it’ll still export just fine. Just make sure not to link anything to that skeleton, or link it, to anything else.

Other than that, I’m not sure what it is you want to do, if it’s something else, let me know, I can help you do some changes to the rig if it doesn’t quite work for you.

Thank you for your response Mr Obihb.

I think I was not clear enough on my question.

Okay, I can make the pelvis move on the Blue Man, though my question is related to something else, as ofcourse I won’t be using anything related to Blue Man later.

What I am wondering is, when you create a fresh Catrig, it starts from Pelvis. It does not have an option for a bone that is linked to Pelvis and stays on 0,0,0 as a Root Bone. Is there any way to add a bone to CatRig and declare it as “Root Bone”, so that I can move that new Root Bone and pelvis will follow it? =)

Just create your Catrig and animate it as normal. Then use the “Clip Manager” to transfer it to the Catrig created in this thread and you’ll have the root all working fine 'n dandy :wink:

That would only work for humanoids, I got things to work on such as animals, the main reason I chose Cat Rig for.

I would like to learn if there is a way that I can put root bone, instead of constantly using that specific blue man one he did. ^^

I created a test case for this and though you can do it, in Max you can’t actually use the root to move the CAT rig around, not purely by linking it anyway. So what you can do is create a Dummy, or Point or whatever object, place it on 0,0,0 and then link the pelvis to that object. On export, that will then be the root of your skeleton hierarchy but while in Max, if you move the root, it won’t affect the CAT rig.

So, that’s not a huge problem because you want to affect the root by the pelvis anyway. Pretty much like I have the HeroTPP skeleton set up. So, you’d just have to set that up. It’ll be fairly similar to what I did for the HeroTPP skeleton. I’ll say that I did not do full animation / root motion tests, just a test to see if I can get a root bone out to UE4 via the CAT rig directly. And that test works, so my theory is that when animated correctly, root motion will also work.

EDIT:-

Just to show the successful import…

Mister Obihb I appreciate your time really.

But I hope you forgive me for asking if you can tell me step by step about linking a point to a bone so one can control each other.

I was not successful on doing it before, I most of the time broke CatRig while trying to connect a foreign object to it.

So I would be really greatful about the things you have done to achieve.

Thank you again.

Edit:

I only have little time so I could ask this. I managed to this;

So the dummy is linked to the pelvis. But no matter how much I move the pelvis, dummy doesn’t move. And vice versa. Though real question is, would this matter? Will Dummy(Rootbone) move if I move the pelvis in animation?

Thanks once more. :slight_smile: