3DModelerMan has issues with the Irrlicht animation system, and mentions that 'retargeting' and 'IK' is preventing him from using it. I'm not getting more details from him, perhaps someone else can try it?
Are the Irrlicht developers aware of those shortcomings, and planning to improve things in the future?
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=35895
Thanks,
Erwin
Irrlicht animation system limitations?
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erwincoumans
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I personally don't see any of the things listed as short-comings.
IK (Inverse Kinematics) I've always thought of as something of an artist tool for use in modelling programs (E.g. Blender supports IK). In Irrlicht you still have access to all the bones which you can control manually, so theres no stopping you from implementing your own custom ragdoll solution which may contain some kind of IK or similar.
Animation "retargeting" is already possible I think. I haven't tried it but I've seen a few people discussing how to do it here on the forums. It basically just involves using an animation from one model, and applying it onto another model. This can for instance save disk space or memory by only loading one animation and applying it to a handful of different models. The people certainly didn't call it "retargeting" though so you may have some trouble finding these threads, best to contact Luke or someone more familiar with the system directly. If I have time I'll look into it and make a small how-to.
I do think there are some limitations though that aren't related to what 3DModellerMan said:
- Performance: The bone matrix calculations are quite slow and can drain CPU usage.
- No Built-In Hardware Skinning: It's possible to DIY but it can be cumbersome for most regular users and no built-in solution currently exists. I've put-off creating an easy to use add-on as I've been waiting to put it directly in the engine, but there are no immediate plans to do this AFAIK. This is also a performance issue, in most cases you'll notice a 2X performance increase with Hardware Skinning.
But aside from these performance issues I can't think of much else that would be holding us back. Can you be more specific about what you may require as a user from Irrlicht that may not be supported?
IK (Inverse Kinematics) I've always thought of as something of an artist tool for use in modelling programs (E.g. Blender supports IK). In Irrlicht you still have access to all the bones which you can control manually, so theres no stopping you from implementing your own custom ragdoll solution which may contain some kind of IK or similar.
Animation "retargeting" is already possible I think. I haven't tried it but I've seen a few people discussing how to do it here on the forums. It basically just involves using an animation from one model, and applying it onto another model. This can for instance save disk space or memory by only loading one animation and applying it to a handful of different models. The people certainly didn't call it "retargeting" though so you may have some trouble finding these threads, best to contact Luke or someone more familiar with the system directly. If I have time I'll look into it and make a small how-to.
I do think there are some limitations though that aren't related to what 3DModellerMan said:
- Performance: The bone matrix calculations are quite slow and can drain CPU usage.
- No Built-In Hardware Skinning: It's possible to DIY but it can be cumbersome for most regular users and no built-in solution currently exists. I've put-off creating an easy to use add-on as I've been waiting to put it directly in the engine, but there are no immediate plans to do this AFAIK. This is also a performance issue, in most cases you'll notice a 2X performance increase with Hardware Skinning.
But aside from these performance issues I can't think of much else that would be holding us back. Can you be more specific about what you may require as a user from Irrlicht that may not be supported?
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