3d model animations
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/3d model animations
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| How do people without access to expensive motion capture equiptment animate things properly? Im going to start making an MMORPG soon and will be needing a lot of models creating, im obviously going to have to get my head round creating 3d models myself but i just cant fathom how you could get a realistic motion without motion capture. does anyone know of a good source for animations that can be applied to models. Also if anyone is interested in joining up maybe to help create this soon to be masterpiece let me know. The game will be an isometric (although 3d) game a little bit similar to ultima online, although it will work how i think UO should have worked etc. If i can find resources on the net for the models/ animations i will be prepared to buy *some* the types of things i need initially are: human male with walking and running animations human female with walking and running animations horse (mountable by human) cow sheep wolf i figure that to begin with they would suffice for wild life. then monsters... Giant wasp giant spider troll well, basically anything and everything for monsters |
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| It's real hard Work, don't underestimate it. For the Animations I would suggest to use CharacterFX. Once familar with it you can produce things like Walk or Run in one or two hours. Modeling of Characters is even harder. Texturing as well. You better try to find some cheap Model Packages. Products like "Military essentials" from binary people or the "DarkMatter" CD from amazon uk are useful. Some Items can be found on the web, but most stuff is copyright protected or simply has way too high polycount. Try this: http://www.3dlinks.com/objects_free.cfm and http://www.3dlinks.com/objects_commercial.cfm |
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| Don't use expensive motion capture. Use cheap motion capture. Pull out your digital camera and photograph your subject in varying positions. Then use these photos as reference backgrounds while you arrange your model. MilkShape3D has this capability. I don't know about any others. |
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| Actually some animators categorically refuse to use motion capture because they think it lacks style (I think you'll find, for example, that Pixar doesn't use motion capture at all). For game animation it's quite possible to reuse animation sequences with a bunch of characters that have similar geometry (so, for example, your orc, elf, goblin, human, demon, etc. can all use more-or-less the same animations). Note that mid-high end tools such as 3D Studio Max provide tools for reusing animations and character rigs pretty conveniently; with CharacterFX you pretty much need to start over from scratch with each character. |
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| I agree , is a real challnge. You really need an experineced character animator to tackle this. Walk cycles and run cycles are probably the hardest things to pull off in animation. Its not too hard to do simple robotic one, but to make it look stylish/natural is another matter. |
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| yeah i figured as much... I dont think i would have to much problem getting to grips with 3d model making because im pretty technically minded and artistic but the animation just evades me, trouble is im a perfectionist so i cant immagine being able to settle for crappy looking animation. I do remember attempting my first 3d model and making a pretty ok humanoid shape until i realised it was 2 dimentional! oh well, are there places you can buy animation code from and just use it using your own skeletal structures? i dont even know what im talking about... |
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| If you are looking for good reference to learn from, you can download all of the ut2003 animations. they are very well done. pretty hefty download though.If you want i can dig out the link, though its probably on epics site somewhere. This is a good link to tuts on the technical aspects of animation walk cycles amongst other stuff http://www.spicycricket.com/SCA/hello.html |
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| thanks, will do.. |
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| How do people without access to expensive motion capture equiptment animate things properly? Talent. In most cases you can get pretty lifelike animation. Mocap is only essential when you need a certain specific motion that cannot be faked such as authentic martial arts moves or sports. |
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| Like Rob said Talent and most important of all Experiance. From my understanding while going to school to create 3D game content most of the instructors say the motion capture isn't even used very often. Most companies that create good 3D animations such as pixar, have artist who understand and have experiance in using the basic principals of good old 2D animation. Then they transfer that knowledge into 3D animations. This is evident when comparing a movie such as ToyStory to Finding Nemo. Motion capture is usually only good if you're doing a some sort of athletic game where you don't really have to exagerate the movement. Or if you have a really good actor who knows how to experess themselves very well. But typically if you are doing something that is fictional or even sometimes non fictional you want to exagerate most of the charcters movements and gestures to communicate clearly with the viewer what is going. What I would recommend takeing a look at a couple of books such as: - Cartoon Animation, By: Preston Blair Great book for startup animators such as myself. Teaches basic concepts to traditional animation which still apply to 3D animation - Humans in Motion and Animals in Motion, by E. Muybridge Contains live photos of humans and animals doing normal motions such as walking, running, and jumping. Could be used as an alternate to motion capture - The Animator's Workbook by Tony White Another good book if you're starting out with animation by teaching 2D principals - The Illusion of Life An amazing book by Disney animators on the concepts of how Disney animates their picture. A must have if you're serious about animating. I would look for these books at a local Libary to see which one suits your needs. Another option would be to buy them used. Ask most proffesional 2D and 3D animators and most would tell you that it's essential to learn the 2D aspects of animating before going on to 3D. But if your short on time and need to get those models done I would recommed Searching the web or stopping by a Bookstore like Barnes & Nobel to check out there computer section. There look for books on animating in 3D and those should be pretty helpfull too. |
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