In regard to Walker and Pilot figure animation where are the bones and joints?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I don't see them on any of these type animations on the XSI models. Is this because XSI models don't use bones and joints at all? TS, uses visible bones and joints to connect geometry to the bone objects. It supports 2 methods to attach skin to bones so to speak. One method attach's the entire skeleton to the entire geometry body essentially causing it to deform at the joint points.

The other method attach's single objects to individual bones essentially allowing them to be manipulated without deformations to other geometric parts, ie, sort of the way a tank turret rotates on the horizontal plane while the main gun rotates on the vertical plane.

I have a few questions regarding how to best adapt my models to conform to what the BZII engine prefers to allow me to make a few simple walk type animations. TS, also supports vertex (morph) type animation as well. Can that be used with BZII as well?

Should I use joint and joint or vertex animation for my models? Tanks, BNG.   

[VSMIT]

I believe that the Mauler used vert animation and the Attila used object animation.  As far as I know, the engine doesn't support bone animation.  That's part of the reason why the Attila animation runs in 3DX.  I think that when they originally did the animations for the mauler and pilots, they did use bones, but the bones didn't export, only the animation.

VSMIT.

[Warfreak]

Actually, they did what could be considered bones.

It was a group of vertexes "skinned" to a single vert and would move with the isolated vert.

[VSMIT]

I think that when they originally did the animations for the mauler and pilots, they did use bones, but the bones didn't export, only the animation.

Hi, Warfreak.

But that would explain why "HP"s move when viewing Scion animations in 3DX.

VSMIT.

[Warfreak]

The vertexes are still present and referenced in the XSI's. The "bones" they used were called envelopes.

Why the HPs move is probably because they are linked to the moving vertexes via heirarchy.

[OvermindDL1]

Correct.  Bones in an XSI file are called Envelopes, and yes, XSI's have quite good support for bones actually, even with individual weights per vertex on different bones and all, it is quite advanced, beat near everything else out at the time.
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[BNG Da BZ Fool]

When working with vertices's and selecting multiple vertices's I know that they can be key framed in TS after advancing to another frame. I made a simple pilot figure out of rounded cylinders to form the arms legs and the guys body with a sphere for his head. Afterwords, I would record 1 keyframe and advance to the next frame after posing the guys legs, arms and body; no bones or joints were used at all. I actually managed to get him to do a silly little dance sequence and then fall back into a die on the ground animation clip; at least it works in the animation player of TS and 3DEX as well. Finding a way now to convert the X animation to BZII XSI is where I'm at now.

OM, do you suppose that if I import the X file into Blender and use your XSI converter it would translate the animation for use with the game? Or is animation still a while off as far as your exporter is concerned? I remember a post on the Caligari site forum indicated that bones don't export correctly, but that vertex animation which was less depend on the TS bone system should translate better as far as animation is concerned. Don't really know for sure, but I'm open to trying just about anything at this point to see whats possible. Tanks, BNG.   

[Nielk1]

What I normally do is make my mainbody, add the HPs, and then place cubes with __h at the end of their names to represent my bones. Now, if I take a bone, set it as the turret, and set vertexes in the main body to it, they will appear to turn around it as the center. Now, the HPs wont move, but all I have to do is make them children of my bone and now they move with it too.

I have a scorpion walker with a bending tail turret right now. I need to tweak all the weights on the bones to make it bend more cleanly, but i works.

[OvermindDL1]

As far as I know, the animation part of my exporter works, but it is completely untested.  No clue about transferring other formats in.  Also, BZ2 is very picky, some things REQUIRE bone animations, others REQUIRE vertex animations, and in all cases with vehicles, make sure that nothing animates to be below ground...
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[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Good enough for me at this point. I'll do some testing in Blender by importing several different formats notably, X and 3DS from TS and then export them from B3d using your XSI exporter to see what happens. The nice thing is that I can also apply textures and everything else (in TS) to see what actually translates correctly. I'd use Blender to do it all, but B3d makes my head throb every time I try to use it as a modeler. One tech at Caligari said that part of the problem with bones is that they are very specific to the program that was used to create them, and that every modeling system handles bones differently which is one of the reasons why some translation errors occur when converting files between different formats. BNG.