tuxkart-devel

[TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Ingo R. <gr...@gm...>]

Does anybody have some ideas on how we should handle character
animation? Should we use simple frame based animation or use bones and
keyframes, probally by using Cal3d.

Does anybody know how doable it is to get single frames exported from
blender and/or how useable the Cal3d exporter is. Webpage of the
exporter[2] seems currently down.

[1] http://cal3d.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://oomadness.tuxfamily.org/en/blender2cal3d/index.html

-- 
WWW:      http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/ 
JabberID: gr...@ja... 
ICQ:      59461927

Re: [TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Charles G. <ch...@ve...>]

On Wed, 2004-07-07 at 17:55 +0200, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> Does anybody have some ideas on how we should handle character
> animation? Should we use simple frame based animation or use bones and
> keyframes, probally by using Cal3d.

For performance reasons I would have thought simple frame based
animation would be the only thing we could consider.

I know part of the idea is to update TuxKart so that it takes advantage
of more modern hardware (3D cards etc), but we really don't want it to
get to the point where you need a GHz machine to play it.

Then again, this is a bit of an ignorant reply as I cannot atest to the
performance impact of any bones/keyframes technique or Cal3d.  I'm just
airing my concern that PCs that are not aged but not beautifully new
(Celeron 733, 256megs, GeForce2) can run TuxKart.  (This is not me being
selfish, I intend to upgrade in the next 3-6 months so doesn't directly
affect me, but I know many people with computers of similar capability.)
-- 
- Charlie

Charles Goodwin <ch...@ve...>
Online @ www.charlietech.com

Re: [TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Ingo R. <gr...@gm...>]

Ingo Ruhnke <gr...@gm...> writes:

> Webpage of the exporter[2] seems currently down.

My mistake, seems like the Cal3d exporter already found its way into
the latest Blender release.

-- 
WWW:      http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/ 
JabberID: gr...@ja... 
ICQ:      59461927

Re: [TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> Does anybody have some ideas on how we should handle character
> animation? Should we use simple frame based animation or use bones and
> keyframes, probally by using Cal3d.

The Cal3d *runtime* also doesn't fit into the PLIB rendering framework
at all well.  Dunno about any off-line tools they might provide though.

PLIB can do either frame-based, key-frame-with-interpolation or true
skin/bones with either the bones being key-framed or (in principle)
with the bones being driven by some external physics code.

Doesn't Blender have an animation package?   I thought it did. But
whatever we use, I suspect the issues will all be to do with how to
export animations in a way that we can load them.

PLIB also has it's own bone-motion editor (called 'Exposer') which
take bones modelled as line segments within a polygonal skin and
lets you adjust them into different poses at points a long a time-line.
It saves the animations in PLIB's "native" file format - which eliminates
any issues to do with file format translation.

For short/simple animation, Exposer is OK...but it's not real sophisticated.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjb...@ai...>    WorkEmail: <sj...@li...>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M-
V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

Re: [TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Matze B. <ma...@br...>]

On Wed, 7 Jul 2004, Steve Baker wrote:

> Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> > Does anybody have some ideas on how we should handle character
> > animation? Should we use simple frame based animation or use bones and
> > keyframes, probally by using Cal3d.
> 
> The Cal3d *runtime* also doesn't fit into the PLIB rendering framework
> at all well.  Dunno about any off-line tools they might provide though.
Are you actually sure about that? In CrystalSpace we created a cal3d 
plugin relatively easily, and they also say that their API is game-engine 
independent.

cal3d's big strength is that it has very good exporters for 3dsmax and 
blender (from what I've heard), along with LOD and a simple spring model 
for animating clothes (not sure if we really need that in tuxkart). Esp. 
the dynamic LOD would surely be useful for cal3d. And at least the cally 
demo runs very fast on my computer, so I doubt cal3d will be a speed 
problem.

> 
> PLIB can do either frame-based, key-frame-with-interpolation or true
> skin/bones with either the bones being key-framed or (in principle)
> with the bones being driven by some external physics code.
The important question here, is if we have good importers/exporters for 
that?

> 
> Doesn't Blender have an animation package?   I thought it did. But
> whatever we use, I suspect the issues will all be to do with how to
> export animations in a way that we can load them.
Yep

> 
> PLIB also has it's own bone-motion editor (called 'Exposer') which
> take bones modelled as line segments within a polygonal skin and
> lets you adjust them into different poses at points a long a time-line.
> It saves the animations in PLIB's "native" file format - which eliminates
> any issues to do with file format translation.
blender's bone editing stuff seem more powerfull to me (also it's 
integrated with blender and not an external app) Well I wouldn't expect 
much different proposals from the plib author ;-)

Greetings,
	Matze

Re: [TuxKart-devel] Character Animation?

[Matze B. <ma...@br...>]

Okay,

I'd also offer my services to write the animation code. Would be nice if 
someone could send me a blender file with a little animation (tux bending 
left/right and tux throwing a banana?). I have to take a more in-depth 
look at what plib has to offer. I must have missed the bone code before.

Greetings,
	Matze

On Wed, 7 Jul 2004, Steve Baker wrote:

> Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> > Does anybody have some ideas on how we should handle character
> > animation? Should we use simple frame based animation or use bones and
> > keyframes, probally by using Cal3d.
> 
> The Cal3d *runtime* also doesn't fit into the PLIB rendering framework
> at all well.  Dunno about any off-line tools they might provide though.
> 
> PLIB can do either frame-based, key-frame-with-interpolation or true
> skin/bones with either the bones being key-framed or (in principle)
> with the bones being driven by some external physics code.
> 
> Doesn't Blender have an animation package?   I thought it did. But
> whatever we use, I suspect the issues will all be to do with how to
> export animations in a way that we can load them.
> 
> PLIB also has it's own bone-motion editor (called 'Exposer') which
> take bones modelled as line segments within a polygonal skin and
> lets you adjust them into different poses at points a long a time-line.
> It saves the animations in PLIB's "native" file format - which eliminates
> any issues to do with file format translation.
> 
> For short/simple animation, Exposer is OK...but it's not real sophisticated.
> 
> ---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
> HomeEmail: <sjb...@ai...>    WorkEmail: <sj...@li...>
> HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
> Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
>             http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M-
> V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
> -----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.Net email sponsored by Black Hat Briefings & Training.
> Attend Black Hat Briefings & Training, Las Vegas July 24-29 - 
> digital self defense, top technical experts, no vendor pitches, 
> unmatched networking opportunities. Visit www.blackhat.com
> _______________________________________________
> Tuxkart-devel mailing list
> Tux...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tuxkart-devel
>