Animate in place like 3ds Max?

[hike1]

Does Softimage have an 'in place' button like Character Studio to anchor the character to 1 spot? I followed Noesis' character animation tutorial, but my guy walks off the screen, no good for Ogre export. You can try him out at http://terrymorgan.net/anim_character_softimage.zip 5MB. Ogre also needs all the animations in 1 file sequentially, haven't been able to figure that out either.

[Mathaeus]

Does Softimage have an 'in place' button like Character Studio to anchor the character to 1 spot? I followed Noesis' character animation tutorial, but my guy walks off the screen, no good for Ogre export. You can try him out at http://terrymorgan.net/anim_character_softimage.zip 5MB. Ogre also needs all the animations in 1 file sequentially, haven't been able to figure that out either.
There isn't a button, but it's easy to do. If you are using default XSI biped, before exporting, just copy animation from UpperBody's Z position to GlobalSRT, then inverse GlobalSRT's Z position fcurve in animation editor. Your biped will walk 'in place'.
For previewing when You animate, you can take the one Right view, then link it's camera global Z position to biped's UpperBody Z position. Click on view menu > camera icon > properties > Global Transform. RMB on Z position > Expression Editor, then type:

MyModel.UpperBody.kine.global.posz

Then apply your expression. 'MyModel' is name of your model, in case You didn't changed Biped's name, that's a just 'Biped'.

In that way, you can preview 'in place' and real walk in the same time, by watching multiple viweports. There are lot of other ways to do the same thing, I just suggesting the one for start.

For all animations in one sequence, You save your animations as actions, then fill the animation mixer with them.

[hike1]

Thanks, Mathaeus.

quote
if you are using default XSI biped
unquote

No, I'm using a Valve Biped, there's no Upper Body or Global SRT but there's probably something
equivalent, only I can't find them. If you DL the link you can look at it.

quote
before exporting
unquote

Do you mean 'before plotting'?

I'm pretty clueless about XSI animating.

[hike1]

Update August 16 2008 Mike of Cryrid.com figured out how to lock the x z axis
Try these steps (some are probably unnecessary, but this is what I did):
- Open the explorer (shortcut 8), middle click on "T-pose", and press delete. I assume this is just the mocap data, which looks like it is no longer needed.
- Expand 'ValveBiped', and double click on the 'hidden distractions' group. The group properties window should appear, change the View Visibility from 'hide members' to 'show members'
- Select Bip01 (it is under ValveBiped). This is what is controlling the translation of the hips, which is the parent of the rest of the skeleton (so if the hips move, the character walks with it).
http://cryrid.com/images/temp/XSI/fcurve_bip01.jpg
- Then with it selected, open the function curves editor (shortcut is 0).
- The character is walking towards the z-axis, so select 'pozz' on the left of the f-curve editor, right click it, and hit 'remove animation'. This will remove all translations that bip01 does in the z-axis, so now the character will just walk in place.

Thanks, Mike! Here's knute walking in place, Mod tool .exp and Ogre .mesh, Neoaxis .type-
http://terrymorgan.net/knute_lock_x_z.zip