Animation Pipeline

[Zaggy1024]

There are multiple geometries/meshes in library_geometries. AFAIK the engine only supports one per model.

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted, while talking to Spahbod on IRC... I tried removing the extra geometries and it caught an exception while loading it, just like the other two files I was trying.

[historic_bruno]

Removing random parts of the DAE doesn't sound like a good idea because that's still going to leave references to those parts elsewhere, and even if it didn't, it won't be the complete model so I don't see the point The best thing is to not export DAEs with multiple objects in the first place. Is it possible to combine them into one object after modelling but before exporting? It seems to be a problem the artists solve because all the DAEs import correctly...

[Enrique]

Removing random parts of the DAE doesn't sound like a good idea because that's still going to leave references to those parts elsewhere, and even if it didn't, it won't be the complete model so I don't see the point The best thing is to not export DAEs with multiple objects in the first place. Is it possible to combine them into one object after modelling but before exporting?

You are saying to remove the mesh and leave just the armature (bone structure) before exporting to .DAE?

[historic_bruno]

I'm saying there should be only one mesh in the model before exporting. That is not the case in Gen.Kenobi's DAE which is why our importer complains. It's easy to verify this, open the DAE in notepad++ or similar, and search for library_geometries, how many geometry entries are there? And if you looked in the original .blend I'm sure you would see there are multiple meshes there, too.

[Gen.Kenobi]

Oh yeah. My bad. I accidentally exported with Blender's cameras and lights.

this one contains only the mesh and the rig. So I suppose you wont have problems.

As Enrique I would also like to know how I can get my own animations for simple visualization ingame. Just for the sake of tests and fun. Maybe writing on the wiki a small tutorial would help a lot

dude_fun_80frames_anim_test.zip

[Enrique]

As Enrique I would also like to know how I can get my own animations for simple visualization ingame. Just for the sake of tests and fun. Maybe writing on the wiki a small tutorial would help a lot

I'm at work now, but tomorrow I'll join IRC and if Zaggy has some time I'll ask him to guide me through the export process. I am going to document the process the best I can. We need animations/animators badly and documentation of the workflow to get them correctly in game is a big priority for the Art dept now IMO

[Zaggy1024]

About the multiple meshes in the DAE, the problem wasn't because there were too many objects, but too many meshes. Meshes like the ones that seem to be what are supposed to be prop points (the cubes that you can't select in Blender). I'm not sure how those got in there, or how to remove them, but in the other DAEs I exported from Enrique's blend, it didn't have any extra meshes, but FCollada (I think) caught some exception while loading it.

[zoot]

Zaggy1024: Somewhat unrelated, but I noted that you made a number of references to imgur images in this wiki article. Just wanted to point out that that probably isn't a good idea as imgur (and any remote image hosting site) can randomly decide to delete your images, thus breaking the article.

Edited August 8, 2012 by zoot

[Zaggy1024]

What would you suggest instead?

[Gen.Kenobi]

I like where this tutorial is going, but it misses the primary point : The way to get your anim ingame!

Hopefully soon we'll see the full tutorial

Keep it up Zaggy!

[zoot]

What would you suggest instead?

It should be possible to host them on the wiki itself, at least that's what historic_bruno did in the "Actor Editor" article (hopefully he can tell you how).

[historic_bruno]

Just add the image as an attachment to the page, the same way you would on a Trac ticket. Then reference it with [[image(filename.xyz)]]. There's a bunch of other options: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/WikiMacros#Image-macro

[Wijitmaker]

About the multiple meshes in the DAE, the problem wasn't because there were too many objects, but too many meshes. Meshes like the ones that seem to be what are supposed to be prop points (the cubes that you can't select in Blender). I'm not sure how those got in there, or how to remove them, but in the other DAEs I exported from Enrique's blend, it didn't have any extra meshes, but FCollada (I think) caught some exception while loading it.

Yeah, those cube meshes were supposed to be prop points. How do you guys do prop points in Blender? Whatever you do for prop points... could you do it for that model and replace those cube boxes? 3ds max uses something they call "helper objects" that I use, I'm not sure what the equivalent would be. They box meshes should be select-able if you toggle something on the right side blender by the visibility stuff. It is important to keep their positions, parent child relationship, and name.

[Shield Bearer]

In the model that was imported from a .dae, the prop points were bones. Which I think is what those cubes should be...

[Wijitmaker]

Yeah, that could work. I guess the extra prop points "bones" would just be ignored in the skeleton.xml.

OT - Could this topic be moved to the art department forum? I think it is more appropriate there.

[Enrique]

Yeah, those cube meshes were supposed to be prop points. How do you guys do prop points in Blender? Whatever you do for prop points... could you do it for that model and replace those cube boxes? 3ds max uses something they call "helper objects" that I use, I'm not sure what the equivalent would be. They box meshes should be select-able if you toggle something on the right side blender by the visibility stuff. It is important to keep their positions, parent child relationship, and name.

Hi Jason!

As far as I know, we use empties in blender. Like a null object that can be parented, animated etc but has no mesh. I'll tweak the template and replace those helpers by empties. I'll keep in mind positions, relationships, names and I guess rotations will be needed.

EDIT: Amish was faster and I was wrong ^^

Edited August 9, 2012 by Enrique

[Jeru]

OT - Could this topic be moved to the art department forum? I think it is more appropriate there.

Done.

[historic_bruno]

How do you guys do prop points in Blender?

To expand on the above correct answer:

• For static models you can use empty nodes, although I think any node or object that is named starting with "prop-" or "prop_" would work (I suspect if you add a non-empty node, you will see its geometry in the game which is likely undesirable - not tested this). The engine adds a prop point with the transform of that node. They cannot be animated as it's a static model.
  
• For skeletal/rigged/animated models, you use bones named starting with "prop-" or "prop_". These prop bones will follow their parent bone's animation. Internally they are stored by the engine in the exact same format as static model prop points, except they have a parent bone ID used to compute their transformation at each step. The prop bones themselves cannot be animated, they simply follow their parent bone and are not part of the rig, as such they are not added to skeletons.xml.
  

[Enrique]

• For skeletal/rigged/animated models, you use bones named starting with "prop-" or "prop_". These prop bones will follow their parent bone's animation. Internally they are stored by the engine in the exact same format as static model prop points, except they have a parent bone ID used to compute their transformation at each step. The prop bones themselves cannot be animated, they simply follow their parent bone and are not part of the rig, as such they are not added to skeletons.xml.
  

This means that their rotations aren't taken into account? except the parent bone rotation, i mean.

[Gen.Kenobi]

For prop_bones you mean bones for props? If so, this should be tweaked, if we want to have cooler animations.

The more freedom we get, the better we can do.

[historic_bruno]

This means that their rotations aren't taken into account? except the parent bone rotation, i mean.

Apparently it uses the full local transform of the prop bone (meaning relative to its parent but unaffected by the rest of the hierarchy), so both the rotation and translation are used, this transform is calculated once during model import and then applied to the parent bone's transform during skinning. I don't know what the local transform equates to in Blender or Max, could it be the orientation of the prop bone in the bind pose?

For prop_bones you mean bones for props? If so, this should be tweaked, if we want to have cooler animations.

The more freedom we get, the better we can do.

The existing system isn't perfect but it seems flexible enough for most animations. Which cooler animations would you want to see that are currently not possible?

[Gen.Kenobi]

As I said before, I would love to do a spear manipulation job. Like the video I posted a few posts ago. But that would only be for eye-candy. As an idle anim. that's an example what I would wanna do and see ingame

[Enrique]

Changes done.

The only meshes on the .blend file are the "unit" mesh (called tights, don't know why) and the head (called head_dude_PIVOT)

Prop points are now bones within the armature (hidden and unable to select them) with their names starting with "prop-"

I'll try with Zaggy to have something properly exported in a few hours.

Meanwhile feel free to test yourselves ^^

dude_5_IK.zip

[historic_bruno]

As I said before, I would love to do a spear manipulation job. Like the video I posted a few posts ago. But that would only be for eye-candy. As an idle anim. that's an example what I would wanna do and see ingame

Yes, and why isn't that possible? All you need to do is take a normal dude rig and add a bone that twirls around just so, then add a prop bone as a child of the twirling one - add the spear as prop in the actor, and it gets animated. Though you'd have to synchronize the twirling bone with the hand and rest of the body so it would look natural, that sounds difficult but not impossible.

[Gen.Kenobi]

@Zaggy1024: Buddy, when you get the time, can you finish this tutorial?