Animated Mesh Format
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Animated Mesh Format
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| I've seen many B3D programs with animated meshes with vertex deformation, but I don't know what format they use. I know about .MD2 files, but I've heard they are a real hassle to deal with. I'm familiar and comfortable with Blender, and I would like to make my animated meshes in it, but the only B3D exporter for it is not very good and I can't get any sort of animation whatsoever out of it. If anyone knows of another format that supports animation that B3D can read (preferrably available in Blender), please by all means share it. Also, does anyone knows how animated B3D's are created? If there is some program that can export animated B3D models, then it must be really well hidden because I don't know of one. Thanks! |
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| Pacemaker. Great, easy to use FREE program for animated .b3d models. You could also use it as an exporter if you want. Load the model as a .3ds or .x and simply export it as a .b3d. Keep in mind you can also do that with non-animated meshes also, just to change their file type. I believe it's in the toolbox section of this site. |
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| I took a look and it looks promising. Does it support per-vertex animation? For example the character's cloak blowing around? |
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| MD2's aren't a hassle to deal with (they even have broad support because of their simple specification and low performance requirements). The problem is that they store vertex positions with little precision, so you get what is known as wobbling (take a close look at the surface of any animated MD2 model to see it). This is due to the data-type that stores these vertex positions. The MD3, MD4 and MD5 formats use a higher-precision data-type so they don't have this problem. B3D is always skeletal; there is no way to deform a mesh without using bones. But that doesn't stop you from using a chain of bones linked to a "rope" soft-body to simulate the physics of a cloak (in Blender, that is). In old consoles the artists often used single, loose bones to patch up certain areas of characters like hair, clothes and mesh distortions. It comes down to your resourcefulness. If you use 3DS Max, well... a good solution is coming pretty soon for exporting animated B3D's (with keyframed and skeletal animation, scene hierarchy and material support). |
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| There is no built-in support for any animated meshes except for 3DS (segmented only), MD2 (per-vertex only) and B3D (segmented + bone deformations). If you want anything else, you'll need a custom loader written with file commands and probably to implement at least part of the animation system using vertex commands (this is actually pretty fast, so don't worry about that part). Here's an MD3 library, which may be of some help and/or give you some ideas: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=81877 MD3 solves the problem MD2 had with precision, and some other enhancements. All per-vertex methods have the same problem of massive file sizes compared to their B3D equivalents though, as the vertex positions need to be stored in advance. |
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| I use fragmotion to convert dx9 .X fies to B3D. rehi everybody btw. |
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