|
|
tS7.5 Character Animation
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
tS7.5 Character Animation // Roundtable
Post by Humdinger // Oct 18, 2006, 1:12pm
|
Humdinger
Total Posts: 319
|
By the way...
Thank you for the extended screen shots Roman.... in the Captain's Blog. |
Post by roman // Oct 18, 2006, 6:10pm
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
I wouldn't trade any of that fine control for a fully automated setup I don't think.What can I say, you are right we must provide manual control and we will. Sometimes I get out there on a limb with my puritan research attitude, offending equaly our customer and our developers:) To get soft tissues simulation requires a lot more compute cycles than blending shape envelopes, not to mention it is harder to implement. On the other hand it is easy to accelerate on upcoming 4+ core CPU's so the day is comming nearer (oh about a month from now) when that kind of thing will become practical.
Will I be able to use a host of constraints and parenting that can be key framed for blending and general activation/deactivation as needed?I borrowed this quote from your "I want everything but a kitchen sink" post:) The short answer to your many excellent points is that we may surprise you with the extent of what you will be able to do in 7.5 allthough obviously not everything will be included in the first release. But I am not sure more is always better.
For example there is a contradiction between the constraits and hierarchies aproach, in TS we are putting much more emphasis on constraints and less on hierarchies because they provide for more flexible animation structures. I believe hierarchies, while sometimes usefull are inherently evil and we try to stay away from them.
More beliefs to show my puritan side: I see in most high end 3D tools you mentioned random mixing of 3 UI animation metaphors: 1. Geometry metaphor (vertex, mesh), mechanical metaphor (rig) and biology metaphor (skin, muscle, bone). You can see it in Motion Builder and you can see it in CAT. I believe that good UI should use just one consistent metaphor, in case of character animation it should be in my opinion the language of human anatomy. |
Post by Gwot // Oct 18, 2006, 6:49pm
|
Gwot
Total Posts: 25
|
I would also like to say thanks for the animation image previews, they are most welcome, and I'm definitely curious to see what the next release has in store.
Roman: Research is great, even if you are pushing the bleeding edge in terms of functionality vs performance. The hardware always catches up in the end anyway. The hard part is giving the end user what they want, without sacrificing your own goals as a developer. I'm sure it's a tough line to walk, as people like me demand everything you've got and then ask for more. =]
As far as rigging systems go, I find as a game animator and rigger that I'm fairly stuck with heirarchies being necessary in terms of what you output to the engine in the end, but the fun part is in how you go about circumventing such limited systems in order to create efficient and easy to use control rigs to animate with.
I'm always trying to find better, more powerful ways to control my characters, without breaking the basic limitations of working with a realtime engine. The key to succeeding and even having fun with it lies in the fact that pretty much anything goes while working in the animation software, so long as you can spit out a basic deformation skeleton, a mesh and some vertex data such as weights and morphs. So long as I don't break the basic functionality of the deformation heirarchy, I am free to build whatever control system I want around it. Constraints make all the difference here, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys are working on. |
Post by Alien // Oct 19, 2006, 6:22am
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
To get soft tissues simulation requires a lot more compute cycles than blending shape envelopes, not to mention it is harder to implement. On the other hand it is easy to accelerate on upcoming 4+ core CPU's so the day is comming nearer (oh about a month from now) when that kind of thing will become practical.
If tS7 code is really as open as you've made it sound, in the sense that should you decide to add a feature it can just be "bolted on", then I have an idea... Although it wouldn't help with rendering [as the responsibility for such improvements would be on the rendering engine makers], have you considered taking advantage of ATI's Stream Computing technology (http://ir.ati.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=105421&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=910519)? It might provide a cheaper source of extra computing power for users.
More beliefs to show my puritan side: I see in most high end 3D tools you mentioned random mixing of 3 UI animation metaphors: 1. Geometry metaphor (vertex, mesh), mechanical metaphor (rig) and biology metaphor (skin, muscle, bone). You can see it in Motion Builder and you can see it in CAT. I believe that good UI should use just one consistent metaphor, in case of character animation it should be in my opinion the language of human anatomy.
On that note, whilst not an animator, or having done a lot of research into the field, I have often seen the term "nails" used in articles about a number of packages, even the old tS bone system has nails. From your enlarged pic [thanks for that, BTW] it seems as if you're now calling them "Pos Lock". I was just thinking that it might be better to stick to a term more people might be familiar with. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/smilies/dunno.gif Then again, like I said, it's just my opinion & I'm not an animator [maybe someday :)]. |
Post by Gwot // Oct 19, 2006, 7:14am
|
Gwot
Total Posts: 25
|
Nail works ok for me... Pos Lock sounds more like the terminology the program would use under the hood... same thing in XSI though... I can 'Pin' an object in 3d space which is really just a temporary position constraint that can be toggled. Neither naming matters though because it's the type of useful constraint I would dump into a synoptic or custom rig controls page for the animator and call it whatever they like. =] |
Post by Humdinger // Oct 19, 2006, 7:32am
|
Humdinger
Total Posts: 319
|
While we are talking...
One thing I would like to see...
Say I create bike..use the TS tricycle ...and all the parts 'work' as part of the physical simulation.
It woud very awesome that if I could have a skinned rig/mesh....get on the tricycle and as a reslut of a 'pedal' animation the feet would collide and actually 'turn the pedals' on the bike..and cause the bike..and my rig..to move as the rig 'pedals'
Sure you could make it 'look like' this is happening..but to have it really happen within the software as a result of only minimal keyframing...and no camera tricks..?
Ahhhhhhh that would be very.....well.......awesome. |
Post by TomG // Oct 19, 2006, 8:06am
|
TomG
Total Posts: 3397
|
As far as I know, that could be possible Humdinger - the various animations systems are not exclusive. You can have keyframed animation result in procedural animation result in physics animation -
So let's say I keyframe my character walking along a pavement. A scripted "detector" object that looks for something nearby sets off a procedural movement to open a trap door in a platform up above. The grand piano that was sitting on that platform now begins to fall due to physics toward our unsuspecting character who has just triggered the trap.
In a similar way, a keyframed character waving his arms could collide with an knock down a pile of boxes. Pick him up and move him, and his arms miss, and the boxes no longer fall down. Your animation is not all pre-scripted and worked out in advance, but fluid and flexible.
I would imagine that the same would be true of the animation system here for bones etc. Anything you keyframe into this sytem will interact physically with other objects.
Now, whether you would pedal your tricycle totally by physics, which might be hard / slow to have all the gears and connections in place, you could certainly do a mix, eg letting the push from the animated character drive the pedals maybe through physics, and then maybe a script to make the wheels read the pedal movement and move the tricycle accordingly (including a matched movement in rotation of the wheels).
The possibilities I think are very exciting indeed! And much more open than previous versions of tS where physics was essentially a separate system from everything else, and you couldn't mix keyframed animation with it so well (and of course there was no scripting on such an accessible level).
Those are just my ideas from your idea - can't guarantee how it will all come out in the final version, though of course most of the above you can already try to some extent in tS7.1 (just not the new bones system).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Humdinger // Oct 19, 2006, 8:57am
|
Humdinger
Total Posts: 319
|
:banana:
Looking forward to it all Thomas. |
Post by Nephos // Oct 19, 2006, 9:34am
|
Nephos
Total Posts: 59
|
http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=3798
How did I miss this?? It is dated Sept. 19.
BTW- I have been a silent lurker but I must say 7.5 looks like a gem. Great going Roman. This looks like a must have!!:jumpy: |
Post by Bobbins // Oct 19, 2006, 12:54pm
|
Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
|
You didn't miss that press release. It was actually released on 17th October, CG Society have simply screwed up their dates. |
Post by mrbones // Oct 20, 2006, 4:43am
|
mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
|
I created these bones and physim creations in previous versions of TrueSpace.
http://www.3dborg.com/joe/trueskin/
As far as I know, that could be possible Humdinger ,
Much more open than previous versions of tS where physics was essentially a separate system from everything else, and you couldn't mix keyframed animation with it so well (and of course there was no scripting on such an accessible level).
Those are just my ideas from your idea - can't guarantee how it will all come out in the final version, though of course most of the above you can already try to some extent in tS7.1 (just not the new bones system).
HTH!
Tom |
|
