Animated models with LW
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Animated models with LW
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| I wonder if someone could talk me through this? The tools I have at my disposal are Lightwave and Ultimate Unwrap3D. My aim is to get either a .x or .b3d model into a Blitz3d game, and have that model animated. This may or may not include mesh deformation (ie bones). What are my options here? I can get a .x model in no problem, saving out a Lightwave LWO, loading into UU3D, unwrapping and saving as b3d. How do I get the 'animated' part? |
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| Lightwave animation is handled in the .LWS scene file. As far as I am aware, UU3D will not handle the animation bit. Workflow suggestions: 1: Model in Lightwave 2: Unwrap in either Lightwave or UU3D. 3: Texture with Tattoo (and perhaps touch up textures with 2D Paint package) 4: Animate in LightWave (you might want to swap step 3 / 4 Around) 5: Export to .B3D using either the Exporter or Convertor listed on the 'Specs and Utils' Link at the top of this page. |
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| Ah, right, so the Exporters actually take the Lightwave scene file? So how does that work specifically? Could I make two seperate objects in LW, then put them together in a scene file and animate them? Do I make the bones (skelegons) in modeler then move them round in Layout and export that using the exporter? Thanks for your help, by the way. |
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| From the convertor docs (just a clip, not full docs!): General: LightWave Models are unusual in the sense that they, like the package they come from, are split into a static model with layers (.LWO) and an animation file (.LWS). More bizzare is that the model is a binary file and animation is an ASCII one! In either convertor, if you select a .LWO (Model File), you will get a .B3D of the same name in the same directory. Since you selected only the model, there will be no animation, just a static model. Conversely if you select a .LWS, the .B3D it creates from the animation data in the .LWS and the .LWO it references, will contain the animation which was present in the Scene. The .LWO (Model) reader is (virtually) the same for both modules and there is a certain amount of flexibility in the kinds of effects you can achieve and can be imported. Surfaces: You can use as many surfaces as you like, but if these use images for the textures there are a few things that should be kept in mind. * Base Colors blend with textures, so if you don't want colour taint, then use white as the base color. * Textures need of the UV projection type, and have an associated UV Vertex Map. (Cubic, Planar etc. types are not supported unless they are a VMAP) * Specularity equates to the Shininess in Blitz. * The Reflection property of the surface will make one or more of the surface's layers become a Spherical Reflection Map. The ranges are: 0 - No Reflection Mapping 0.1-50% = First Texture Layer is Reflection Mapped. 51-99% = Second Texture Layer is Reflection Mapped. 100% = Both Layers are Reflection Mapped. * Color and/or Luminosity Maps are used for the layers of the surface. * Transparency equates to the Surface Alpha * Smoothing is now handled internally by the convertors and any baked Normals will be ignored (so it's best not to bake them in the first place 8D). Make sure all points are merged (welded) where possible, since only welded points can be smoothed across. * Vertex Colors are supported as are Vertex Alpha (although I don't think Blitz does Vertex Alpha yet). * Double Sided flag also works on a per-Surface basis. On the Texture Map screen, the Blending Mode will allow you to create Additive and Multiplicative effects on your surfaces (for glows and shadows etc..) Normal - er.. Normal Add - Glows Multiply - Shadows Alpha - Alpha embedded Texture ________________________________ KeyFrames: **Important Note** Internally LightWave uses rather complicated Function Curves to make sure your animation runs smoothly. So with just a few keyframes, you can get a nice animation going. It should be noted that Blitz uses simple Keyframed animation with 'basic' interpolation. It is therefore wise to liberally scatter Keyframes in your animation, since these are all the convertor has to go on. It would also make sense to put a keyframe at all referenced animation points. ________________________________ Lastly on General Principles, all models need to be Trippled (Triagulated) before attempting conversion. *****DeformConv***** DeformConv make several assumptions as to what you are trying to do... It is assumed that you are making a single layer (although multi-surface) model to be deformed by bones which can either be from a Skelegon Layer (You must keep the Model in layer 1 and the Skelegons (if any) in layer 2) or simply Layout created Bones. Keep in Mind: * Deform does not understand more than one layer of model. * It does not understand Nulls, so don't add any. * Use your bones to move and manipulate the mesh. * Weight maps should be 100% and 'Weight Map only' (Until Blitz supports Blended Weighting) |
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| I can only talk for my LW convertor really, As it stands, you can either use skelegons (in a separate layer) or setup the bones in layout and then animate. When using the convertor, you would have both the .LWO and .LWS file together and select the .LWS file. The animated .B3D file with then be saved in the same dir. You should only have one .LWO and .LWS at one time. Loading multiple .LWOs will only confuse it. As for Tom's exporter, I'm not sure. There are detailed instructions in his package, but the prcedure is a little more involved. |
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| Thanks fella, I've not been able to download it yet. |
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| Okay, just one more question. I've just been examining the Blitz3D animation commands, and I can't figure out what to do in a situation where I want to trigger different animations for a character. ie A running animation followed by a death animation. Do I need seperate b3d's to house different animations of the same model? |
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