DeeZire Online - View Single Post

Proclone · 02-06-2003, 11:32 AM

Well I might aswell explain how things are organized since you're spending time figuring it out anyway, no point forcing you to do all the fooling around when I can tell you how things awork just as easily :P

In order to animate something in Generals there are 2 different ways of doing it.

1) The standard method that you'll notice used on tanks and other vehicles. They just have a basic animation recorded directly on their file, you can play those in the w3d viewer by opening nothing but the unit.

2) Using bones; in order to use bones a model in Generals needs at LEAST 3 w3d files. They're the Skelton file, the Mesh file and then at least one Animation file.

The Mesh file contains the 3D object and the binding (how it's attached to the bones, IE direct parenting, or Using wwskin) information.

The Skeleton file; This contains all the bone information, ie their locations and orientations. This also defines the bind pose and the Mesh file MUST be in the same position as the skeleton file.

Note that in the case of a Mesh file bound with WWSKIN, the Skeleton file and Mesh file NEED to be together because the Mesh file calls information from the Skeleton file.

The Animation Files; These files contain the transform data for the bones. They are entirely useless without the Mesh/Skeleton files. Animation files can be shared by any unit that has the same Skeleton as the one used to create the Animation file itself.

In order to play the aniamtions in teh game the INI file calls the MESH FILE and then adds the filename of the animation file as a suffix.

So the ini would read something like
---
ConditionState = MOVING
Animation = MyModel.MyModel_WalkCYCLE 30
AnimationMode = LOOP
Flags = RANDOMSTART
TransitionKey = Trans_StopWalk
End

TransitionState = Trans_StopWalk
Animation = MyModel.MyModel_StopWalk
AnimationMode = ONCE
End
---
MyModel <- Thats the Mesh file
Mymodel.Mymodel_WalkCYCLE <- That's the Mesh file suffixed by the Walk Cycle animation. The 30 at the end indicates the framerate.

Mymodel.MyModel_StopWalk is another animation file that's defining the animation that plays when the unit changes from the Moving Conditionstate to anything else. I wouldn't use a Transition state on the EXIT of a walkcycle like this for an actual unit, but it's an example of how it's done.

02-06-2003, 11:32 AM	#15 (permalink)
Proclone Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 400	Well I might aswell explain how things are organized since you're spending time figuring it out anyway, no point forcing you to do all the fooling around when I can tell you how things awork just as easily :P In order to animate something in Generals there are 2 different ways of doing it. 1) The standard method that you'll notice used on tanks and other vehicles. They just have a basic animation recorded directly on their file, you can play those in the w3d viewer by opening nothing but the unit. 2) Using bones; in order to use bones a model in Generals needs at LEAST 3 w3d files. They're the Skelton file, the Mesh file and then at least one Animation file. The Mesh file contains the 3D object and the binding (how it's attached to the bones, IE direct parenting, or Using wwskin) information. The Skeleton file; This contains all the bone information, ie their locations and orientations. This also defines the bind pose and the Mesh file MUST be in the same position as the skeleton file. Note that in the case of a Mesh file bound with WWSKIN, the Skeleton file and Mesh file NEED to be together because the Mesh file calls information from the Skeleton file. The Animation Files; These files contain the transform data for the bones. They are entirely useless without the Mesh/Skeleton files. Animation files can be shared by any unit that has the same Skeleton as the one used to create the Animation file itself. In order to play the aniamtions in teh game the INI file calls the MESH FILE and then adds the filename of the animation file as a suffix. So the ini would read something like --- ConditionState = MOVING Animation = MyModel.MyModel_WalkCYCLE 30 AnimationMode = LOOP Flags = RANDOMSTART TransitionKey = Trans_StopWalk End TransitionState = Trans_StopWalk Animation = MyModel.MyModel_StopWalk AnimationMode = ONCE End --- MyModel <- Thats the Mesh file Mymodel.Mymodel_WalkCYCLE <- That's the Mesh file suffixed by the Walk Cycle animation. The 30 at the end indicates the framerate. Mymodel.MyModel_StopWalk is another animation file that's defining the animation that plays when the unit changes from the Moving Conditionstate to anything else. I wouldn't use a Transition state on the EXIT of a walkcycle like this for an actual unit, but it's an example of how it's done.