





MorphMagic
The Plug-In Shape Animation System for 3D Studio MAX




MorphMagic and this manual are copyrighted, Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc., 1997.  "Billy" is copyrighted, GlyphX, Inc. 1997.   Reproduction of the software, digital information, accompanying 3D models, or of this manual, in any form, for any purpose, by any method is forbidden.  All Rights Reserved.

Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc. makes no warranties, expressed or implied, regarding the usage, functionality, or implied operability of these materials and makes such materials available solely on an "as-is" basis.

In no event shall Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc. be liable to anyone with respect to any liability, damage caused, or loss, directly or indirectly, by this software, including but not limited to, any interruptions of service, anticipated profits, loss of business, or any other consequential damages resulting from the use of or operation of this software.  The sole and exclusive liability to Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc., regardless of the form of action, shall not exceed the purchase price of the materials described herein.

Trademarks:
MorphMagic is a trademark of Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc.
3D Studio MAX is a trademark of Autodesk, Inc.
Microsoft is a registered trademark, and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

			     Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE :  GETTING STARTED	
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS	
INSTALLATION	
BETA INSTALLATION	
PRODUCT SUPPORT	
CHAPTER TWO : OVERVIEW	
INTRODUCTION	
MORPH FUNDAMENTALS	
CHAPTER THREE :  QUICK GUIDE	
MORPHMAGIC QUICK-GUIDE CHART	
CHAPTER FOUR :  REFERENCE	
MORPHMAGIC MODIFIER	
APPLYING THE MODIFIER	

DROP DOWN MENU: PARAMETER SETTINGS	
RELATIVE / ABSOLUTE MORPH TOGGLE BUTTON	
LOCAL / VERTEX COORDINATE SYSTEM TOGGLE BUTTON	
OVERRIDE LIMITS TOGGLE BUTTON	
GENERATE MORPHMAGIC MATERIAL BUTTON	
CREATE KEYS FOR ALL CHANNELS	
NUMBER OF CHANNELS	
CURRENT PAGE	
CHANNEL SLOTS	

DROP DOWN MENU: CHANNEL SETTINGS	
PICK TARGET BUTTON	
NEW COMPOUND CHANNEL BUTTON	
DELETE SELECTED TARGET FROM LIST BUTTON	
DELETE ACTIVE CHANNEL BUTTON	
MORPH SELECTED VERTICES BUTTON	

PROGRESSIVE MORPH DESCRIPTION	
PROGRESSION	
SMOOTHING	
TARGET MATERIAL ID #	

MULTI-BLEND MATERIALS	
TRACK VIEW EDITING	


Chapter One  :  Getting Started
 Acknowledgments

MorphMagic was programmed by Sandeep Shekar, Lead Programmer for Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc.  Program design by Sandeep Shekar and Kelly Michels of Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc., and Todd Sheridan of GlyphX Inc.  Documentation was written by Kelly Michels and Raymond Lueders of Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc. and Todd Sheridan of GlyphX Inc.  Program marketing and distribution by Carolyn St. James and Raymond Lueders of Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc.  The Billy character model was designed and produced by Todd Sheridan.  Our thanks go out to the Yost Group and Kinetix for designing a 3D Studio MAX with such an open architecture.
 System Requirements

MorphMagic requires 3D Studio MAX 1.2 and Windows NT 4.0.
 Installation (not all versions of MM come with an installation program)

MorphMagic ships with an installation program called install.exe (this installation program may not be available for beta versions).  If NT is already running, close any Window applications before continuing with the installation process.  To install MorphMagic, insert the floppy disk or CD-ROM in the computer's floppy or CD-ROM drive.  Click on the "start" button on the task bar and then select Run (you can also accomplish this on older versions of NT by using the Program Manager and choosing File/Run).  Browse the floppy disk or CD-ROM for the file install.exe or enter the following to start the installation procedure:

d:install.exe

Substitute another drive letter for d if your floppy disk or CD-ROM drive is mapped to another drive.  Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation procedure.  Once the installation procedure is complete, launch 3D Studio MAX.  The plug-in file will appear in your object modifier selection list.  You may want to add it to your object modifier panel by clicking on the "more. . ." button, selecting the modifier, and adding it to a slot in your modifier panel.
 Installing MM without an installation program

Copy the plug-in files to the plug-in directory of MAX (usually either 3DSMAX/plugins or 3DSMAX/stdplugs).
 Product Support

Platinum Pictures will provide technical support for MorphMagic via multiple resources.  A FAQ webpage will be available 24 hours a day on the World Wide Web at "http://www.3dcafe.com/mm/faq.htm."  In addition, you can email your questions to our technical support department at the following email address: platinum@baraboo.com or reach us by voice at 608.355.1097.



Chapter Two  
: Overview
 Introduction

Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc., is pleased to announce MorphMagic, a new shape animation plug-in for 3D Studio MAX.  Platinum Pictures sponsors the online web site 3D Cafe (http://www.3dcafe.com), a repository for three-dimensional models, textures, fonts, software, and services for the animation industry. We thank you for purchasing MorphMagic, and look forward to seeing it put to use in your creative animation projects.

This plug-in has been designed as a tool to assist MAX users in doing complex facial, hand, and other shape animation.  It puts creative shape control directly in your hands, and allows you to control your animation to a greater extent than what is possible with standard modifiers, linked xforms, or bone systems.  It has also been designed to operate in conjunction with Character Studio, so that you can do both full-body motion with Character Studio, and complex facial animation and hand animation with MorphMagic.

This manual will describe the process of using MorphMagic, discuss methods for creating convincing facial animation, and take you through step-by-step exercises using a special character "Billy" which is included on your disk for convenience in learning the tools.  We have also included tutorials on hand animation, and using expression controllers with MorphMagic to maintain a finer level of control over your motion.

Please honor our efforts to bring this product to you at a very low price by not giving illegal copies of the plug-in to other persons.  We ask that you encourage others to purchase it if you become aware of illegal usage.
 Morph Fundamentals

Weighted channel morph animation has been around for a long time, and is a popular method for doing character facial animation and other specialized shape animation.  It has especially been prevalent in most high-end animation packages on the SGI platform.  MorphMagic now brings this ability to the 3D Studio MAX environment, and is one of the last remaining necessary components for doing exceptional character animation.  It has been designed to work with Character Studio, which specializes in full-body motion, but isn't well suited for doing facial animation.  You will now be able to create characters that can not only move around, but also communicate both with accurate speech and convincing expression.  

3D Studio MAX has built-in linear morphing that allows you to morph from one shape to another in a linear fashion.  However, you can only have two shapes, which is a severe limitation.  MorphMagic allows you to load up to one hundred different shapes into a channel control menu, and then morph between any number of those shapes at any ratio, or "weight."  This is why it is called weighted channel morphing.  You can overshoot by using negative values or values greater than 100% to amplify the distortion of your objects. You can also limit the effects of the morph to certain areas of your individual objects by first making a selection of vertices in individual targets using the edit mesh modifier.

In addition to weighted channel shape animation, MorphMagic also includes a second animation method called "progressive morphing."  This allows you to morph through a progressive series of shapes, and is useful for simulating complex bone animation such as finger movement and other forms of sweeping or progressive motion.
 
The key limitation with morphing technology is that all of the shapes must have exactly the same number of vertices.  This usually means that you will design your model first, and then make copies that you will modify to create what are called "targets."  For example, once you have a head created, you will make various copies, and modify each one to depict a certain shape to represent such things as phonetic mouth forms like "a" "th" "o" "m" or expressions like happiness, fear, anger, and surprise.  Once your targets have been created, you will apply a MorphMagic modifier to the base object, add each subsequent target to the channel list, and then start animating speech, expression, and motion in record time.  Animations that took days to do using bone systems, linked xforms, and basic modifiers will take only a few hours.

Chapter Three  :  Quick Guide

MorphMagic needs a base object, to which you apply the  MorphMagic modifier from the object modifier menu.  If the buttons are not visible, then you must either click the "more..." button to select them from the scrolling list, or click the "configure button sets" to add them to your button list of modifiers.  The modifier is called MorphMagic.

1. 	With the channel list open, set how many channels you wish to use.  There are ten pages with ten channels on each page, for a total of 100 target channels.

2. 	If any of your targets have specific regions that you want to use, disregarding the rest of the object, then you must first perform an edit mesh and select the vertices that you want to be used in the object(s).  MorphMagic will disregard the other vertices when making the morph calculations.  You must turn on the "morph selected vertices" toggle button to activate the option.  If you have vertices selected, but don't have the "morph selected vertices" button turned on, then MorphMagic will use the whole object.  Usually you will not need to select vertices, and can skip to the next step.

3. 	You then load the individual targets into channels.  You accomplish this by clicking on the "Pick Target" button, and either selecting the target object in a view window, or hitting the "h" key and selecting by object name from the "Select Object" dialogue box.  The object name for each picked target will appear in the target list window.  Enter a name in each channel field that best describes what that channel does.  MorphMagic will display either none (no targets loaded) or unnamed if you have target(s) loaded but haven't given the channel a description yet.

4.  At this point you can begin setting key frames by turning on the animate button, going to a desired frame, and changing the weighted values by either dragging the sliders, or typing in a specific value.  Keep in mind that keyframes generate animation curves in the Track View Editor, and that each channel has its own editable curve.  The default curve is a smooth curve, but it can be edited to be linear, bezier, ease in/out, etc.  Sometimes the default smooth curve can cause unexpected visual results when setting keyframes, and it is recommended that you become familiar with the Track View and use it for controlling the animation in detail.

IMPORTANT: For facial animation where each channel has a single target, the progression value is set to 100 and the face is animated with the channel sliders.  For a hand or other progressive animation, the channel value is set at 100, and the progression slider is used to animate.

5.  For any targets that don't quite reach the full extent of a desired expression, you can change the min & max values in the channel settings dialogue for that channel, or you can increase the percentage by turning on the override button.  This will allow you to overshoot your targets, thus amplifying the effect (if over 100) or reversing the effect (if below 0).  WARNING:  Once the Override Limits button is active and values are set, turning Override off forces any values over or under the min / max limits to return to their min / max settings, which by default is min 0 and max 100. 

6.  If you blend various channels to create a new shape that you want to use regularly, you can activate an unused or empty channel and create a new compound target of that shape by hitting the "create compound target" button.  MorphMagic will make a copy of the shape in it's current form, place it as a new morph target in the currently active channel, and you can then animate that shape using a single slider rather than having to blend a complex mix of multiple channels every time.

7.  You can make bump and material maps animatable automatically over time according to morph target values by first hitting the "Generate MorphMagic Material" button, making sub-object materials in the multi-blend material, and then assigning each target a material id corresponding to the appropriate material # in the material editor.

 



 MorphMagic Quick-Guide Chart


Chapter Four  
:  Reference
 MorphMagic Modifier
 Applying the Modifier
You must apply the MorphMagic modifier to a base or neutral morph target.  This target is a reference object from which all of the morph calculations are made.  How you design your base target in relation to the morph targets will determine how good the animation looks.  The MorphMagic modifier exists in the modifier stack as do other modifiers.  It can be applied on top of other modifiers, and exist underneath following modifiers.  For example, you can use edit mesh on your object, apply a smoothing group, and apply UVW coordinates before the MorphMagic modifier, and then apply a meshsmooth modifier AFTER MorphMagic to increase the resolution of your model once the morphing has taken place.
 Drop Down Menu: Parameter Settings
The "parameter settings" drop down menu contains the global shape controls, and is where you animate the individual channels' weighted morph values.  From here you control whether the shape animation is relative or absolute, what coordinate system the animation will reference, whether the user can override the default values, and whether the animation will be using animatable synched materials.
 Relative / Absolute Morph Toggle Button



Each morph target acts as a displacement from the original base object (to which you applied the MorphMagic modifier).  That displacement can be either relative or absolute.  Relative morphing only uses the vertices that were modified from the original, and ignores the other vertices in the calculations.  Absolute morphing uses all the vertices in all the targets when making calculations.

Say, for instance, your base object has its mouth closed.  And you have one target with its mouth open, and a second one with the mouth closed.  With relative morphing, dragging the values to 100% for both targets would give you a resulting mesh with its mouth open.  This is because the second target had its mouth closed just like the base object did, so those vertices weren't calculated.  With absolute morphing, the mouth would be halfway open, because it would be calculating both the open and closed targets equally since it uses all vertices in both targets.

The default is Relative Morph.  To change it to Absolute, click the toggle button.
 Local / Vertex Coordinate System Toggle Button

	

When calculating the transformations between morph targets, MorphMagic needs a point of reference.  By default, it uses the object's coordinate system.  If you create a base object, and then use copies of that object to make your targets, the default system will work fine. If, however, you import objects from another package to use as morph targets, or your coordinate system gets changed, then your object may shift around as you blend between channels.   

In that case, you have the option of realigning the coordinate system.  You do this by applying an edit mesh modifier to the base object (before the MorphMagic modifier in the stack) and select a vertex that you want to use as your coordinate system reference.  Generally you want to select a vertex that does not change position in any of the targets.

You may also use this feature to make your objects deform in unexpected ways by selecting a vertex that does change position between targets.  This would cause the changing point to stay stationary, and the rest of the object to deform around it.
 Override Limits Toggle Button

	

By default, you can blend each target from 0 to 100.  If you set just the open mouth channel to 100, then the final shape would look just like the open mouth target.  But, if you wanted to open the mouth just a little more than you did when creating the morph target, you could turn on the override limits button, and go up to 110 to open it a little wider.  MorphMagic just projects the vertices along the trajectory they were traveling (between the base object and the target object) beyond the final target's values.  You can use values up to 400.

There will also be instances where using a negative value would be useful.  If you have a channel target where the eyebrows are dropped lower to make an angry expression, you could turn on override limits, and animate the channel to a negative value, which would raise the eyebrows instead of lowering them.  Planned usage of Override limits into your target design process could decrease the total number of morph targets required.


 Generate MorphMagic Material Button 	

Figure 1 - Generate MorphMagic Material Dialog Box

MorphMagic has a new material type called MorphMagic Multi-Blend.  It is like a combination of the default MAX "multi-subobject" and "blend" materials.  It allows you to create materials specific to individual morph targets, and then blend between the material types as you animate using MorphMagic.  The materials are linked to the targets and blended according to how the targets are blended in MorphMagic.  This allows you to control the material blending directly from MorphMagic as you animate.

Because the Multi-Blend material type is specific only to MorphMagic, you can't create it directly from the Material Editor.  You must click the "generate new MorphMagic material" button in the MorphMagic interface.  This brings up the dialog box that lets you choose which slot in the material editor the new MorphMagic material will be created in.  The dialog box shows you the material name currently in the selected material slot.  Select which slot you wish to use and hit the "OK" button.



 Create Keys For All Channels

When animating, it is sometimes useful to be able to set keys for all of the channels, whether they have been changed or not.  This button inserts keys for all channels at the current frame.  For instance, when beginning a new animation, you often will want to have every channel have a key set with no values.  This way you have a default frame with all the values at zero, and it will prevent your initial function curves from doing unexpected things.





 Number of Channels

You can set the active number of channels in the MorphMagic modifier by dragging the slider up and down, or by typing a value in the field.  This will control how many tracks are inserted into the track editor, as well as how many channels are functional in the modifier window.


 Current Page

MorphMagic has up to 100 channels, broken down into 10 pages with 10 channels each page.  You drag the slider, or enter a value in the field, to change page numbers.


 Channel Slots

The color of the first button in the channel slots row denotes it's current state.  If the button is green (selected), then it is the currently active channel.  All of the properties in the Channel Settings dialog are updated to reflect the settings for that channel.  If the button is red, then the channel has been designated (with Number of Channels) as an animatable channel, but it is not currently the active channel.  You can activate any of the red channels by clicking the button.  It will turn green to show that it is now the active channel.  If the button is gray, it means that it is not set as a channel to be animated.  To make a gray channel usable, turn up the Number of Channels.

Each enabled channel can be animated whether it is selected (green) or not (red).  However, access to the progression slider to animate progressive morphs is restricted to the currently active channel.
 Drop Down Menu: Channel Settings
The Channel Settings drop-down menu is where you control each individual channel.  It is here that you pick targets and load them into the target list for the currently active channel, set up progressive morph animations, create new compound targets, delete individual targets and entire channels,  and activate selected vertex limitations for each channel.  It is also where you set weighted morph minimum and maximum limits and assign material id numbers to individual targets.


 Pick Target Button   

When you want to enter a target into a channel, you click on the "Pick Target" button and then either select the object in a view window, or hit the "h" key which will bring up a "Select Objects" dialogue box listing of any scene objects available as morph targets.  When using the "h" key it will list valid target objects regardless of whether or not they are hidden.  Once the object has been selected, it will insert the object's name in the target list of the currently active channel.  You must click the "Pick Target" button for each time you want to add a target to the list. 


Figure 2 - Object Properties Window
Because morphing technology requires that each target have the same number of vertices, only objects that have the same vertex count as the base object will be selectable when picking in the view screen.  And when using the "h" key to bring up the "Select Objects" dialogue box, only valid objects will be visible.

To find out what the vertex count is on your objects, just select them individually, right-click your mouse, and select properties.  This will bring up the object properties dialog box as seen in figure 2.
 
 New Compound Channel Button


Sometimes, when doing weighted blends between various targets, you find combinations that look so good that you want to use them frequently.  Perhaps blending four targets together makes a facial expression that you wouldn't have thought of making yourself, but you wish you had.  The New Compound Channel button allows you to take a snapshot of any shape you, and insert it into another channel as a new morph target. Then you can just drag one slider to make the facial expression, rather than re-mixing the four original channels each time you want to use it.


 Delete Selected Target from List Button   

This button removes individual morph targets from the target list of the active channel.  You must first select the target in the list, and then hit the delete target button.


 Delete Active Channel Button    

This button removes all information from the active channel, including all morph targets, keys, channel name, slider values.


 Morph Selected Vertices Button   

Sometimes you will want to isolate certain vertices of your targets so that only they are calculated in the morph function.  You can do this by applying an edit mesh modifier to your object before you load it in your channel and selecting the vertices you want to use.  If there are vertices selected in the object, you can activate the "Morph Selected Vertices" button, and MorphMagic will make vertex motion exclusive to just those vertices.

For example, if you created a morph target of the eyes closed shut (for animated blinking), but later realized that you wanted to control the eye blinks separately (for animated winking).  Rather than making a new target for each eye closing, you could make a duplicate copy of the one with both eyes closed.  You would then select the vertices of the left eye on one target, and the vertices of the right eye on the other.  Then, after loading each target into it's own channel, you would activate the "Morph Selected Vertices" button for those two channels.  When animating each eye channel, it will only use the vertices you have selected, even though both targets have both eyes closed.  Then you could animate each eye separately.



Min / Max Channel Limits

Each channel has Minimum and Maximum morph values.  These values control the range of shape morphing to your liking.  The default Minimum value is zero, which means the slider won't let you go below zero.   The default Maximum value is 100, which means the slider won't let you go above 100% of the morph target's value.  You can change either of these to be any value from -9999 to 9999.  If, for instance, you have a smile morph target, you can set the Min value to -50, you will be able to drag your slider down to make your smile target a partial frown target.   If you want your smile to be able to go a little bit beyond what you specified in the morph target, you can set your Max value to 150 and make the smile exaggerated.  MorphMagic simply calculates the vectors along which the vertices are traveling (from the base object to the current target) and projects them both in a negative direction and past their target position.

While it is possible to just leave the Min / Max values at their default and use the Override Limits button to reach negative and over 100 values, it can be more difficult to use because the sliders can reach numbers that will distort your model with undesirable results.  By using the Min / Max value settings to set exactly what you want the limits to be for each channel, you will have better control.
 Progressive Morph Description

The concept behind progressive morphing is different from regular weighted morphing in that there is only one slider (the progression slider) to animate through a series of targets, rather than a set of channels each with their own sliders. You set up a sequence of morph targets, load them in order into the target list of a single channel, and then morph through them sequentially with the progression slider.  This is helpful for doing things like hand movement.

Figure 3 - Progressive Morph Setup with two targets

Morphing hasn't been useful for this sort of motion in the past because most morph systems do linear transitions between two targets.  MorphMagic has a unique morphing system in that it will interpolate a curved motion between the morph targets in a progressive sequence.

If you look at your hand from the side, and bend your fingers, you notice that they follow an arc motion.  If you were to morph between a "hand open" pose and a "hand fisted" pose in most morph packages, the transition would be ugly because the linear transition would cause the fingers to condense and collapse in on themselves as the vertices followed a direct path to the fist target.

With MorphMagic, you use the "Pick Target" button to assign at least two morph target objects to the active channel's target list.  With a finger motion, for example you could have a "fingers extended" object for the base object (to which you apply the MorphMagic modifier), a "fingers halfway bent" object for the first target, and "fingers clenched" for the second target in the channel (see Figure 3).  Then at a progression point of 0, the fingers would be extended, and as you dragged the slider it would morph sequentially through the fingers halfway bent target, and end up finally at the finger clenched target.  You can control the amount of arc motion in the progression as well but changing the smoothing amount.  This way you can get either a straight line progression (value 0.0), smooth curve progression (value 0.4), or exaggerated curve progression (value 1.0)


 Progression

This controls the actual morph animation.  The slider limit is based on the number of targets you have loaded into the target list for the active channel.  Each channel adds 100 to the total Progression value.  If, for instance, you have two targets in the index finger channel (index halfway closed & index closed), the maximum progression value will be set at 200 (2 x 100).  That way, the slider will always animate at the expected rate, and you will always know where you are at in the morph progression by looking at the progression value.  If you are at 100 in the progression, then you are exactly at the second morph target.  If you are at 150, your are halfway between morph target 1 and morph target 2.

 Smoothing

As you progress through a sequence of morph targets, you use smoothing to control the type of curve in the progression.  The vertices will follow a straight line between targets if you set smoothness at zero.  They will follow a gradual smooth arc if the value is set between 25 and 50.  They will follow an exaggerated arc, often distorting the object, if you set it above 50.  This parameter is animatable, allowing you to change the curve type over time.


 Target Material ID #

	Each target in the target list can have a Target Material ID number assigned to it.  This number correlates with the Material Slot Number in a currently assigned MorphMagic Multi-Blend material.  To assign a Material ID number,  just click on the target object name in the target list.  It will become highlighted.  Then either drag the slider or enter a value for the desired ID number in the value field.  When that target is used in morphing, it's associated (linked) material will blend with the other weighted morph targets assigned materials.

 
 Multi-Blend Materials


After you have generated a new MorphMagic Multi-Blend material from the MorphMagic interface, you can open the Materials Editor to design the materials to be used in your animation.  Selecting the material slot that the MorphMagic material is in (you choose which slot to put it in when you hit the Generate MorphMagic Material button), will bring up the interface for the material.  The interface looks similar to the Multi-SubObject material that comes with MAX.  It also functions in a similar fashion, except that these materials are automatically blended in sync with the morph values of your morph targets.

When making the materials for your object, you will generally create an initial map with the main characteristics you want, and then copy that into the other material holders.  You will then make modifications to the copies, assuring that the maps are generally the same, with only the changes necessary to get the effect you want. The map, for the base morph target, or your base map, will always be in material holder number Zero.  That is the material that is used as reference for calculating all the material blends, just like the base target object is used as a reference for calculating all the physical morphs.
Animated diffuse color maps and bump maps are the two things that you will use most frequently with MorphMagic materials.  Making animated color maps will let you do things like blush your characters face whenever he blows out (color blend), or wrinkle his forehead when his eyebrows lift (bump blend), or raise tendons on his hand when the fingers extend (also bump blend.)

Once your materials are set up in each material holder, you must apply the MorphMagic material to your base morph target.  Then you must go into the MorphMagic modifier and assign Material ID Numbers for each target that correspond with their appropriate material number from the Material Editor.  Any target that doesn't have a specific material for it will use Material ID Number Zero. You can tell whether your map has been assigned to your object by the little white triangle indicators around the edges of the rendered sample image in the material slot.

Note:  When using bump blends, make sure that all of the bump map value settings are equal or you will get negative bumping effects.   For instance, if the bump for one finger tendon is at a lower value than the others, the bump map will force a tendon depression in the skin at certain points.  If you want tendons to have different bump heights, then you need to decrease the values for those pixels in the image maps that you want to have less bump.

Refer to the Creating Compound Target Blends Tutorial for a step-by-step exercise in making MorphMagic materials function properly with compound channels.

 Track View Editing

When animating with MorphMagic it will be essential that you have a good working knowledge of the Track View editor.  Animating your shape values with function curves rather than just using the MorphMagic sliders can save you a lot of time, especially if screen draw times for your shaded model are slow.  We recommend you take the time to read the following chapters in the 3D Studio MAX manuals:

Volume 2, Chapter 29: Basic Track View Use
Volume 2, Chapter 30: Key, Range, and Time Editing
Volume 2, Chapter 31: Function Curve and Trajectory Editing
Tutorials, Chapter 12: Curves and Controllers.

(c) 1997 Platinum Pictures Multimedia, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.





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