Loading animation help required.

#1

First off I’d just like to say hello to everyone since I’m fairly new to this discussion board.

I’m trying to write my own game, one that’s like the mechassault game for Xbox. You know, 3rd person shooter w/ mechs and the over the shoulder view perspective.

So far I’ve written my own .obj loader so that I can load stationary objects into my game. Now I’m interested in starting to load animations into my game, however, the problem with this is that I’ve never done this before and I don’t know anyone who’s done this before… So I turn to the gurus of the board.

I created my animations in Maya, and I would like to know if anyone has written their own animation loader for any of the formats that you can export with Maya?

Can I export animations in .obj format? If so, pros and cons?

Which format do you recommend that I use?

Does anyone have some sample code I could look at?

This game is just for my own interest, I’m not trying to make any money off it.

I’d appreciate any help at all.

Cbmeredith

#2

Maybe take a look at the FBX code. SDK should be available. Exports animation and mesh from Maya.

#3

Re: Cebemeridith.

I believe I can help…

I’m assuming you’re programming in C++ and Direct3D - so here I go!:smiley:

The best formats in order of the best first…

  1. Direct3D “X” files.
  2. 3DStudio “3ds” files.
  3. Caligari “cob” files.

…now the Direct3D graphics app should contain a 3D model class that comes with a X file loader.

So that takes care of loading in the Direct3D “X” files…

Next, you want to convert your maya model files(which also contain animation info etc). The D3D graphics app also contains small utility help programs for converting 3DS and Maya files into D3D X files…

Make sure to look at Gamedev.net and the DirectX 9 SDK help for more information…

Hope this gets you thinking!:thumbsup:

#4

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