Re: [Algorithms] skeletal animation vs. morphing

[Tom H. <to...@3d...>]

At 07:39 PM 12/30/2000, you wrote:
>Hello,
>     I was wondering if anyone could foresee any faults in using a morph based
>animation system over a skeletal animation system for character animation? By
>"morph based" I mean a system that is defined by poses. These poses are 
>created
>by the artist (possibly with help from a utility that speeds up common poses).
>Which pose to use is decided at run-time depending on in-game criteria. Simple
>linear interpolation would be used to blend from one pose to the next. 
>It's your
>standard morph-target animation system.
>     It seems to me that it would be very efficient at run-time. May take 
> a little
>longer to create content for, but the resultant animation can be much more
>dynamic. Any thoughts? Thanks.

My only other complaint beyond what others have stated is that tweening 
doesn't work as well as bone based animations for rigid structures like 
mecha. The tweening makes the nice metal pieces stretch and bend and that 
just doesn't look right :) This can be resolved to some extent with 
additional keyframes and spline based interpolation, but not entirely.

Tom