.b3d mesh animation

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/.b3d mesh animation

Ben(t) (Posted 2008) [#1]

I have milkshape and ive exported a soldier that has a running animation, how can I make his head and arms move where I want while he is animating?

Matty (Posted 2008) [#2]

After the updateworld command, but before renderworld, you can perform rotations / translations / scaling on the bones and it should work. Although getting them to move 'where I want' may not be easy.

t3K|Mac (Posted 2008) [#3]

i use seperate models (head, chest with arms, legs). then i parent them together. so the legs can animate independently from the rest of the model.

Mortiis (Posted 2008) [#4]

I wish there was something like; mesh = LoadAnimMesh(Mesh.b3d) leg = FindChild(mesh, "Leg") Animate leg, yada, yada, yada But there isn't :(

Ben(t) (Posted 2008) [#5]

would the way that t3k|mak does it be simpler?

Ben(t) (Posted 2008) [#6]

Actually i found out that it can work. all you have to do is just not assign keyframes to the joints that you want to turn

Kryzon (Posted 2008) [#7]

The problem with Mac's way is that the limbs won't "connect" with eachother. The character will look like it was made from various parts (which was okay back in 1996 like in N64 games, but now you can have a character fully animated with skeletal animation and not in need of hierarchial animation).

t3K|Mac (Posted 2008) [#8]

@rafael: does this look like from '96? i only use legs, head and chest with arms (3 models total). they are all skeletal animated. and this looks pretty good. remember, its not 3ds animation, its fully skeletal b3d. the trick is to find a good place where you can "cut" your model.

Ross C (Posted 2008) [#9]

Yep, it works good that way. If you design it well, and parent the bones together, you can animate each piece seperately. Saves the animator a ton of work :o)

Kryzon (Posted 2008) [#10]

Here's the '96 I was talking about: Of course if you try to hide the seams it'll look better. But then show me one of your characters wearing nothing but simple clothes (instead of concealing jackets and equipments). That's when fully skeletal models have the advantage of not being made of composite pieces, even when they appear to be whole together. The downside is B3D's limitation in harnessing the capabilities of such technique. So yeah, we have to hide the seams.

t3K|Mac (Posted 2008) [#11]

sure, fully skeletal would be fine, but we are using b3d, so we have to do our best with "alternative" methods (like cutting characters or something) but i am sure, you will find good places to cut. if not, concealment is your friend ;)

Kryzon (Posted 2008) [#12]

Did you parent the part bones by code or inside a modelling program?

t3K|Mac (Posted 2008) [#13]

i've loaded 3 models via code, then i findchild() the appropriate bones and parent them together. i am using a main pivot as the character's base (for movement)