celshading outlines that animate with boned anims?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/celshading outlines that animate with boned anims?
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| i'm making a game that's based on a cartoon (homestar runner in fact) and i'd like to know how to make those black outlines that animate. i can already make the outline with a little inflatemesh kind of function, and it looks fine -- as long as the character doesn't run. the outline does not move. i know why -- it's a completely separate mesh, and of course it won't move. but since it's a boned animation, i can't simply make parts of the outline children of the original mesh. so i was wondering if anyone's solved this. |
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| hmm if you do CopyMesh to get the black outline mesh and then extrude it based on the normals direction, you'll have a good black outline with animation data. Then if you parent the outline mesh to the character entity, it will animate with the parent. |
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| I know of at least one easy way to create black outlines for skeletal animated characters, but this is done on the art end of things (ie. it's not a function to add black outlines to any old model at runtime.) You create the black, inflated, flipped outline mesh manually (using something like the Fatboy tool in Milkshape) and animate that along with the mesh. |
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| jhocking -- i was wondering if i could make it part of the model, and since the model is in fact made in milkshape, that might be an option :) jedive -- CopyMesh does not copy the animation data, but CopyEntity does. but if you modify the mesh created by CopyEntity it modifies the original mesh too, which is not what you want. i've tried a few things, including trying to take a snapshot of the animation with copyentity, then using copymesh, but the copymesh step always uses the base mesh -- which is just standing there, not running. i'll try making it part of the model :) |
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| making it part of the model gives mixed results. it animates nicely and looks good for the most part, but there are problems in some of the more complex areas (in particular around the mouth and the hat). also it's kind of a pain to have to do this for all the models; it'd be nice to just be able to use a function in BB. i've also been looking into a MorphMesh function, kind of like in the birdie/dolphin demo, but like i said before, i can't take "snapshots' of the animation in either BB or in milkshape. hmm. |
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| AH! (sorry to be posting 3 times in a row but...) i solved it quite simply. instead of copying anything, i just loaded the outline mesh separately -- and now i just have to animate the 2 meshes. all i have to do is make a type that holds the 2 mesh pointers (and some other info if i want) and some wrapper functions, and it'll work just fine! thanks for your help guys :) you got me thinking about stuff, anyway. |
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| "sorry to be posting 3 times in a row" You could've used the "Edit" button to make additions (marking it ADDITION: so we can tell) to one post but whatever. |
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| i could've, but i didn't. so live with it ;) |
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| Do it on the art end, makes everything easy! |
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| here's what i've got: LoadCelMesh LoadCelAnimMesh LoadCelAnimSeq AnimateCel and the celobject type. it's very easy to use and looks great. |
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