Cal3D - 3d character animation library / News: Recent posts

January 2005 -
The Cal3D team is pleased to announce the release of Cal3D
version 0.10.0! It's a major release and the list of the changes is very long. Here are some
of the major changes included in the latest release:

- Create/destroy functions removed.
- Reference counting on core objects.
- A "stride" argument to getVertices(), getNormals() ...
- Modification of the XML file format.
- Function to load data to the same coodinate system of the client application.
- Loading from a byte buffer or std::istream.
- New interface for hardware vertex processing.
- A time factor for animation.
- Animation callbacks.
- An experimental collision system.
- A beta Maya exporter (Try it and let us know if it works) !
- 3DSMax 7 support.... read more

November 2003 -

A minor version upgrade, 0.9.1, has been released for Cal3D that addresses many of the problems that people had with 0.9.

Among the fixes and new features:

- Fixed problems using the 3D Studio MAX exporters
- Added support for 3D Studio MAX 6
- Mesh morphing
- Added bounding boxes for bones
- Fixed bone naming bug
- Other minor patches

Thanks to everyone who pointed out problems and/or submitted code. Thanks to old_belge, Keith Fulton, Jester++, and anyone else I've forgotten. ... read more

August 2003 - The Cal3D team is pleased to announce the release of Cal3D
version 0.9! Along with many bug fixes and optimizations, here are some
of the major changes included in the latest release:

- Support for XML text file formats using TinyXML
- New character modeling and exporting tutorial
- Cal3D FAQ file
- Hardware bumpmapping example (D3D)
- Hardware vertex skinning with Vertex shader example (D3D)
- Functions to assist dynamic motion programming
- Bone and animation "helpers"
- Access to tangent space calculations
- TGA texture loading built into Cally demo and Miniviewers
- XML <-> binary file format converter tool
- Much more flexible GNU build system... read more

You've got questions - we've got answers!

The first version of the Cal3D FAQ file has been posted online, containing answers to many of the most-asked questions about Cal3D. Check it out:

http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/docs/api/html/cal3dfaq.html

justin

The new Cal3d modeling tutorial is now online! It will help you learn how to properly make a skeletal system for your character using 3D Studio MAX and export it for use with Cal3D. Thanks to James Allen for contributing this! Find the tutorial here:

http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/modeling/tutorial.html

The following features were added to the free skeletal-based character animation library:
- A Milkshape exporter
- Optional support for 16-bit indices (default 32-bit)
- Added functions, Cal3D is now "D3D friendly"
- Added support for file loading on big endian computers
- Optimized bone transformations with CalMatrix
- New CalMatrix class (Thanks to 'josh'!)
- Completely revamped the automake/autoconf setup.
- Moved the 'cal3d.doxygen' file into the 'docs' subdirectory where it actually belongs.
- Added a pure C wrapper to Cal3D. This should allow non C++ applications to link with it now. (Thanks to Tomek Grudzinski!)
- Changed the error codes in CalError and the type and state codes in CalAnimation to an enum structure.
- Changed the interpolation calculations in CalCoretrack::getState() so that the motion wraps are handled like in the 3d modellers.
- Tagged some forgotten friend functions of the CalVector and CalQuaternion classes as exported.
Laurent Desmecht

Yes, after some months of inactivity, the project restart with a new maintainer.
Beosil wants to give me free hand for decisions:
He write in a mail to me:
"I want to give you (and the other
constributors) free hand for decisions. One single request from myside:
Everyone should read the 'Design Decisions' chapter of the Cal3D User's
Guide, so that the main idea behind this library is clear. Change as much as
you like, but keep the core spirit of Cal3D alive ;)"... read more

Finally back to Cal3D! After a long time off, planning my future and fulfilling obligations, I will have the time again to work on the Cal3D project. I'm not quite sure about the amount of time I can invest into it, but it will definitively be more than in the past few weeks ;)

For those who are curious: I started to work as a research assistent and Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Graphics Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. My research area is "Collision Detection of Deformable Objects". I think it's not hard to see that Cal3D will profit from this research too.... read more

I really have to apologize for the long period of silence from my side on all Cal3D things. I concentrated on many things with higher priority, such as my future career after finishing university and some family business. To make it even worse, I will have to spend the next three weeks in the swiss army (ouch!), so you won't hear anything from me during this period neither.

Just to make it clear: The Cal3D project is still active and will be brought to a new level this summer. I will take this chance and give a big "thank you" to all the people who are currently working with and on Cal3D. Keep up the good work! ... read more

The Cal3D project gains more and more momentum each day. The website was recently hit by the 100'000th page view, and the download counter is not far behind at around 65'000 and keeps on gaining a few hundreds every day. Judging from the feedback I received, the library is used in diverse projects, ranging from all kind of games, VR applications, and even realtime performances in conjunction with motion capture body suits. Two commercial products using Cal3D have gone gold a few days ago, from which one is a race-game, and the other a fitness exercise trainer. Numerous people submitted patches and code to make the Cal3D library even better, and the number of posts in the message boards raised every month. I could go on and on ... to make it short: The little spare-time project Cal3D that hasn't seen its first birthday yet, is a wonderful success story. I would like to thank everyone who helped me make this happen, be it with code, bugfixes, art, questions, error descriptions, compliments, suggestions or critics. ... read more

Cal3D grows bit for bit. Here are the latest major features added to the "in development" version 0.8devel in CVS:

--- MilkShape 3D Exporter ---

I'm very happy to inform you that a fully functional exporter for MilkShape 3D (http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft) is available in CVS now. It is based on the Cal3D exporter framework and therefore supports the full range of data export (skeleton, animation, mesh, material). You can even automatically generate progressive meshes for LOD. The only thing missing right now is the experimental cloth simulation support, because there is no way to define vertex weights in MilkShape 3D (yet?). ... read more

Version 0.7 of the the free skeletal-based character animation library has been released.

- The full project can be found in CVS on the sourceforge project page now.

- The Cal3D library is now licensed under the softer LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License). See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html for details.

- The Cal3D API is now completely documented with the help of Doxygen.

- A first Cal3D User's Guide is available.... read more

Since I'm currently very busy working on my diploma thesis, and the official release of Cal3D version 0.7 will have to wait yet another bit, I decided to put the current "in development" state of the library into CVS here on http://cal3d.sourceforge.net. This will allow the "early adopters" to take a peek and test it out. The code is stable and will not see any big changes for the 0.7 release, so have fun with it!... read more

Finally, my regular email address (beosil@swileys.com), which is placed all over the Cal3D project files, is working again. For all those who have sent me messages in the last few weeks and have not received any answer yet, please send it again.

Sorry for the inconvenience!
Bruno Heidelberger

I uploaded a first version of the Cal3D User's Guide. It still needs some more work, but I think it is ready for a first peer review. Take a look at http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/docs/guide/index.html

The Cal3D API Reference is still in the works (about 50% done). The current state can be seen at: http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/docs/api/html/index.html

Your feedback is more than welcome. My regular email address is still down, please use beosil@users.sourceforge.net to contact me. Thanks!... read more

There are some problems with my regular email address (beosil@swileys.com) lately. I strongly suggest you send me messages to beosil@users.sourceforge.net until I resolved them. If you sent me an email in the last few days, send it again. Thanks!

Regards
Bruno Heidelberger

The goal of the next library release (v0.7) is to make it a more complete package for developers. The focus will not be on new features, but on everything else you need to use the library.

Here is a summary of the tasks I will tackle:

- Documentation
As the API of the library has become a bit more stable now, I will create a first version of a developer guide and API reference.

- Tutorials
A few short tutorials will be written to show the proper use of the different features of the library.... read more

The following features were added to the free skeletal-based character
animation library: progressive meshes for LOD, unified exporter framework,
flexible material handling, user-data fields and a much nicer rendering API.

The Cally Demo and the new model viewer tool show the new features with the
help of OpenGL. Take a look!

Screenshots, downloads, sourcecode, and forums are available at the official
website at http://cal3d.sourceforge.net... read more

As you probably read in a previous news post, the upcoming release of cal3d will feature progressive meshes. This will make it possible to adjust the level of detail for each model instance dynamically at runtime.

To give you a first impression of this new feature, I uploaded some screenshots showing different LOD levels of a complex model at http://n.ethz.ch/student/brunoh/cal3d_lod/index.html

The model was exported through the new cal3d exporter which will do the LOD calculations for you. The screenshots were taken from the miniviewer tool that will be included in the next release of cal3d too.... read more

There will be a booth of the WorldForge project ( http://www.worldforge.org ) at the LinuxTag exhibition ( http://www.linuxtag.org ) in Stuttgart on this weekend ( 5. - 8.July ). One of the things you can see there are some brand new cal3d demos, and hey, I am there too =)

So, if you happen to live near Stuttgart, or if you come to the LinuxTag anyway, visit the WorldForge booth, and have a talk with me and the other friendly people there!... read more

First of all, I would like to thank all the numerous people who sent in bugs, questions, praises, job offers (wow!) and all other kinds of feedback. It is cool to see that the release of the library was notified by so many out there.

To keep you all up-to-date with the development, I will give here a short summary of the progress I made on cal3d 0.6:

- Unified Exporter Plugin Framework
There is now an unified exporter plugin framework that makes it possible to easily write new exporter plugins for whatever 3d modeller you want. Just create a few data access classes for your specific 3d modeller and the framework will do all the hard work for you. The 3ds MAX exporter is already working nicely within this framework.... read more

I would like to announce the initial release of Cal3D, a free skeletal-based character animation library. Originally designed to be used in a 3d client for WorldForge, it evolved into a stand-alone product which can be used in many different kinds of projects.

This release is significant due to the extreme scarcity of Free Software options for skeletal-based animation, and thus may provide a very important advancement for Free Game development projects. The WorldForge project is especially excited about the potentials this new product provides, and anticipates growing a sizable library of skeletal models for free game developers to use in their games.... read more

The cal3d site on sourceforge.net is finally active. The latest sources and demo are ready to download. More to come in the near future.