Creating Character Rigs for UDK using CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) in 3dsMax2011

FritzTHECAT · Jan 2011

Hi all!

I've just completed a set of tutorials covering the creation of a character rig using CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) for use as a SkeletalMesh in UDK.

This set of videos takes you thru the entire workflow of creating a rig for a custom character, skinning, animating, and getting it into UDK as a functioning skeletal mesh. Its broken into 5 parts:

1-Creating a character rig in 3dsMax2011 using the CAT toolset
[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT706MRgDNg[/ame]
2-Skinning the character in Max
[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCRbjzXfNTw[/ame]

coming soon (new video every Friday)-
3-Making a walkCycle animation using CATMotion
4-Exporting the Character and Animations to the Unreal3 Game Engine (UDK)
5-Creating a Skeletal Mesh in the Unreal3 Game Engine (UDK)

the first two are uploaded and ready to view now, and the following will be uploaded shortly.

They can be viewed either at my site:
www.fritzstudio.com

or at youtube directly:
www.youtube.com/user/fritzstudio

Enjoy!

bilbana · Jan 2011

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing it in UDK. Was just about to start fiddling with this myself so I appreciate the tutorial.

Ihazard · Jan 2011

I was just looking at starting using UDK instead of source last night, this is a big help on characters, can't you just release it all now

I neeeed it, but thanks for posting this, they're great

SpeCter · Jan 2011

Is 3dsmax 2011 really needed or is 2010 enough, because i hate 2011 to be honest

FritzTHECAT · Jan 2011

new videos are up. This set covers CATMotion, and the various ways you can use it to animate a character's walk cycle.

[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8agdANKcTM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

and partB:
[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o__xLnrAjqM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

enjoy!

LateWhiteRabbit · Jan 2011

SpeCter wrote: »

Is 3dsmax 2011 really needed or is 2010 enough, because i hate 2011 to be honest

You can get the CAT animation system as a plug-in for 2010, but it is fully integrated in 2011.

Why do you hate 2011? I just upgraded to it a couple of weeks ago and I love it. The new Slate material editor annoyed the crap out of me, but the old material editor is still there and once I told Max to use it instead of the new one (which is as simple as clicking-holding on the Material icon on the toolbar) I am happy as can be.

Thanks for doing these tutorials FritzTHECAT. There are several tutorials for getting a custom character into UDK, but few that go into as much thorough detail as this, and practically none that cover using a custom rig. Building a character around Unreal's rig just is not cutting it for me anymore.

Mezz · Jan 2011

Awesome tutorials!! Thanks a lot for posting this!

SpeCter · Jan 2011

I like the ols style Dialogs more than this Slider thing which pops up on extrude etc.

FritzTHECAT · Jan 2011

SpeCter wrote: »

I like the ols style Dialogs more than this Slider thing which pops up on extrude etc.

I fully agree with you on that one. I hate those little dialogues, always seem to obstruct what i am looking at, and being transparent doesnt read in many situations.

I wonder if theres an ini switch or something to bring back the old dialogues.

e-freak · Feb 2011

First Video is missing the end where you started to rig the head. Really like your explanation style and the pace of the video. Awesome and thanks for sharing!

FritzTHECAT · Feb 2011

First Video is missing the end where you started to rig the head

There are 2 parts to the first video, due to Youtube's 15 minute limit. PartB covers rigging the head.

monster · Feb 2011

Great videos man. I've always wanted to use CAT, but just haven't had a good time to start.

ASHOOR · Feb 2011

Thanks my friend great lessons Earning
I hope to professionalize the UDK
I wait for the rest of the lessons

bilbana · Feb 2011

Yeah, great work on the videos.
Have you ever had the problem with CAT corrupting save files.
I tried it last week and every save iteration I made with the CAT rig in it was corrupt.
I tried resetting max, create the CAT node, save and that alone was enough to corrupt my save file.
I read on some forums people having the same problem but could not find a solution.
However the next day I decided to give it one last chance and since then it's been fine.
No more corrupt files, it doesn't even crash which seems pretty amazing to me considering the complexity of the system.

Ihazard · Feb 2011

I thought there was a new video every friday ;_;

FritzTHECAT · Feb 2011

Ihazard wrote: »

I thought there was a new video every friday ;_;

you are correct, this week it came a bit late.

[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moFg0JiufE4[/ame]

Mark Dygert · Feb 2011

Awesome stuff! Thanks for taking the time to do these, they're really helpful. I've played around with CAT mostly the prebuilt rigs but never took the time to figure out how to built one from scratch. The whole setup workflow is pretty similar to PuppetShop, but with some subtle differences when you get to interacting with the rig.

I'll have to play around with CAT a bit more to get as comfortable as I am with Biped/PuppetShop. but it seems pretty straight forward. The CAT documentation is a lot nicer than the puppetshop voiceless videos... man that was a bitch to learn.

Anywho, thanks for taking the time to do these, they're great!

leslievdb · Feb 2011

omg this is awesome, i was looking for a clear tutorial on this subject
so just saying thanks i guess

ru4it · Feb 2011

where were these during the pre-dom war??
Thanks for these videos. they are awesome!!

Japhir · Feb 2011

You weren't back in two seconds

. haha.

Great video's! So this stuff is an actual feature of 3dsmax 2011? Not a plugin? :O. Nice!

Mark Dygert · Feb 2011

Japhir wrote: »

Great video's! So this stuff is an actual feature of 3dsmax 2011? Not a plugin? :O. Nice!

Yep Autodesk got a hold of it when they bought Softimage, they quickly released it as a plug-in to people on 2010 subscription and then fully integrated and released it with 3dsmax 2011.

Vinterdragen · Feb 2011

Thanks man!, Share Share Share!

ASHOOR · Feb 2011

thanks you my frined
I wait for the rest of the lessons

FritzTHECAT · Feb 2011

On the last video: After going thru it all again in preparation for making the video on getting your character running around in UDK, I kept finding myself going.. this isnt really teaching anything other than "replace the existing Jazz Jackrabbit character that is in their sample file", which is counter to the "starting from scratch" vibe I wanted to create. I'm planning on putting together something, perhaps a blog post with images, on the steps to replace that character with your own just so i dont leave people hanging. but if you are hanging.. theres your first step.. replace Jazz

On another note, I'd like to hear if anyone has suggestions for other topics that you might like to see? Max, Zbrush, and UDK are the main tools used here.

and thanks a ton to everyone for all their super positive feedback, its very much appreciated!

ASHOOR · Feb 2011

Thank you my friend, I will try that, and If problems happened to me I tell you
But I would like you to work a lesson on how to insert and change weapons ( ex. ak47) and sniper inside the udk and change the shape of the target marks during the correction, if possible
Thank you
Sorry about the mistakes of writing English

mennekke · Feb 2011

Great Tutorials!!!! These helped me out a lot!!!

Thanks

Creating Character Rigs for UDK using CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) in 3dsMax2011

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