My head is gonna xplode!!
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/My head is gonna xplode!!
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| I have been working with 3d for some time now, but this game programming thing is fairly new to me. I do understand how to bone and skin a model in m.shape and max5. Ok, here is the problem... I DON"T WANT TO SKIN A MODEL AND ANIMATE BONES!!!!!! I have read every single post in this forum and many others, and I just can't believe I am the ONLY one that uses the amazing poser 5 and lifeforms studio to create animations. You see, poser can only export a series of 3ds files, and sure, I can load them into an array in b3d creating a "page flipping" type routine to display a crude animation, but can you imagine the ram it would eat to load a nice clean walking animation consisting of 64 3ds models?? I am not about to spend 3 months dinking around in milkshape to animate something that I already have in poser, like a full set of karate moves containing 200 keyed frames of animation - NO WAY!! I have bodystudio which can host a poser fscene in max, but still - no exporter. It seems that you just can't export morph targets into a file format that works in b3d. If anyone out there knows of a way to take an already finished animation consisting of 3ds morph targets of single meshes and convert it into a file that b3d can work with such as a softskin animation file like md2, then PLEASE let me know. I have searched for weeks. Maybe for a simple anim like a sword swing or punch, milkshape modelling with bones is ok, but I use BVH motion capture files consisting of hundreds of frames or more. Yes, I could reproduce this in milkshape, but can you imagine the work involved??!?! months and months. So, once again can someone fill in the blank (step 5).... 1) load a low poly poser figure such as p4lo 2) texture and animate in poser using bvh capture data 3) export te animation to many individual 3ds files 4) use deep-exploration to batch reset the axis 5) **** convert to some blitz format **** 6) animate the file withing blitz The things that could be done in b3d if this were possible would be endless!!! Thanks in advance. Brad http://www.atomiczombie.com |
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| Try .3DS -> .MD2 programs... net is full of them. Here's one link to get you started: http://www.icarusindie.com/devzone/3dstomd2.php http://www.planetquake.com/ Is also a good place to find conversion tools. |
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| Hey thanks Mustang. I already had the quake2 model editor and plugin and it does not do an automated "multiple 3ds file" to md2 conversion. I do feel better to know that someone does understand what I am trying to do here, and this has been the closest thing so far that I have tried. Damn, I just know this MUST be possible! Why would anyone who can create great bvh motion files mess around making jerky/simple animations in milkshape or the like? Not that milkshape isn't a great editor (it sure is!), it just feels like I have the ability to paint a masterpiece (using max5/poser/uvmapper-pro) and I am givin a crayon to achive this! You know all of those animated x and 3ds files people on this forum are so hungry for? Damn, I can whip stuff off like that in 5 minutes with one hand as the other writes code!! If I EVER find a way to simple convert poser exported 3ds meshes to an animated model, I will flood this place with great royalty free models. Cheers. Brad |
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| ...And have you red through this thread?: http://www.blitzbasic.co.nz/bbs/posts.php?topic=9109 |
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| Oh, yes I sure have - many, many times. In fact the more I read it, the more I think many animators are really missing the entire point of poser and programs that do NICE animations. Here is a clip from that thread... It really is much easier than all this guys. 1. create animation set in poser export to BVH 2. import BVH into Milkshape 3. model character and export to MS3D format 4. import into Character FX and attach the mesh to the bones. Now, all of this makes good logic UNTIL number 3 and 4. Now please help me here - WHY WHY WHY WHY would any sane human want to redo what poser already jas done - ANIMATE!!!!!!! I must be having a stupid attack, because do import a figure into milkshape or characterfx means you now have to screw around making a skeleton and attatching the damn mesh to the thing. Then after that tedious task, you still have to play for hours to get the BVH file to work right (if it EVER does). Now why would ANYONE want to do this when the file is already perfectly animated right in poser. If curious labs had actually added a "EXPORT ANIMATED 3DS" oprion, I would have hundreds of animated and textured characters done before ANY expert could even make one simple low poly animation using this other method. The converter I need would build keyframe data from the simgle meshes and save them as b3d or md2 or even 3ds. With all of these great proggies like b3d (the king), dbasic, rad etc, it just melts my mind that this isn't the way it is done ALL THE TIME! No wonder why these freebie animated models are like gold - the amount of effort to make them look ok is amazing. Even poser 2 could put to shame most of these models (even comercial ones) if it had a simple exporter. I will not give up this quest until I can do this. In fact this is THE game to me now - forget the actual game I wanter to code!! To everyone that thinks I'm crazy - get poser, load the low poly model, add some textures with uvmapper, than import some of the many free BVH motion files and see what you get - a great animated mesh. Now cry because all you can do is render it to an AVI file! Later D0gz. Brad |
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| I just know this MUST be possible! Why? I understand exactly what you want but with current technology it isn't possible. At least not easily. You have already mentioned the easiest way to do it. Loading a hundred odd seperate meshes and swapping between them. The converter I need would build keyframe data from the simgle meshes and save them as b3d or md2 or even 3ds That sinply isn't possible. Md2 stores the positions of each vertex so is the best format for what you want. How to turn the frames into an animation I don't know. If curious labs had actually added a "EXPORT ANIMATED 3DS" oprion 3ds does NOT store vertex animation or morph targets so can not do what you want. It can only store solid meshes. The animation in 3ds format is created with simple position, rotation, and scaling of solid objects. B3d does NOT store morph targets or any vertex animation data. That is to say the vertices don't get animated, the bones do (the vertices follow the bones). This means unless you can convert the bvh data into bones data there is no way to use b3d's. You then would need to attach the mesh to the bones and export that to a suitable format... sounds just like the milkshape idea posted above. You do realise bvh doesn't store mesh data don't you? It only has animation data I think you will find that if it was as easy as you are convinced it is then others would have done this long ago. |
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| Damn it, you're right. Just though maybe someone new of a way. I gues it's off to stare at hundreds of points and try to make bonez animation in milkshape. Just sad to see so many great animated bodies in poser (complete with hair bounces and clothing movement) reduced to those oh-so-typical clunky/jerky animations that you end up with out of milkshape and character-fx. Oh, well I give up on this topic now. Maybe someday it will be possible with a good max script. L8Tr. |
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| 3ds does NOT store vertex animation or morph targets so can not do what you want. It can only store solid meshes. The animation in 3ds format is created with simple position, rotation, and scaling of solid objects. Correction. The data for Vertex ownership (which bone controls which vertex) IS present in the 3ds format. So is the rotation data per frame. However the documentation available is very limiting on specifying how to extract this information (but it IS there). I DON"T WANT TO SKIN A MODEL AND ANIMATE BONES!!!!!! So basicly, you want to take poser's premade animation routines and use them as your own (using someone elses work, and claiming its your "masterpiece ")? The rest of us are using CFX and Milkshap and doing our own animations. From the animations I have seen from my modeller, they are nothing close to a "crayon" in detail. I am very amazed with his work. You can use CFX if you want basic IK, and Milkshape has a great way of copying and pasting animations (to move the work along quickly). I have read every single post in this forum and many others, and I just can't believe I am the ONLY one that uses the amazing poser 5 and lifeforms studio to create animations. Did you ever wonder how the "big shot" companies of today achive this? How is it that Halflife mod's get by with everyone using Milkshape? Why hasnt anyone done any better? Why does milkshape work for almost every game in existance? Why you ask? because its a basic tool, with tons of power. The trick is complexity embedded in simplicity. Did you ever sit back and think why poser makes such great animations? well poser and such use very advanced vertex calculations per vertex, per bone, per bone parent, based on rotation limits, and calculating in weighting. Try doing this in real-time, for 15 models, consisting of 1000 polys a piece, each having 18 bones..... Remember, realtime, poser does this in a LOD-ish form in the editor, however when it renders out the finished goods, it takes quite a bit of time to calculate this. 10 frames of animation in poser (rendered quality), takes about 20 sec per every 1000 polys.. Its not quick to do those eyepopping animations. I dont mean to critisize, but some of us have spent a bit longer searching then you on this topic and know you have to really hit ground floor before you waste too much time looking for a solution that never was. Even if you were to convert those animation routines to b3d, they would look no better then my modellers IK animations.. |
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| Dark-Half.... No way would I use someone elses work or premade anims. I am very good at creating custom characters in poser/max and I make my own motion files from scratch in either poser or lifeforms studio. I know milkshape is the standard, and I am not putting it down in any way - I use it a lot myself for simple low-poly work, and am always impressed with what it can do. My models are simply higher poly models, and to work with them in mshape is very time consuming. I am not really doing games that need speed, I am doing interactive 3d work that requires the display of very highpoly models with 30 frames of animation. I have come up with a temp. solution that is working quite well - I just scale the large animation keys into say 30 frames, export individual 3ds files, then import them into an array in b3d - something like this.... dim manwalk(30) for c = 1 to 30 f$="models\manwalk_"+c+".3ds" manwalk(c)=loadmesh(f$) scalemodel manwalk(c),200,200,200 next now, although I thought this would barf b3d (ut sure does to db), it actually does the job. Even with 200 models with 4000 polys, blitz just does the job without a complaint. Anyways, Didn't mean to sound like I thought what others were doing was "silly", just frustrated because I have to learn new technologies to do what I am already good at with other software. Cheers. Later |
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| But what your doing is different to how games do it. |
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| {skim} I believe you can import individual 3ds frames into the model editor from 3D Game Studio (MED) and export those as a MD2 format file. If this is what you want to do maybe get confirmation from an owner/user of 3DGS and look into getting that product. |
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| Hey Mearrin, this could be a real breakthrough! I will be doing some studying into 3DGS soon. Also, I am working on a blitz3d bvh (biovision) motion file reader that will allow you to apply animation to a segmented model right in blitz. Anyone interested? Brad |
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| HEY!!!! IT WORKS!!!!!! IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, you CAN export single 3ds files from max5 or poser and recompile them into an animated md2 model that works smoothly in blitz3d!!!!!!! wahoooooo!!!! For all those that said it can't be done.... pthpttttt... Thanks big time to mearrin69 for his sugestion that the gamestudio modeller could do it, cuz it sure the hell does! Just import one single frame as 3ds, then inport all the other frames as "append frames" and save it as an md2 file (with pcx map). Then you can have a smooth morphing softskin animation in b3d!!!!! No more screwing with bones ans stuff. I am now off to register the 3dgs just for the modeller - blitz is still king when it comes to 3d creation. Anyone need any of their models animated? I have hundreds and hundreds of great motion files. Anyways, thanks again mearrin69 for the idea. This is a major breakthrough in the time it will take to make great animated md2 files. Brad |
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| Hey, glad it worked for you! :) I believe I learned about this using the demo of 3DGS - seems like some animation speeds caused runtime errors in Blitz. I don't remember clearly what the problem was, might have just been the model I created not a problem with MED. If you have any problems maybe try changing the anim speed by a fraction. M |
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| So far it's working just great. I spit out 300 single 3ds meshes from a poser5 animation, then imported all of them into 3dgs and exported the animated md2 file. It played ultra smooth! The only thing I now have to figure out is texturing the md2 - never worked with them before. Can't do it with uvmapper pro or deep exploration. 3dgs modeller can prolly do it, but I will have to dig into it a little more. Something about PCX files? hmmm. Anyways, it sure is nice to have this ability now. I will be making some generic models with a nice assortment of anims for the blitz community as soon as I have the time. Anyone have any special requests for models or anims? Cheer. Brad Ps... Get poser - even P4 (if you are on a budget). You can make and animate models so damn easily with it. http://curiouslabs.com |
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| Hey cool! Although I can see why you want to use the .MD2 format, be sure to know that it is not a format without problems... it's a memory hog for starters, has jiggywiggly vertexes and the lighting can be bit off also for .MD2 models. But it's sure better than nothing or dozens of full .3DS characters in memory! As for anims, I'm sure that ppl would LOVE to have basic action game stuff, like walk, run, jump, shoot, die... well the quake anim list, really! :) And I think that it is the same with models; soldiers, monsters etc would be better IMO than Santa Claus or Fairy (although Dawn looked quite hot...). |
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| Hi Folks, I don't know how different Poser 4 & 5 are, but you can get V3 from certain coverdisks - PC Format had it on recently. [Flame On] But what your doing is different to how games do it Heresy!! How dare you suggest that you want to do something in a different way - we can't have original ideas, that would be wrong! [Flame off] Later, Jes |
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| BioHazard, I've been on holiday so I didn't catch this post until today (Sunday). I know you have found a way via MED but this just may be of interest to you. Now don't hit me or anything okay...? There is a Blitz BVH loader which was released a year or so ago, let me go and look for it... Yes I have found it, you will need the supporting includes too. I'll e-mail the lot to you in zip format. Hope this helps a bit. regards, IPete2. |
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| Bio, I just tried to e-mail you and I got an autoresponder saying that you'll never get to see it - is that a joke or real? How do I get this stuff to you? IPete2. |
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| Doh! Sorry IPete2, that is an old email. My current one is brad@... thanks, look forward to seeing that code! Brad |
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| Bio, It is on its way IPete2. |
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| I was working with milkshape, characterfx to convert to b3d I downloaded the 3d gamestudio demo and i use as you tell. Now i would like to know how do i use textures and if any chance to convert de md2 to b3d. Thanks EOS |
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| how does the texture work for the md2 file created from 3d gamestudio and poser? Please i need help |
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| No you can't convert MD2 to B3d. MD2 is animated frame by frame, vertex by vertex. B3d only supports proper skeletal animation. I know someone wanted to write a convertor a while back, but I can't imagine how it could produce even halfway passable results, and I think he gave up. |
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| You cannot convert MD2 to B3D because MD2 is using Vertex Animation and B3D is using a Bones System. For the Textures: When you have some luck then the md2 already has UV Mapping. Load it in Lithunwrap 1.3 and save the UV Template as Bitmap. |
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| I tried to import in Lithunwrap 1.3 but it didn't work There is no map |
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| Then you should do this with the first one of your 3DS Frame Files, map it in Lithunwrap and save the Texture Template. Hopefully that MED Import Function will use the UV Set of the First 3DS Frame. Worst case would be when ever Frame needs to be mapped. |
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| PLEASE HELP!!! Does anybody solve the texture problem?????? Thanks |
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