3D Studio Max ? ~ Footsteps, controlling Placement & Location

[wwswimming]

i made a set of stairs because i wanted to learn a little more IK (inverse kinematics) in Max.

all the tutorials i had done, you put footsteps down on some neutral plane. all wonderfully interesting and everything, but - what if you want to use this function to make a character climb a parapet to a castle or something ?

biped contemplating stairs
http://www.geocities.com/wwswimming/stairs-biped.jpg

viewed in wireframe mode, footsteps are "hidden", in a manner of speaking. i had wanted to put them on the brick looking stairs.
http://www.geocities.com/wwswimming/footsteps.jpg

there's got to be a secret to do this ! !

any and all help would be appreciated.

thanks !

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

If you're actually trying to animate the biped climbing the stairs with knee bends, the only way I know is to pose the biped by hand and use Auto Key mode to build the animation. There's a tutorial on ladder climbing which is basically the same principle as what you're trying to do. There may be an easier way, but I'm not aware of it.

 

[Injury]

Let me see if I have this right...

-You have a character, and you know how to make them move foward on a single plane.
-You want to know how to make them move along multiple planes, such as stairs.

I use Maya instead of Max, and I haven't done much with IK and stuff, but I'd imagine that if this situation was the same, I would attempt to make a single plane and bend it along the path of the stairs, then apply an invisible texture to it, and put the footsteps on that plane.

 

[wwswimming]

OK, finally figured it out. it's got to be in "footstep mode", with the footstep icon clicked "on".

but, not in a mode where you're creating new footsteps.

anyway, therein lies a chance to select footstep objects and then to move them around.

Max is so cool !!!