Advice on 3D animation request!
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Advice on 3D animation request!
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| Hi all! I'm just starting out in Blitz3d and am currently trying to figure out the best way of getting animated models into a game. Basically I just need some walking anims (and maybe later some kind of fight anims). I've been looking around at the options and feel a bit overwhelmed by all the choices. I would preferably like to export from 3DSMax 6, as opposed to getting another 3d package like Wings or Milkshape. Which format is best (.b3d, md2, etc.). Which deal with UV's best? Any advice would be much appreciated! :) Thanks! |
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| Personally I prevere to use CharacterFX for all animations. It supports Bones with weighted Vertices Skinning and can export B3D without troubles. It has a Keyframe Board that support movement and copy/paste of keys and blocks of keys. It is also cheap. But since you already use MAX6 to animate stuff, you might go an other way. |
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| I like CharacterFX for animating on a low budget but my favorite is Maya, and am working on an exporter to make the workflow from Maya to Blitz3D more effective. For using 3D Studio Max, use B3D Pipeline (look on the Specs and Utils page) to export to b3d file format. B3d is pretty much the best file format to use for animated characters. It supports all of Blitz3D's material/texture features (multiple layers, blending, multiple UV sets, etc.) and supports skeletal animation with blended vertex weights. The only reason to use any other file format would be if you are doing morphing (aka vertex animation,) in which case you'll want to use md2. |
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| Thanks for the posts guys! I downloaded CharacterFX and it seems pretty good (although the documentation leaves something to be desired!). I also got the B3D pipeline and that looks very good too, although it seems to crash max alot (even with the max6 patch...) I think right now, the best approach would be to do it all in max as that's what I know. As for Maya...! That word makes me cringe a little! :) I work for a games company and up until about a month ago we were working with an in-house editor to model everything. They've suddenly switched over to maya and it's been quite an ordeal getting our heads around it! It seems like a very good program, don't get me wrong...it's just so different to everything else! Gonna take some time to "unlearn" everything and get used to all it's "node" goodness! :) Maybe when we finally learn it properly I will get your exporter and will use that instead... ;) |
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