Character Animation (Skeleton?)

I''ve once read something about robotics.
A robot arm uses an algorithm which moves each part beginning with the member which has no depending parts, e.g. a finger crest, towards the target it has to take.

don''t know, whether you may use this. Easiest way is to define the final positions(angles) of all member in the object tree and then calculating their way.

cYa
DjR

I haven't really come across any good tutorials on skeletal animation (I looked - but not that hard). However, I did come across CAL3D - a free skeletal animation software library. Check out the demo, it's really cool. It is API independant, so should work fine with DX.

It uses quaternions to achieve interpolation of rotations. This is integral to skeletal animation and cannot really be done with matrices, so you may have to learn some maths before you can write your own skeletal animation library - at least if you intend to include interpolation of keyframes and animation paths. Here are a couple of links to get you started:

The Matrix and Quaternion FAQ

"Quaternion Algebra and Calculus" by David Eberly ( !warning, mathematics! )

Also, if you happen to have (or can borrow) a copy of "Game Programming Gems" that has a few good sections (2.7 - 2.10) on quaternions and interpolation. The CD that comes with the book has a very well written (and readable) vector/matrix/quaternion library on it which could easily be adapted for skeleton animation.

... and the rest is up to you

-

Geocyte Has Committed Suicide.

edit:
PS - I think 3DSMax stores bone data as quaternions.

[edited by - geocyte on May 27, 2002 11:24:20 AM]

Thanks for all the replies. I will have to do some digging and research. There seems to be resources, but they are scattered and not really descriptive.

Does anyone know of a good skeletal tutorial for D3DX? Or even a good book that can be recommended?



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