Footsteps Mode Not Selectable?

[delfinopie]

For a University assignment I have to animate a character. I've rigged the character with a biped and applied physique and it is perfectly animatable now. However, one of the marking criteria for me to pass is to demonstrate a use of 'Footsteps', this is where the problem comes in.

I am unable to select footsteps mode for some reason, and that reason is beyond me. The icon appears grayed out and even when not selected the legs of my biped seem to have white, bounding box-like lines around them. I'm not sure what I've done (I'm still somewhat a noob to this software and am still learning) any suggestions are welcome as I have tried contacting my lecturers but to no avail.

All replies greatly appreciated, cheers.

Delfino.

[e321]

A little more info might help figure this out. Check to see if you activated the motion mixer, or if you added a layer and aren't in the base layer.

If neither of these checks out...need more info to help you out. - Working with the biped and footsteps should be this easy -

1. create a biped
2. select the main bip under the motion panel select footstep mode.
3. create multiple footsteps.
4. create keys for inactivate footsteps.
5. deselect footsteps mode.
6. play animation.
7. reselect main bip.
8. select footsteps mode.
9. (you probably want to deactivate all the footsteps before editing them, then set keys for inactive footsteps other wise your biped is going to do some interesting things) edit footsteps - go back to step 4.

if you just follow that in your class you will be fine.

[delfinopie]

Cheers.

I've checked both of the things you told me to. I haven't activated the motion mixer and there are no other layers. There is a model of the skin and a biped attached to it with physique.

Screenshot

As you can see nothing is selected in this picture yet the legs have a bounding-box like outline around them for some reason and footsteps is greyed-out. If there are any particular areas that you think I should look at in references to getting footsteps mode to become active again, let me know and I'll get a screenshot of it so you can see if there is a problem with any of it.

[e321]

Hey again, I belive you did one of two things or both.

1. Loading a .bip motion file and copying it to the biped in the motion mixer. When you do this - you are no longer using footsteps.

2. You hit a little button that looks a great deal like browser refresh in the biped rollout panel - its a popup dialogue that says convert to footsteps - this is supposed to be used in conjunction with footsteps for creating freeform animations however if you hit the button that says convert to keyframes footsteps no longer work.

Basically once you create motion data you can still use footsteps so long as you didn't collapse the animation data (ie. setting keys on every frame.)

The strange white bounding boxes you have on your biped is showing you keys for motion data.

I do not know that there is a way to undo what has happend...once there is motion data of any kind on a biped it doesn't do footsteps anymore so far as I know.

[delfinopie]

Ah okey dokey then, cheers for the help

It's very much appreciated.