Animation questions

[Nielk1]

Mine asks, and it should remove old versions.

EDIT: Did you get just the runtimes?

[mrtwosheds]

Not a clue. Just went to java.com and did a dl.
The java applet now works.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Kudos to G and MTS...I now have a reason to start using Blender. Special thanks to OM1 for taking the trouble to make an XSI that will indeed do animations with only a slide edit required to get it functional. Hopefully OM1 can revise the exporter slightly to get the exporter is use by many eager modeler's just itching for a way to do animations finally! PS: I haven't gotten this excited in quite some time ya all!

Update: Blender released version 2.49 which I updated to from version 2.45. One side note would be: to use 2.49 then Python version 2.6.1 is required in addition to get the OM1 XSI exporter to run without a console error; as I found out the other day. Now...gulp...all I need to do now is...umm...learn how to use Blender...no easy task, but well worth the effort to do animation I would think? Perhaps I'll use TS 7.6 to make the models and then import them to Blender. Does anyone know what format B3d can import with animation? I can export out of TS with X, COB, 3DS, ASC, CAN, AND STL. Tanks, BNG.

[gegc]

For people wanting to learn blender, here is a collection of pretty good (and long) video tutorials; this is where I learned blender from.

http://blenderunderground.com/video-tutorials/

Does anyone know what format B3d can import with animation?

Blender can import .x and .3ds out of the box (don't know about animations, haven't tried). It can also import BZ2 XSI files' meshes with its .x importer. However, I wouldn't recommend using Blender to do animations just yet because OM's exporter does not export them properly.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I tried importing an X model into Blender made with TS 7.6, but the result was horrible. The model parts were all screwed up lookin.

The good news is that 3ds models exported from TS imported perfectly from what I could tell into Blender. What I plan to try next is some simple animations in TS (as I understand it far better then B3d) export it as 3ds, import into B3d, and then try exporting the finally animated model using OM1's XSI exporter to my addon folder.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get animations done an easier way then actually learning to model with B3d right now; TS is a much simpler modeler to learn for modeling idiots like myself. Knock on wood peeps...here goes nuthin'. I should be able to most of the work in TS like the texturing, animation, and model geometry. Eventually, I'd love to learn Blender, but it's a pretty complex piece of software, and still makes my brain ache whenever I attempt to model with it. PS: Here's a screeny of a model made in TS and exported as 3ds and then imported into B3d.

[General BlackDragon]

i find creating animations in notepad far easier XD

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Strange, the camo texture applied in TS doesn't show up in B3d for some reason. I wonder why?

Update: I'm not sure why the texture didn't appear before, but I reapplied another texture and resaved the model again as 3ds and then imported it again into Blender and it appeared okay this time. It would seem that B3d is going to be a nice choice for using to get my animated models working for BZII afterall.

Possible work flow:

1. Model, texture and animate in TS.
2. Export from TS as 3ds format into my BZII addon folder.
3. Open B3d and import 3ds model.
4. Export from B3d using OM1's export script into my addon folder.
5. Edit XSI file in notepad to fix problem noted by MTS and resave file.
6. Edit odf file and test in BZII map editor.

I guess the easiest animation to start with would be a single animation count type to begin with.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

What is probably stopping it from working is this

     SI_AnimationKey {
        3;

Bz2 only uses

     SI_AnimationKey {
        0;
The number 0 tells bz2 that this is a rotation animation.
OR

     SI_AnimationKey {
        2;
The number 2 tells bz2 that this is a translation animation.

The example below is of a working rotation and translation anim.

AnimationSet {
  Animation anim-hp_lfoot {
     {frm-hp_lfoot}
     SI_AnimationKey {
        2;
        8;
        1; 3; 2.0, 0, 0;;,
        3; 3; 2.25, 0, 0;;,
        6; 3; 2.5, 0, 0;;,
        9; 3; 2.75, 0, 0;;,
        12; 3; 3.0, 0, 0;;,
        15; 3; 3.25, 0, 0;;,
        18; 3; 3.5, 0, 0;;,
        21; 3; 3.75, 0, 0;;;
     }
     SI_AnimationKey {
        0;
        8;
        1; 4; 1, 0, 0, 0;;,
        3; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.025;;,
        6; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.05;;,
        9; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.1;;,
        12; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.15;;,
        15; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.2;;,
        18; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.25;;,
        21; 4; 1, 0, 0, -0.3;;;

     }
  }

Bz2 will not recognise the 3 value as a type of animation it can do.

Notice that the rotation part has 4 values per line.
I do all my anims in notepad, you just paste in another section like the above and adjust to achieve the desired effect.

Tanks MTS for pointing out this so OM1's exporter can be used with B3d and I suppose any 3d modeler to convert model files to BZII XSI animated models after importing them into Blender.

[mrtwosheds]

 
I like doing things the hard way, you find out allot that way, maybe one day I will learn how to use blender too...

[General BlackDragon]

hahaha, yah, blender was hard for me when i tried.

[Clavin12]

Hard but definitely worth it.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Up until OM made his' XSI exporter I saw no reason to learn Blender as it's an advanced high poly 3d modeling program way more capable then making the low poly models used by BZII. I plan on sticking to TS for most modeling tasks as it's 100 times easier to make stuff with then Blender. I eventually will learn some aspects of it too, but give me simplicity and I'll be your loyal friend forever.