There are a number of predefined models, skeletons, and animation to get you going with Softimage. If nothing else, use these to understand how things are set up in Softimage and to play with some of the many animation tools available.
Predefined Characters, Skeletons, and Envelopes
To get you started quickly on creating your own characters, load the predefined characters, skeletons, and envelopes. In this way you can quickly create a cast of characters that all share the same topology, making it easy to share animation later.
To load characters
• Choose Get > Primitive > Character from any toolbar, then choose any of the characters you want.
These include several bipeds of different sizes and with different setups, a head rig, a face maker, a man maker, a dog, and an elephant.
All characters are rigged and tagged appropriately to be used with MOTOR (see Softimage® Motor (Motion Transformation) for Characters).
To load the skeletons
• Choose Get > Primitive > Model from any toolbar, then choose any of the Skeletons you want.
There are male and female skeletons of different levels of complexities, with controls for various degrees of freedom, such as facial nulls.
To cover the skeletons, you can load predefined envelopes made of low-resolution polygon mesh models.
To load the envelope models
• Choose Get > Primitive > Model > Body Man or Woman from any toolbar.
These models can be used “as is” for subdivision, enveloping, and other animation, or they can be used as a starting point for modeling your own characters.
The bodies are implemented as models. For more information about working with models in general, see Models [ Data Management ].
In addition to the predefined skeletons, and in some cases based on, there are some characters with animation ready for you to use in sample scenes that are installed with Softimage (check the Data folder of the installation).
You can get going quickly on facial animation by loading a predefined low-resolution polygon mesh head (male or female) using one of the Get > Primitive > Model > Face commands, or choose Get > Primitive > Character > Face Maker. This makes it easy to create any number of different faces with the same topology, which makes it easy to copy shape keys between them.
When you choose either of these commands, the Face Maker property editor opens, allowing you to control the proportions of various parts of the face, such as the eyes, cheeks, mouth, ears, eyes, etc.
For more information, see Getting a Head Start on Facial Animation [ Shape Animation ].
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5