RFC: Animation On Irrlicht

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:13 pm

I've never done this kind of high-quality animation on irrlicht or any 3D engine. What's your say on this one? Is it even possible to get this level of animation running on Irrlicht? If so, please tell us what they are.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OBFcqXVmRw

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:56 pm

Of course it is.

Is a matter of the atist quality. No engine feature needed there, other than mayb softshadows. The AO or GI like kind of lighting, is a matter that you bake into the difuse textures if u want, in the 3d tool, previouslt. The real time floor shadow, with smooth borders is sth possible already in irrlicht with someone's addon, I think.

and in worst case, in an anim like that, even a feathered attached elipsoid would do, lol...in a non pro way, that is (unles for bird's view for an rts)

So, while I dislike manga inspired stuff -ahem, unneeded pun- , is a matter of being a good animator (and a good modeler, provided the disproportions are really aimimg to manga style.... )

you could do something that resembles quite well that inirrlicht.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 11:18 pm

I'm still not sure what is the workflow for producing high-quality animation that would work best for Irrlicht.

It seems that Blender is the right tool for rigging the character and then later on export it to B3D using Gandalf's B3D exporter.

I've made many test programs for handling B3D animated mesh files including the Ninja animated mesh found in Psionic. That worked pretty well for me as well.

One thing I noticed with the ninja animated file was the jerky/jittery motion when it transitions from one action to the next. Not really smooth, no interpolation happening in the transition.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 9:10 pm

I just realized that in order for me to create cool looking animations in Irrlicht, I need to be good in making animations in the tool itself. So, that means I need to buckle-down and create a one-minute animation rendered to avi format.

I found a free Sonic The Hedgehog model from Turbo Squid. A low-poly version of it here...

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/I ... /ID/233444

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/I ... ?id=253916

I'll work on this model and post the animation later.

Thanks.

sudi · Post by **sudi** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:34 pm

well irrlicht has this transition system integrated. but u have to active it urself with something like setJointAnimation to some type...when i remember correctly.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:54 am

I didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.

It looks like I'll be switching to a fully rigged mesh known as Mancandy.

Here's the link to Blender file.

http://freefactory.org/posts/candy-testers-wanted

Here's the YouTube demo of Mancandy....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KB_ldkQB78

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKlHP0a1 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmlTKpPT ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhXLZr4J ... re=related

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:21 am

Unfortunately mancandy uses advanced rigs rather than just bones, those wont export to irrlicht unless you use .md2(which just exports vertex positions) that would limit you to 8 bit precision and around 5000 faces.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:40 am

He looks OK in IrrEdit, tho.

I'll keep an eye on that when I test the md2 file later.

Thanks for the advice.

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:22 pm

I meant the actual animations... the face posing system and the huge amounts of bones in man candy isn't suitable for games.

fmx · Post by **fmx** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:11 pm

what omaremad is saying is if you're planning to use skinned-bone animations (which MD2 wont) then you'll have problems.

As long as you stick with "baked" vertex animations you should be fine.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:52 pm

OK, got it, here is how I understand it

The diagram below shows MD2 animation is compatible with Mancandy Rig.

Code: Select all

Good: Mancandy(Blender) --> Export To MD2-->Load MD2 File To Irrlicht.

However, it doesn't work with B3D since there are too many bones.

Code: Select all

Bad: Mancandy(Blender)-->Export To B3D-->Load B3D To Irrlicht

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:15 pm

By the way, I'm about to do a test rig on a bipedal mech ATST.

Image shown below.

Thanks for your advice.

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:31 am

As you can probably tell from the video, they are using motion-captured animation. I doubt that anybody could really rig that, and do that whole animation by hand. At any rate, your best bet would be to either rent out a motion capture studio, and professional, or get in good with some industry guys who could let you fool around with their mocap studio.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:16 pm

Yeah, looks like the animation was taken from a mocap, too good to be done by hand.

Anyway...

I found a very simple Blender tutorial on YouTube showing a rig aimed for games.

See: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=T3wLe--YR ... re=related

I'd like to see comments from those who have experience on this kind of rig. Will that work with Irrlicht? Some of the bones weren't even connected.

Thanks.