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Creating Freeform Animations

character studio gives you the option to animate character poses with and without the aid of footsteps.

In Freeform mode (without footsteps), you can pose every joint of your character exactly as you like using traditional keyframe methods. You can even blend dynamically between forward kinematics and inverse kinematics to introduce higher-level control.

Retargeting Freeform Motion

One of the more powerful features of Biped is the ability to retarget or map the motion of any biped onto any other biped. If you map the motion of a biped without a tail onto a biped with a tail, default tail motion for the biped with a tail will be computed. Default motion will also be computed when mapping the motion of a biped with fewer links in the legs, spine, or neck onto a biped with more links in the legs, spine, or neck. There are a few ways of performing motion mapping. You can:

Go into Figure mode and change the structure of your biped. When you exit Figure mode, the new structure of the biped will adapt to the existing animation.
Save a .bip or .stp file from one biped, and load it onto another biped of a totally different structure and size.

IK Constraints and Pivots for Freeform and Footstep Animations

Freeform and Footstep animation use identical IK constraints and a system of pivots on the hands and feet. In both methods of animating the biped you set IK constraints and select pivots for the hands and feet using tools in the IK Key Info rollouts. IK constraints allow you to place a hand or foot into world space, biped space, or in the coordinate space of another object in the scene.

Pivots are used in Freeform and Footstep animations

Join to Previous IK Key

You can set an IK parameter that links a hand or foot to the previous IK key. This allows you rotate a hand or foot in the coordinate space of the previous IK key, which is useful when your keyframing a walking motion for example. There are three set key buttons in the IK Key Info rollout to simplify setting IK constraints.