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Old 25th August 2007, 01:18 PM   #1
Reborok
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Default need help with Ac3D

Hi
can somebody help me
i often heard that ac3d is used for games
how do you want to use ac3d character without bones???
i donŽt know if there is a plugin for bones or something else
can somebody help me, i need help, REALY

i hope that somebody can help me and is going to write me

reborok :grin:
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Old 25th August 2007, 06:08 PM   #2
lisa
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

Cool. Are you writing your own game, or making a mod?

Just for clarification: are you asking how to rig a model for animation using AC3D, or how to create animation keyframes with AC3D?

AC3D doesn't have the ability to create animation keyframes; you'll need to use an external program like Poser if you're wanting to create keyframe animations.

However, AC3D can be used for basic animation rigging and is useful for games that use procedural animation instead of keyframe. i.e. Most racing games don't animate the cars in advance, they do it in real-time using physics equations instead. AC3D can be used to create and setup models for many of these types of games.

Bones are only needed for soft-body animation (i.e. deformable characters) because of the blend weights. For rigid body animation (i.e. vehicles) a simple hierarchy and pivot points for each mesh are all that are needed for many setups.

You can access the Hierarchy View in AC3D from the Tools menu. Object centers can also be set on the Tools menu.

---------------------------------------------

TECHNICAL SIDE NOTE FOR PLUG-IN DEVELOPERS AND THE CURIOUS: Although AC3D doesn't have native support for blend weights, I've actually been using it to rig deformable models by using either a texture map as a weight map, or more commonly by using overlapping vertices and then just merging the verts and dividing by the number of overlapping vertices to get the blend weight in my exporter. Painting a weight map is of course the more refined way to do it, but even the overlapping vertices method works surprisingly well for simple characters.
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Old 25th August 2007, 06:45 PM   #3
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

I'm not a plugin developper, but I'm curious for sure ...
Please can you explain what is a weight map ?
How do you use it ?
Quote:
using either a texture map as a weight map
I just can't visualize that.

There's so many things to learn in the 3D field, that I will be dead before then end of the learning course
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Old 26th August 2007, 05:00 PM   #4
lisa
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

Quote:
Originally Posted by luuckyy View Post
Please can you explain what is a weight map ?
How do you use it ?
Sure thing!

A weight map is a grayscale image that is used to blend smoothly between two effects. The effect could be a material, a deformation, a transform or any number of other things, but the most typical uses are materials and vertex bone weights. Any pixels that are black in the weight map use the first effect, and any pixels that are white in the weight map use the second effect. For example, if you were using a weight map to blend between a red and a blue material, black pixels in the weight map would turn the object red, blue pixels in the weight map would turn the object blue, and gray pixels in the weight map would turn the object purple as it would mix the red and blue together.

Using a weight map for bone weights works the same way. Remember, a bone is really just a transform. For example, a leg "bone" is a transformation matrix that stores the pivot point and rotation of the leg. The pelvis "bone" is the pivot and rotation of the pelvis. If you wanted to blend the vertices in a character's hip between the leg and the pelvis you could use a weight map to indicate which vertices were influenced by which; so that vertices near the thigh are almost entirely influenced by the leg, and vertices near the waist are almost entirely influenced by the pelvis, and vertices in the middle are blended between the two.

How many and what kind of weight maps you need depends on the specifics of your renderer. Many renderers need one weight map per bone, to indicated the strength of the influence of the bone on the different vertices of the model, bt other possible combinations exist.
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Old 27th August 2007, 10:51 AM   #5
Reborok
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

thanks for help
it will be very interesting to learn more about ac3d
first iŽll use poser, than i can write a new message if i need help, more help

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Old 27th August 2007, 11:03 AM   #6
Reborok
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

hi
i am here again who else???
i have just 1 question more...
wich vision of poster should i take 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...
i hope u will help me
Reborok
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Old 27th August 2007, 01:31 PM   #7
lisa
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

I haven't used the oldest versions, so I can't speak for those. Poser 6, which is what I use currently, is a strong improvement over 5, so I would certainly use at least version 6. Supposedly version 7 adds some new features that sound mighty interesting--like multiple overlaid timelines with motion blending--but I haven't tried it yet.

Dennis has some awesome AC3D plug-ins useful for creating characters and some Poser-specific stuff that you'll want to get. (Whereas AC3D only creates models, Poser only animates, so you'll need both to make original characters.) You can download Dennis' plug-ins at: http://supercoldmilk.com/
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Old 27th August 2007, 01:36 PM   #8
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

hi
do u mean the plugin: Poser Morph target Assistant
at the plugin index at supercoldmilk.com

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Old 27th August 2007, 02:48 PM   #9
luuckyy
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

Thanks for the infos Lisa !

You seem to be a very good 3D technical honestly.
I already was aware of vertices weights in an animation work for smooth animation purposes, and I've made some use of that sometimes, but that weight map ... this is the first time I see that.

2 other questions if you don't mind :

- How do you create a weight map ? I mean, I know how to create greyscale pictures for bump maps, and b/w pictures for opacity maps, but ... are you "painting" black vertices and white vertices on a grey background for a weight map or ... ? If so, how can you be accurate in this job ?

- What softwares make a use of these weight maps ?

TIA
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Old 27th August 2007, 04:19 PM   #10
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Default Re: need help with Ac3D

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reborok View Post
hi
do u mean the plugin: Poser Morph target Assistant
at the plugin index at supercoldmilk.com

reborok
Hi Reborok,

This plugin works fine, but has some restrictions on morph targets. There are absolutely *no* restrictions I know of for editing the models you import into Poser. All you have to do is create your model, export as OBJ, then import into Poser, and all should work well. The only restrictions come into play when you are editing morph targets (it's explained in the docs).

Don't worry if you don't know what a morph target is just now --- it's something you'll learn as you do character modeling with Poser.

If you intend to make morph targets with this plugin, make sure you read the documentation on the plugin page. There are some restrictions on the way you can edit geometry meant to be exported as a Poser Morph Target.

Also, some other plugins on supercoldmilk.com were built to assist with character modeling. Of all of them, I'd most strongly recommend the Divide Loop plugin:

http://supercoldmilk.com/ac3dplug/divloop.html

I've found this invaluable in character modeling.

Also, for some assistance with UV maps (for texturing your models), I'd recommend these plugins:

http://supercoldmilk.com/ac3dplug/uvmap.html UVMap
http://supercoldmilk.com/ac3dplug/exportuv.html Export UV Map

Good luck!
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