Animation help!

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Animation help!

Regular K

(Posted 2004) [#1]

Im messing around with the B3D demo to see how easy it is and evalute it if I should buy it (I do have B+)

Im having problems animating a model. I did check it with CountChildren and it returned 5! That does sound about right.

Whats wrong?

AppTitle "Blitz3D"
Graphics3D 640,480,32,2
SetBuffer BackBuffer()

Global Camera=CreateCamera()
PositionEntity Camera,5,5,20
RotateEntity Camera,0,180,0

Global MP40=LoadAnimMesh("mp40.3ds")
PositionEntity MP40,0,0,0
RotateEntity MP40,270,0,0
Animate MP40,1,1,3

Global Light=CreateLight()

While Not KeyHit(1)
UpdateWorld
RenderWorld
Wend
End

RiverRatt

(Posted 2004) [#2]

try "Animate MP40" and leave the default paramiters, or
Animate MP40,1,1.

CodeOrc

(Posted 2004) [#3]

I too have had problems animating .3ds files. So, as a result of having no hair left from pulling it all out, I downloaded and istalled the B3D MAX Pipeline.

I don't know if you have MAX or access to it, but the B3D Pipline really is worth a great deal.

I believe someone even told me that B3D will not use .3ds animation...I very well could be wrong though.

jfk EO-11110

(Posted 2004) [#4]

Whenever you want to access children of an animated mesh, make sure to parse the whole hierarchy RECURSIVELY. Because your top parent handle may have 5 Children (eg. upper arms and legs and neck), but the also have further children (head, lower arms, legs) and so on. wait a minute, I posted aome code some time ago, gotta search...

jfk EO-11110

(Posted 2004) [#5]

ok:

create your collection of recursive entity commands for animated meshes:


Function EntityAnimColor(m,r,g,b)
 If EntityClass$(m)="Mesh"
  EntityColor m,r,g,b
 Endif
 For i=1 to CountChildren(m)
  ww=GetChild(m,i)
  EntityAnimColor(ww,r,g,b)
 Next
End Function
or
Function EntityAnimAlpha(m,a#)
 If EntityClass$(m)="Mesh"
  EntityAlpha m,a#
 Endif
 For i=1 to CountChildren(m)
  ww=GetChild(m,i)
  EntityAnimAlpha(ww,a#)
 Next
End Function

EntityClass$() is used to prevent trying to EntityAlpha eg. Bones, that wouldn't work.

Using a global counter variable in a recursive function call using CountChildren will give you the total number of children.

BTW FindChild can search for child names across all generations of a hierarchy.

jfk EO-11110

(Posted 2004) [#6]

Again me, seems like I misunderstood your question, however, may be useful anyway.

Regular K

(Posted 2004) [#7]

thanks for the help

does milkshape support exporting to .x model formats though?

simonh

(Posted 2004) [#8]

Yes, Milkshape exports to most formats including .x and .b3d. Blitz3D can't use DX8 (i.e. boned animation) files though - best use the B3D format for that.