animating?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/animating?
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| hi, im new to blitz3d! first i would just like to say hi to all those well known blitz ppl, they know who they are! and thanks especially to mark sibly for a great 3dengine! it is a joy to use. :) anyway, on to my newbie question. is there a code example of how to load a "softskin" directx model and animate it? or something like that? a vertex animation code? thx. |
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| Blitz can only handle .x formats, version 7. Boned animations weren't part of dx 7. To animate a model in blitz, simply load it in, using one of the accepted formats, then use the animate command. :o) |
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| ok, thx Ross C. by "softskin" though i meant something like the dolphin example of "blend meshes" not a skin & bones dx8 file. btw, can anyone tell me... is the md2 format like a skin & bones file? or is it more like a "blend meshes" file? it seems to be a single mesh model. and is there some kind of license on using the md2 file format like with bsp? thx. |
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| Md2 models record the vertex positions of the mesh for frames of animation. They don't use bones. Is that what you mean by "Blend meshes"? MD2's have draw backs though. Their movement is jerky and they take up alot more memory space. the jerky movement is cause by vertex positions only being able to be integer numbers. So, to some up, .MD2's = non boned animations, they record the vertex positions for each frame. .bd3's are boned animations. The only boned format that blitz supports i believe, but the bone transformations are done via software, as directX 7 doesn't support this being done by the hardware. |
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| by "blend meshes" i mean like birdie's dolphin example uses, using straight-forward vertex positions to animate from, like you say md2 uses. i am actually only looking for a code piece using a vertex-based frame-by-frame method of animating, to save a bit of time. :) i want to load "animation files" with all their "frame data" meshes once at loadtime, then during runtime load single meshes to then use the relevant frame data file to animate with. i don't actually want to "blend/interpolate" between the frames, only to "set" them. thx. |
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| "blending meshes" = morphing... MD2 might be the easiest way to do that in Blitz - if the polycount isn't very high. MD2 models/animations have also slightly wobbly vertex positions and bit funky lighting at times, all because of the limitations the format has (not because Blitz is doing something wrong). |
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| yes md2 might be the easiest way, in some cases, but not mine since i already have all the models made in x format without bones, and so could not be easily converted to md2. besides this way uses less memory. anyway, thx for the info. i will set about learning how to code now! :) |
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| You might want to check out milkshape. I know it imports .x and i know it exports .md2. I don't know however if the conversion is any good. Try asking in the "Content Creation Tools" forum :o) |
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