Animation Question

Ehsan Gamer

Hi Guys .

We have a character for our game that is going to have more than maybe 40 animation on it .

We are using 3DSMax for our animation but we have a problem .

right now we are animating Just ONE file so the key frames goes to more than 10000 and this is very annoying .

Is their a way to animate our character in separate file and Then merge our animation in a 3D application ? (We have bones and Biped in our character )

Or can we merge our animation in a 3D application ? (We have bones and Biped in our character )

Thanks in Advance

Andreas

I asked this recently myself, but did not get a satisfactory answer (answer was, read the docs). Hopefully someone who knows spots this!

Mark Dygert

You can save out animations through the biped menu, which has options to also save controllers and max objects that are attached to the biped. Then you can load those clips into Motion Mixer back to back, mix them down and apply it to one time line.

Ehsan Gamer

Thanks .

We are trying to use Motion Mixer now .

Ehsan Gamer

We tryed Motion Mixer but we have two problem :

1: How can we synch Our Biped with an additional Bone that we have as a Gun for our character

2: How can we apply the animations to our biped . we can add the first animation but for the others we don't know how to do .

Thanks again for any help .

Mark Dygert

1. Depending on the complexity of the weapon bone(s) you might want to use one of biped's "Prop Bones" or "extras" instead of a separate max object/bone. Biped Menu > Figure Mode > Structure > check on Prop1.

It will be easier if its all handled within biped but if you need to use max objects/bones then you can do the following.

• Select the non-biped bones, go Main Menu > Animation > Save Animation > .xaf
• Select the bones you want to load motion onto, In motion mixer click the "Add Max Objects button" (right under the word Mix in the upper left corner)
• Once the new track is created, load your .xaf animation into it, if you're happy with how it looks right click the mix name (bone01 or whatever) and choose delete.
  • This will get rid of the mix and apply the track to the objects. You might want to save the mix before doing that, so you can load it back in easily. This might not be necessary with simple animations but its incredibly helpful if you have a complex mix with several layers and transition tracks.

2. In motion mixer you right click the "bip01" label, and choose "Compute Mixdown" when it finishes you'll have a new mix down track, right click it and choose "Copy Mixdown to Biped".

manu786

Thanks for providing good information on 3d animation.I have been looking information on the 3d animation.This post solve my concern to a great extent.Thank u very much..........

have a great time................


:poly142:



animation institute in Chandigarh

Ehsan Gamer

Nice .

I don't how to say " THANKS FOR YOUR HELP ! "

Actually I think Game animation is the most mysterious part of the game Industry in these days.


For Example I don't know how can I export a Ray Fire destruction type animation Into a game engine ! For Example Unity only Supports Bones and Biped fr animation and using bone for each part ....

I saw a nice thing just at the start of Gears Of War 3 that the breaks in walls exploded and collapsed again . Or in COD MW3 their are lots of destructions .

They always run same so they shouldn't be real time .

Mark Dygert

There are all kinds of tricks to getting simulations into bone based systems, normally it involves a healthy bit of scripting and a few weeks of a technical artists time to get it working. Depending on the engine the artist could use tools like unreal Matinee to get it all hooked up and working, or with another less robust engine you might need a bit more work and collaboration with a programer.

As for the simulations, you probably want to check out things like PhysX, it was newly added to 3dsmax in 2011 or 2012, it handles things like simple destruction and collision. I also think it as the ability to bake out the animation to keys which can then be exported. If not something like that can be scripted pretty easily, if it hasn't already been written. Going the script route would probably be preferable because then you can use any form of simulation you want, even standard max particles, ray fire, thinking particles bla bla bla.

The script would do something like:
Copy and separate the objects of the simulation.
Assign them bones, or recenter their pivot point.
Then follow the original piece as it simulates setting keys as it progresses.

I also wouldn't rule out real time simulated destruction, in the near future. It might be a bit much for the current generation of console hardware to handle but it could very well be a hallmark of the next hardware cycle.

slipsius

Ive done a bit of testing with simulators in maya, and ya, what i ended up doing with no scripts (im talking aobut gravity), i set up a bunch of objects to simulate, then duplicated all the objects, attached bones to them all, then parented the bones to the simulated objects. baked the bones and exported. a bit of a work around for it.

That being said, from the looks of it, most game engines have simulators built in now. destruction of walls and all that, if its in a cutscene, then ya, you could do a re-rendered animation for it using the technique i just said. But, if its something the player initiates, by shooting or hitting it... real time simulators could be a better solution since it will start breaks where the player shoots. instead of starting to crumble at the bottom when the player hits the top