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Old 1st December 2006, 05:18 AM   #11
AndyH
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Default Re: Animating

If you're talking about some of the more modern animation techniques, I would agree. But simple keyframe animation on position, rotation and size would be good - and it is simple for a user ... trust me.

Bones and mesh deformation would be nice, but not essential. The 3ds4 keyframer is a good place to look for an example.
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Old 2nd December 2006, 01:37 AM   #12
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Default Re: Animating

I do believe ac3d supports bone and joint tools.


from what I have been seeing with maya and other programs animation is alot of work. not just anyone can generate an animated character or model. well maybe they could. But it often takes someone of more advanced skills than a normal beginner.
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Old 2nd December 2006, 08:14 AM   #13
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Default Re: Animating

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Originally Posted by AndyH View Post
If you're talking about some of the more modern animation techniques, I would agree. But simple keyframe animation on position, rotation and size would be good - and it is simple for a user ... trust me.

Bones and mesh deformation would be nice, but not essential. The 3ds4 keyframer is a good place to look for an example.
I agree. But, for me, the real boon would be if the sim I develop for could IMPORT that animation info, rather than me having to create it by hand. I suppose that's on reason I'm more or less ambivalent about even the simple keyframe animation, rotation and size...it's great to know, sure, but being able to easily export that data with the parts would really be sweet!!

One can dream, though, I guess...
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Old 2nd December 2006, 01:04 PM   #14
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Default Re: Animating

yeah Stiglr you are right we can all dream that one day ac3d will support an animation function of some kind. I am just worried that it will be to complex to our begging users.
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Old 2nd December 2006, 03:39 PM   #15
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Cool Re: Animating

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yeah Stiglr you are right we can all dream that one day ac3d will support an animation function of some kind. I am just worried that it will be to complex to our begging users.

To be honest, I find many of the modelling tools complicated, and not because Ac3D is making them complicated, it's just the nature of working in 3D. I really don't know why there appears to be a mystery around animation as a tool (rather than an art form). Animation is, especially in a keyframe model, just a time line where the position, size and rotation changes (and potentially any other property you would like to change over time) are marked and the transition inbetween each keyframe is calculated by the animation tool (tweening).

Macromedia Director and Flash has it for 2D, 3D Studio had it, any animation package has it. How it is applied can be complicated or simple. I'd be happy with just a simple keyframer in Ac3D.

If you think you can't grasp simple animation of objects, you'd have less hope of being able to use any of the modelling tools!
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Old 18th December 2006, 07:40 PM   #16
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Default Re: Animating

To be honest I wouldn't appreciate another animation engine in AC3D - at least not a complex one.
That's because I use AC3D for modeling for games and naturally each game engine has its own animation support.
What would be much more helpful is support for animated model formats, i.e. a way to define bones and maybe keyframes. I think that's what the artists for games need. A very simplistic preview would help placing the bones and IK but I think even this could be external to AC3D (similar to the integration of povray).
There are some nice animation engines out there e.g. cal3d so I think it's not really worth the effort building something in AC3D from scratch. The devs of AC3D could concentrate on some support instead spending the effort in even a simple animation engine.
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Old 18th December 2006, 08:02 PM   #17
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Default Re: Animating

Yeah, but some of the animation support for the games might work better if you could import the animations you worked out while modeling in AC3D into the game itself, saving you from using tools that might flat out suck in the game.

In the system I do 3D work for, it's a nightmare to do part rotations and very simple animations; to be most succinct, this system HAS no WYSIWYG tools so you can see what you're doing; it's all done by text files, and you have to make corrections, then go into the game setting, reload (often losing your visual frame of reference and viewpoint as you do so) and see if you've got it right. It's awful. Especially when you're checking to see if a needle moves 2.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees when given the proper input. I would truly love it if I could work all that out in a nice visual way, while doing the 3D modeling and get the data to import into the game system.

Of course, the onus for that isn't all on AC3D; my game system has to develop a way to mine that data.
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Old 23rd December 2006, 07:38 PM   #18
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Default Re: Animating

as said if ac3d were to include animations it would increase the price, though we do not want to do this, it limits the program as a simple modeling program, without a renderer, or any other tools, ac3d is extremely limited to modeling and UV mapping this is probally one of the reasons I unfortunately moved onto 3ds max :[

but there is another solution, which is to model is to cross platform, for instance, I used to model in ac3d, animate in character fx, and render in either 3ds max or por vay
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Old 24th December 2006, 06:21 AM   #19
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Default Re: Animating

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as said if ac3d were to include animations it would increase the price
I still don't get that... why?

What I would be asking upon the next major release is what has it got in it that will help me do what I want to do that's new and worth the upgrade price?
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Old 24th December 2006, 01:15 PM   #20
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Default Re: Animating

Exactly, and to answer knightoftheroundtable's concerns, it's a question of choice.

Sure, I could use one of the "major" 3D programs to handle animation; they import ac3d files pretty well. The question is, do I want to spend the money on those? No. I'd rather AC3D handled most if not ALL my modeling needs in one, easy to use package.

And, yes, I'd pay more if animation were part of the feature set.
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