The Product

Character studio 4 is the latest version of Discreet's character animation software for 3D Studio MAX 5. The entire point of this software is to allow you to easily create realistic character animation, crowds, etc in 3D Studio MAX.

I never really used the older version of character studio all that much so reviewing this software was a new experience for me. I thought the learning curve was going to be very high, and I was right, but once I got used to it I found it very easy to use. The key to learning character studio is to do all of the tutorials you can get your hands on.

What's New

Because I wasn't a big user of old version of character studio I didn't really know what was new in version 4, so here is a list of some of the major new features...

Quaternion Function Curves
Animate characters with an easy to read function curve system that eliminates difficulties associated with traditional gimbal lock.

Nonlinear Animation Mixer
Character studio 4 offers a constraint based animation mixer that provides you with the flexibility to blend motion files smoothly, a great way to make the most out of existing motion libraries or blend motion capture and keyframed elements.

Saving 3ds MAX IK/Bones Into .BIP Files
Now you can load and save MAX IK animations along with the biped file, keeping all animation data in a central location and making character management much easier.

3ds MAX Controllers
The powerful controller subsystem available in 3ds MAX software is now able to drive character motion on the biped system as well. Add nervous twitches to rickety old bones, or blend random algorithms into character motions for even more lifelike actions.

Biped Props
Biped has added three systemic prop objects that can be animated like 3ds MAX objects, allowing the animation to switch an object's point of origin, such as juggling objects or switching a weapon from one hand to the other. Prop objects can also be animated across coordinate systems - for example, placing a prop down in a scene and then picking it up again with a different character.

What Else

If you do any sort or character animation work you have probably tried character studio. Even if you had a hard time learning an earlier version you will want to take a look at the new version 4 software, I was surprised at how easy it was to just play around and figure things out.

Some of the more advanced features weren't as easy to figure out by playing around, the crowd control features are one example that required the instruction book. Speaking of the book, it does come loaded with tons of tutorials to get you up and running on all major aspects of characters studio 4.

By flipping through the book I was able to quickly make all kinds of cool character animations. There are tons of things I never would have thought of trying, like animating an alligator by using a properly posed biped. Or using the new props features to make your character easily pickup a briefcase, swing a bat, etc.

The CD even comes with a bunch of preset movements that you can use to apply to your characters, you can even mix and match the movements to create one long animation of your character running to a ladder, climbing it, and diving off. You get the idea. These preset movements are a huge help when getting started, and hopefully Discreet will offer more and more movements as time goes on. Expect to see plenty on this site very soon.

Conclusion

Character studio has come a long way since it started, and even with my limited experience with the product I can say this is one I would be out buying without a second thought. Before trying character studio 4 I never really had much interest in animation, much less character animation, but now I plan to learn even more about it so expect some character studio 4 tutorials on this site very soon.

While I don't have a single complaint about this product, I would like to see more tutorials made (even though the book does come with a ton) and would like the learning curve to be reduced. I did find most features very intuitive, but others were not. This could be due to the extreme complexity of what the software does and is very possible it can't get too much easier than this, but we can always hope for it.

Download HF:
CD1:
Cd2: