Number of keyframes in video games anims.

[danyrey]

In general: less keyframes, less memory.
A keyframe on every bone every frame will waste a lot of memory.

When you clean up your animations for the game engine you have to link up with the programmers because you don't know how the game engine interpolates between keyframes.
Since linear interpolation is very cheap to compute compared to spline interpolation it is common for the game engine to use linear interpolation.

[alec.tron]

"In general: less keyframes, less memory."

generally speaking, yes...
but in terms of game engines.... not necessarily....at least for the one we use for example. Because when you export an animation, the engine evaluates all joints and "bakes" it anyway when it exports,so it ends up with a key each frame in the engine everytime. But to get details relevant to you ll have to ask who-evers engine you re interested in or read the public papers & conventions.

c.

[switchblade327]

I've never really heard of trying to animate with less keys, since as mentioned above, most engines will bake your keys into linear data anyway.

Using less keys is fine is you're controlling the interpolation with curves or whatever, but otherwise I'd say use as many as you need to make it look good and cross your fingers that the engine doesn't butcher it too badly (which at least with the engines I've worked with, has nothing to do with the number of starting keyframes) :P

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