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cmc
07-07-2004, 06:23 AM
Hi, do anyone know the setup and work flow for animation blending in games? Are there any tutorials and articles? subject like:

1. Setting up the animation.
2. Things to talk note on.
3. Animation blending on different engines.

What I think I know are:

1. Animation on the specific part. Eg: when animating a walk, the animation for top and bottom part of the body are to be separate.

How to set this up?

2. The root of the bone structure is not suppose to move at all.

If root is not to move, how is the engine suppose to know how to offset the character off the ground during the animation.

Thanks.
EricChadwick
07-07-2004, 02:43 PM
Might help to take a look at UDN for ideas.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/SkeletalAnimation
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Animation

Every game is different. Best to talk with the programmers if you are providing animation for a particular game. If you're just learning instead, then best bet may be to make a character for an existing game like UT or Counter Strike or somesuch.

The root node thing usually means the root shouldn't move forward/back, but can (and should) move up/down. Some games also want the left-right movement, while others don't. There is a limit though... the movement should only be "local" movement... if the character has a jump motion, the game will move the character through the air, so typically your animation would not include the full height movement, just the movement up until the feet leave the ground.

Hope that helps.
dominicqwek
07-07-2004, 06:37 PM
mc, like what eric has mentioned, movement along the z axis is allowed. for periods when there is no blending like say in the middle of an attack when no other action is intended, you can move the root or rotate it, left and right if needed for the action. for jumps, its good to have some z axis movement to feel the anticipation and recovery of the jump. the vertical states during ascending and descending are static in z axis motion.
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