The Character Studio
Modeling, Texturing and Animating low-poly Lara Croft

- a tutorial for n00bies (well..., not really ;)) -

Hey there

Welcome to the final part of the Lara Croft Tutorial. In this part we will try to get some movement in our model. So lets start.

1. Load your textured Lara-model.

2. Select the model, right-click on it and select "freeze selection" and the quad-menu. Your model should now be gray, and you cannot select it anymore. That's very good, as we are going to create a biped-object which we will place exactly over the Lara-model. Freezing the object, makes it easier to scale the biped as you cannot select any wrong things.

3. Now go to "create", "systems", and select "biped" (first pic below). In your front viewport, draw the biped. Start at the feets from your Lara, hold down the leftmouse-button and stop at her head. Try to get the same size as your Lara has, as it is easier lateron. (you wont have to scale so much). When done your viewport should show something like the second pic below (I have not freezed the Lara-object, that is why it is colored.)

4. Ok. Next step is to select the Object Bip01. Therefore: Click the "select by name" button (first pic), select the Bip01 and click ok. When done go to "motion" and activate "figure mode" (3rd pic).

Hint: Everytime you want to move the biped object, you have to select the bip01, as it is the Core of the biped!!!

5. The figure mode allows you to modify the biped-object. That is necessary as the biped must fit our Lara-model perfect!! So we have to move the farious object till they are in the right position. In the next few steps I explain just a few buttons and how to use them. Then you should be able the modify the biped without further instructions.

6. Befor we start modifying the biped, scroll down to the structure-settings and change the toes-value to 1. (pic below)

7. With the Bip01-object selected, move the Biped so that it is placed over the Lara-Model. (Hard to explain, just look at the 2 screenshots, first: befor movement, second after movement ;) ) (figure-mode must be activated!! - step 4)

8. As we created our Lara from bottom to top, we will do so with the biped object. Therefore : Select the left-biped-foot (first pic below), now change to your front viewport and move it, so that it is exactly over the Lara-mesh (from now on: LM for the Lara-Object and LB for the Biped object) After that, you have to do the same with her right foot. Look at the second pic below to see the final result.

9. Do the same with her arms.

10. Now just scale, move and rotate the LB till it fits the LM perfect!!!

Hint: Befor you scale her left foot, press the "symmetrical" button (pic below), so the right foot is selected too, and will be scaled, like the left. That is very important for the animation lateron (we do not want that our Lara has a big and a small foot ;) ), so always press the symmetrical-button befor scaling!! (btw. Use non-unifor-scaling to get the best results

11. When you have scaled, moved rotated everything you should get a result like shown below. (You have to do that perfect!!!!! So take your time!!!!!)

12. When done, right-click somewhere in your front-viewport and select "unfreeze all". Now you should be able to select your LM again. Do so, and add the animation-modifier PHYSIQUE to the stack (first pic below, btw: you should have an "edit-mesh" modifier between unwrapUVW and Physique, so dont make a head about you did anything wrong, just look at the end of part 2 ;) ). Click the "attach to node" button (second pic below), now click the select by name button (3^rd pic below) and select Bip01 and press "pick". In the pop-up menu just click "Initialize".

13. Very good. The LB is now linked to the LM. Thats all. You did it !!!. Nooooooo!!!!! Now the real problems start ;)

14. Save your project (that is very important now!!, Save your project after every step now, and always with an other name!!) Select the object "Bip01 R Hand" (by pressing the button shown in the 3rd pic above). Change to your front viewport and move it around. The hand from the LM should follow your commands. Very good. Problem is that there might be some vertices which also move, but which should not move!! Look at the 2 pics below to understand what I am talking about ;)

15. The 2 points which are marked red in the second pic above are connected to the wrong "bone". ...???... Remember in step 12 you pressed the Initialize button. By doing that 3dsmax tried to link every vertex to a bone. As 3dsmax doesnot know which vertex belongs to which "bone", it just takes the nearest. Befor going further in the tutorial, click the "back"-button so that the "Bip01 R Hand" -object is on his original position or load the Lara-model from step 14 (where I told you to save)

16. You can check which vertex is connected to which "bone" by selecting LM and opening the sub-object menu from the Physique modifier and select "envelope". (1^st pic below). You should now see yellow lines which represents the "bones". Select the one from the right hand (second pic below). You can now see a colored envelope which includes all the vertices which are effected by this particular "bone".

17. As you can see, the envelope is too big. It also effects the weapon holster (It might be, that in your particular case, the envelope fits the hand perfect. If so, please read the following steps as well, as you have to check every "bone")

18. Now select scale, and re-size the envelope from the right hand so that the weapon holster is not effected anymore. (3^rd pic above). Check and resize (if necessary) every "bone". Be aware, that her pony-tail is not assigned to any "bone". We will handle that problem later on. At the end all vertices, except the ones from the hair, should be connected to the right "bone" (take your time ;) )

19. Her pony-tail: Here I am just going to explain the easiest, but most unrealistical solution ;) Change to vertex-mode (first pic below). Select-button must be activated. select all vertices which represents her pony-tail (second pic below), find the "assign to link" button, and click it. (3^rd pic below). Now click on the bone which represents her head. All the selected vertices should now be RED. If not. The vertices which are not red are still connected to an other bone. You have to check again the envelope in this region!! (Step 16,...perhaps some vertices are still effected by her "ass-bone", her "bag-bone",...)

Hint: There also exists the possibility to scroll down in the biped structure-settings and change the ponytail1 value from 0 to 5. You would even get a better result. The reason why I explained with the "assign to link" possibility is, that I wanted to show you a few more buttons. You can use the "assign to link" button with every vertex. For example when you get to the limits with scaling the envelope you can just select the vertex wich is applied to the wrong "bone" and assign it to the right link.

20. Save your model again. Now play around with the biped-model, and look if the LM follows the LB movements in the right way. Move her hands, her feet, you can move them to some unrealistical positions, we just do that, to check the links between bones and vertices.

21. When done, our Lara is ready for some motion. There are lots of buttons to play around with, ... but that would be too much to explain in this tutorial. The goal just was, to create a character, texture it, and apply some physiques. Perhaps I will do a tutorial for intermediate-users which explains more about crowds, motion-flow, shared motion flow,..

22. Well, in the first part I promised to do a short animation. For that: select the object Bip01 (you know how ;) ...select by name,.... ) Activate "motion", and click on "foot-step-mode" (first pic below). Click on "load file" second pic and load a .bip file which should be stored in one of the 3dsmax/cstudio/tutorial/tutorial_1 to 9 . If you cannot find a .bip file you have a problem ;) Try to find some .bip files on the internet or where-ever. For my animation I choose the Backkick.bip When loaded your Lara should change her position. (3rd pic below)

23. Click the "select by name" button. In the pop-up-menu select "select subtree" (1^st pic below), select bip01 (all bip-objects should now be selected, if not, you can select them by hand), press the crtl-button and click on the bip01-object again. Now all your bip-objects should be selected, only the bip01 must be de-selected. (and the lara-model ;) ). Press the select-button. Back in your viewport, right-click on one of the selected bip-objects and select "hide by selection". The bip-objects should be hided and you can only see the Lara-model. Thats it.

24. When you want to load an other .bip file, just click on the bip01 (thats the reason why we didnt hide it ;) ) and redo step 22.

25. Congratulations, you have successfully animated your Lara-model.

26. Here you can download my model (without texture maps ;) )

27. If you recognize that your model still have some problems, just select the bip01, activate the "figure-mode" (you Lara should be in her original position (the one you modeled in the first part)). Then select the LM and activate envelope again, and try to find the error.

So: Figure-mode: you can work on the physiques, Footstep-mode: You can work on the animation.

If you want to play the animation, you must not be in figure-mode!!

28. It's now up to you to place some lights, a camera, and create a good looking environement. And please post some of your works on the forum. I am really nosy. Oh, and also if you have questions, just use the forum.