looping CAF animations

[vmonkey]

I am working with the stock avatar .MAX file and animating the bones in character studio. Is there anyway I can make a loop more precise? When I load the converted CAF files in vizard the looping animations often have little jerks in them because some of the rotations and positions of joints are a little off as I am currently doing it by eye.

[farshizzo]

Hi,

You need to make sure your beginning and ending frame are identical. I don't have much experience with Character Studio, but I found the following description on this site: http://www.blitzgames.com/gameon/advice_walkcycle.htm

When you are happy with your pose, copy all the key frames to the end frame of your time segment (Max users select all bones and right-click and drag the time slider bar from the start frame to the end frame and release. Click OK in the dialogue box that pops up.)

Let me know if this works

[vmonkey]

Hello I tried what you recommended but I get this error
Skel_center:
this operation is not possible because it results in illegal timing
some restrictions are:
keys on the same track overlap or pass one another
no keys before the first or after the last footstep
no keys in negative frames

[arne02]

I've been looking into the error message and it seems to happen only when I have "footsteps" applied to a biped. The other issues of overlapping keys dosen't seem to be happening in 3ds max 6 or 7. Check to see if your animation is using "footsteps" and look in the "character studio user reference" menu about editing or extending "footsteps". "Footsteps" in 3ds Max are a kind of overiding animation in that if they are used in an animation they affect all keyframes added later. For more specific information on bipeds and footsteps check out:
http://support.discreet.com/webboard/wbpx.dll/~3dsmax
I hope this helps. A