.b3d format - animation and texturing on-the-fly

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/.b3d format - animation and texturing on-the-fly

puki(Posted 2005) [#1]
I am continuing my extraction of the Neverwinter Nights master character model - it has 142 separate animations split into 4 main models. For example, the 'non-combat' model has 39 animations.

I am using Ultimate Unwrap to export the animations - shame there is no BATCH option to do this. UU loads the animations from each of the 4 master models separatley and I save them to individual .b3d files - so I am going to have 142 .b3d files. However, that is per character - if I have 20 characters then I will have 2,840 files. I will also have all of the textures for the characters.

I am wondering if you can change a .b3d texture on the fly? The .B3D model format holds the texture names - can you edit that while the model is in your game? So, could I change the face or torso texture, etc on a model by simply somehow editing the texture path (realtime)?

Hope that makes sense. I just think it would be very handy to be able to do that.


Beaker(Posted 2005) [#2]
Why don't you leave all the animations in one file and use ExtractAnimSeq() to get at them?

You can texture on the fly in BB3D, just use EntityTexture or PaintSurface. No problem.


puki(Posted 2005) [#3]
Well, they are currently in 4 main files, but UU loads them in one at a time (it asks me which animation to load individually) - I don't know how to load a whole group in at a time. However, I don't mind having them separate (at the moment).

The thing about texturing on-the-fly is being able to create new characters on-the-fly. For example, I took Bioware's pirate model and created lots of new ones purley by changing the face on it - but the source model is exactly the same. So, what I am thinking is I can create hundreds of characters out of just one base model, simply by altering the textures, as I can change the clothes separately too.

The base model is 684 polygons/601 vertices and 24 bones. The fact that it has bones means I can animate on-the-fly too.

This is chuffing great - it's like having my own AAA modelling/animation/texturing team.

EDIT:
Actually, the vertices change depending on animation so they can be a lot lower than 601.


octothorpe(Posted 2005) [#4]
This is chuffing great - it's like having my own AAA modelling/animation/texturing team.


Hahaha, that's awesome! Any chance you can hook me up with the .b3ds when you're finished? I'd love to have some professionally animated models to play around with.

I do own NWN, so it won't be any more illegal for me to have them. ;)


maximo(Posted 2005) [#5]
>Hahaha, that's awesome! Any chance you can hook me up with the .b3ds when you're finished?

if he do that it would be illigal since he has no permission to do so, if he sent files to you and you sent them to someone else and it spread like that soon someone could possible come and sue poor puki ;)


John Blackledge(Posted 2005) [#6]
Yeah puki, do you have any rights to mess with Neverwinter Nights media?


puki(Posted 2005) [#7]
I do it all the time - I lift models out of loads of commercial games - I take graphics/sound/models/music/AI scripts - whatever I can get really.

I got gigabytes of the stuff on various computers. I don't distribute it, I just use it for my own stuff.

I don't know much about modelling and graphics or doing music.