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game characters

Started by s_hubscher Aug 23, 2006 at 10:17 PM 2 replies 1k views

Original Post

Aug 23, 2006 at 10:17 PM

Hi I am currently exporting 3d studio files into text files that I can use latter on. I also exporting the maps that are associated with the 3ds file. My question is what is a better choice when animating a 3d character using morph technique that requires a source and destination or using multiple files to chain the events of the image into a linked list of objects. The problem with both of these solutions is that I get text files that represent the image. Is there a better why of doing this process to get fluid movement or am I just going in the wrong direction. [Edited by - s_hubscher on August 23, 2006 10:45:41 PM]

s_hubscher

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s_hubscher

Aug 23, 2006 at 10:41 PM

note:
the text files are 3d Coordinates of the object.
the image is a 2d Coordinates of the object

The current method I use involves exporting each frame as a text document which works really well. But for movements I should only have one file that describes the sequence of events in the animation. Maybe I should use a compression algorithm to compress all these text files into one file, but that would seem kind of stupid because I will have less files, but more work for me in the end.

[Edited by - s_hubscher on August 24, 2006 12:41:46 AM]

Rasmadrak

Aug 24, 2006 at 9:50 AM

Can't you simply append file information at the end of the previous file?

invective

Aug 24, 2006 at 7:38 PM

Since you are animating humanoids, look in to using a skinned mesh with bones. Instead of storing the geometry per frame, you store it hierachialy and store the transforms for each sub mesh per frame. Its more memory efficient and you will get smoother motion, provided your meshes lend themselves to this type of animation (as humanoid character meshes do). Direct X has classes to do this for you in the D3DX library. See the skinned mesh example in the SDK. If you are not using direct X take a look at OGRE or one of the other free engines that also support bones for an idea of how to go about it.

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