Character animation

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hi All,

I want to animate a walking human like figure in my JOGL game. For that I wanted to know

  1. which file formats (e. g. MD2, MD5, Cal3D) do you typically use to store the character animation information?
  2. which tools can be used to model these animations?
  3. are there any java libraries available to parse these files and load the models?

Thanks,
Deepali

#2

I would like to know this as well!

#3

Hi dbhagvat,

I use Cal3D and it works very well.

I use Blender3D with the blender2cal3d export script which works perfectly under a few conditions.

There are loaders for Xith3D and jME. You could write a jogl renderer of models loaded using the Xith3D/jME loaders but then you would better use Xith3D/jME instead.

Good luck,

Amos Wenger

#4

Ok, can you also recommend some skeletal animation plugins? cause i do not find a way to export my maya skeletal. :frowning:

#5

Sorry I don’t know maya but I know cal3D has a maya exporter, just google around.

#6

[quote="<MagicSpark.org [ BlueSky ]>,post:3,topic:28125"]
Hi dbhagvat,

I use Cal3D and it works very well.
[/quote]
Via a java interface, or just using JNI? I’ve been considering the same idea.

Does Cal3D support GLSL skinning yet?

#7

[quote="<MagicSpark.org [ BlueSky ]>,post:5,topic:28125"]

Sorry I don’t know maya but I know cal3D has a maya exporter, just google around.
[/quote]
Does it export bones?

#8

Via a java interface, or just using JNI? I’ve been considering the same idea.
[/quote]
Java port. Originally made by Dave Lloyd for Fuze3D (see ShortFuze website), ported to jME by theKman, ported to Xith3D by me.

[quote="<MagicSpark.org [ BlueSky ]>,post:3,topic:28125"]
Does Cal3D support GLSL skinning yet?
[/quote]
Huh, Cal3D doesn’t do displaying, I don’t know much about GLSL skinning but I guess it mustn’t be that hard to implement.

Does it export bones?
[/quote]
Of course ^^ Cal3D’s purpose is to computes mesh deformation in respect with a skeleton.

#9

Hm, linux only :frowning: Haven’t found any win binaries.
So my oddysee will continue…

#10

The maya exporter ? By the way, do you really want to use Maya ? Blender is really really nice, you know…

#11

Yea i know that blender is very nice. I get used to maya. Cause of UnrealTournament. For the moment i really do not have the time for learning blender. :frowning:

There must be a way to export bones direct from maya models via maya. MEL is powerfull but i haven’t found a command which assist me with it.

#12

Sweet, I didn’t realize I could use Cal3D in blender to do animation.

A while back I was looking for a suitable format and I think maybe md2 works with Xith3D but I didn’t really want to use Xith.

I also really, really like blender. It’s just helpful to have a list of hotkeys handy or else you might have trouble using the interface quickly. But for the most part you just have to know E - Extrude, G - Grab/Translate, S - Scale, R - Rotate, P - Push (not as useful), and maybe O - Proportional Editing and NUM 5 - toggle depth perception. Spacebar to bring up a set of menus and navigating the buttons below can get you around most other things.

Well, anyway, I love to use it and hope I can implement models in java with it at some point (currently more concerned with 2D graphical use of OpenGL, which I still have to learn how to do actually).

#13

I can guarantee you you can use Cal3D models made with Blender in a Xith3D game. It works really well.