Mark's new post.
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Mark's new post. this is amazing, and it's real, no joke here :)
that sounds wonderful mark (the animation blending). Addative blending is good, the way you have discribed. Would it also be possible to do this on the vertex level?
For example, I could load in a model of a trampoline non bounced, and a model of the trampoline bounced, and then using the weight param I could blend between them.
Obviously thats only one example, it could be used for facial animation, plants, simple 'character animations' without bones, birds wings flapping (one model one pose, one model the other pose, then change the weight/blend between them).
I found this middleware a while a go, obviously this is quite an indepth product, but watching some of the videos might give you a couple of ideas. http://www.mysticgd.com/site2007/products/products.php?product=5&component=22
For example, I could load in a model of a trampoline non bounced, and a model of the trampoline bounced, and then using the weight param I could blend between them.
Obviously thats only one example, it could be used for facial animation, plants, simple 'character animations' without bones, birds wings flapping (one model one pose, one model the other pose, then change the weight/blend between them).
I found this middleware a while a go, obviously this is quite an indepth product, but watching some of the videos might give you a couple of ideas. http://www.mysticgd.com/site2007/products/products.php?product=5&component=22
And the most important thing... it sounds like Mark is finally really enjoying what he is doing. I am already looking forward to using this lib with various languages.
Barney
Barney
..yummmmyyyy..
I love the idea of running two animations simultaneously, keep it up! (this would be awesome for christmas)
sounds good. In ogre you can blend with weights, wonder if his Mark will implement it so you can blend weights at specific keyframes. So you can have seperate run, and walk anims, and and blend in a draw and fire anim to just the torso and arms portion of an anim.
A must have feature for any modern engine. Great for animators allowing for some nice non linear animation tracks and easier setup of fairly complicated anims with minimal animation sequences.
A must have feature for any modern engine. Great for animators allowing for some nice non linear animation tracks and easier setup of fairly complicated anims with minimal animation sequences.
Nice progress.
Will there be an upper limit to the bones per model and weights per bone as dictated by the gfx hardware (not sure if this makes sense but I remembered Mark muttering something about a bones&weights limit a while ago).
Also will there be some way to easily merge animations and physics?. Physics augmented animations are really nice as I can tell from experience, but also really hard to get right.
Will there be an upper limit to the bones per model and weights per bone as dictated by the gfx hardware (not sure if this makes sense but I remembered Mark muttering something about a bones&weights limit a while ago).
Also will there be some way to easily merge animations and physics?. Physics augmented animations are really nice as I can tell from experience, but also really hard to get right.
..I hope so that animation this time will be way faster so I can enjoy 100 chars on scene with no problem, if i want to.. :)
Hi,
We're doing animation blending in (nearly) the exact same way in our own engine, and it's working perfectly, so I think that sounds like a great move!
Basically what were doing differently, is that you don't have to counter weigh to do blending, ie:
entity.SetAnimFrame( runFrame )
entity.SetAnimFrame( walkFrame, 0.5 )
entity.SetAnimFrame( waveFrame, 0.1 )
Would blend run and walk 50/50 and then blend a waving animation 10% on top of that...
We're doing animation blending in (nearly) the exact same way in our own engine, and it's working perfectly, so I think that sounds like a great move!
Basically what were doing differently, is that you don't have to counter weigh to do blending, ie:
entity.SetAnimFrame( runFrame )
entity.SetAnimFrame( walkFrame, 0.5 )
entity.SetAnimFrame( waveFrame, 0.1 )
Would blend run and walk 50/50 and then blend a waving animation 10% on top of that...
Sounds really good, perfect for the job really. I would be needing to "synch" back to old frames.
For example if I have a man running with a gun, and he's moving in a jogging motion?
What happens when I use SetAnim to affect the bones of the upper body firing, and then I STOP firing?
Does it remain stuck in the upper body firing anim or do I just set the weighting back to 0 and the original underlying animation of running continues?
For example if I have a man running with a gun, and he's moving in a jogging motion?
What happens when I use SetAnim to affect the bones of the upper body firing, and then I STOP firing?
Does it remain stuck in the upper body firing anim or do I just set the weighting back to 0 and the original underlying animation of running continues?
entity.SetAnimFrame( walkFrame, 0.5 )
ha, that is identical to ours except we call it "setframe".
ha, that is identical to ours except we call it "setframe".
the shadow volumes are the draw for me
The link that boomboom posted is what we used as a reference for an animation system, and it really does cover all the bases and then some.
We even had a command that (in most cases) could automatically work out what bones were legs/pelvis and what bones were everything else, so that you could easily seperate upper/lower body animations.
We even had a command that (in most cases) could automatically work out what bones were legs/pelvis and what bones were everything else, so that you could easily seperate upper/lower body animations.
Mark will animated meshs use hardware skinning? which i take to mean animation is handled by graphics card not cpu?
animation blending was one nice thing the torque engine did, but sadly for them it was one of the only things i liked about it.
animation blending was one nice thing the torque engine did, but sadly for them it was one of the only things i liked about it.
I'm also quite intrigued by the idea of animation blending. b3d did a limited form of this via the 'transition' mechanism which allowed you to tween from one anim sequence to another. This time round though I'm considering using animation 'weights' to achieve this.
That's great! :D
Looks good to me, the implementation is just like how it is usually done.
From the link I posted up above. 'Motion Priorities' seems a very useful additin to the weight system, and would be quite useful for overriding the base animation.
For example, full walk cycle, arms moving and all. Then only upper body gun shooting animation overrides the bones that move. So = lowerbody still walking, upper body shoot.
For example, full walk cycle, arms moving and all. Then only upper body gun shooting animation overrides the bones that move. So = lowerbody still walking, upper body shoot.
I tell you most people won't even touch the animation system. It's a little bit like with multiplayer, all are screaming after it if you don't have it but once you support it only a few will actually use it. :O)
I tell you most people won't even touch the animation system. It's a little bit like with multiplayer, all are screaming after it if you don't have it but once you support it only a few will actually use it. :O)
Everyone will make games about balls or tanks then?
Personaly I think everyone will use the animation blending, its too convenient and does seamless transitions easily meaning less work for animators who might otherwise need to make multiple transition animations.
Hardware skinning usualy supports weighting between 4 bones simultaniously even old cards.
Hardware skinning usualy supports weighting between 4 bones simultaniously even old cards.
I definately would use it as it would save stupid amounts of animations etc :)
id love it, blitz3d sorely lacks good animation ie slow etc i had to do my own hacks.