character modeling mesh or movable object ???

[rimie2387]

Hi,
in my project i must move an charcter (their hand , their head...)
if i modeled this character using 3dsmax ,blender or maya and export it as mesh
can i control each limb in deferent way , or i control all the mesh ??

what is the solution than to modeling character and move only his hand (just for exemple)

[N_K]

What you're looking for is called skeletal animation, and yes, Ogre supports this. (In fact, it has the most powerful skeletal animation system among the open source general-purpose 3D engines.)

In older games, animations were "baked into" the mesh, thus it was impossible to play two animations at the same time. For example, when the character ran, it couldn't turn its head.

Skeletal animation has been developed to overcome this. You assign bones to your mesh in the modeler. Then, you animate your model by moving the bones, and the engine will know how to transform the mesh itself. Therefore, you can play many animations at once, you can override the bone positions on runtime, and much more.

See the Character Demo and the Skeletal Animation demo in the official samples.

[rimie2387]

thanks for repling
but i will make the animation not in the modler (i create the skeletal with 3dsmax ,maya or blender BUT i will not create the animation in this software)
in my project i will move the legs or the arms
you can understand what i mean ?

[duststorm]

You can rig your model in the 3D package, then apply transformations to the bones in your application. Have a look at the numerous threads on this forum about manually animating skeletons, applying motion capture data in ogre, and use of kinect for skeleton posing. There are enough examples of how to implement it.

[rimie2387]

thanks
ok , i will make research un this forum
thanks for the advice

BUT the first step and before animating the character , we must create it
so should i create it using 3dsmax or maya and export it ? or i create it like that ?

the way of the modeling the charcater has influence to the motion of the character

the character must make motion like human , the motions (animation ) is create in the code not using software (i can animate just the arm )
somthing like that ,
for that i am confused , how i can modeling my character to obtain my aim
i search but i can't found threed as i want (maybe i do not write the best request )
(Note: my project is academic project )

[duststorm]

You will probably need a 3D package to create something that looks good. The alternative is using something like ManualObject, but I would only use that for simpler things.
The quality of animation will depend on how well your 3D mesh topology is and how bone weights are assigned to vertices. You can also improve deformations by using dual quaternion skinning, which is implemented in ogre RTSS.

Creating good animateable meshes is a concept worth a whole book in itself, and is mainly an artistic challenge. Therefore I think that you can better look for information about this subject on dedicated 3D art communities, such as the blender community forums, or those of maya or 3D max.

If you want a good human mesh quickly that is already rigged for you, I can advice the opensource project www.makehuman.org (for which I'm a developer/artist too, shameless plug ).
It can save you a lot of work.

[rimie2387]

You will probably need a 3D package to create something that looks good. The alternative is using something like ManualObject, but I would only use that for simpler things.

ok i will uses maya or 3dsmax to create my character , i will export it as .mesh ?
but when i import it in ogre3d how i can read the bones ? as i know the .mesh is one object

The quality of animation will depend on how well your 3D mesh topology is and how bone weights are assigned to vertices

you mean how i create the character and the bones in the 3dsmax ? all is depend on how i create the character in 3dsmax ?

You can also improve deformations by using dual quaternion skinning, which is implemented in ogre RTSS.

what you mean her ?

Creating good animateable meshes is a concept worth a whole book in itself,

yes i know just ask me , i read many articls in this field .BUT i do not understand somthing : there is many articl in this field but there is softwrae like 3dsmax that create character , why i read all this articls if i can create it with this software (maybe i am stuped ,but i already ask myself this question why i read the articls how i create character where i can create it with software ? the same thing with inverse kinematic , there is many articl in tghis field but i can make it with maya or 3dsmax !!)

[duststorm]

but when i import it in ogre3d how i can read the bones ? as i know the .mesh is one object

Bones can have names, look at the API and samples spread across the forums for more details.

you mean how i create the character and the bones in the 3dsmax ? all is depend on how i create the character in 3dsmax ?

Yes, use of only quads and clean strategically positioned edge loops in your mesh is good for proper deformations when animating.

You can also improve deformations by using dual quaternion skinning, which is implemented in ogre RTSS.

what you mean her ?

Check here for more information. You can also check out the "Dual quaternion skinning" demo in the Ogre 1.8 SampleBrowser.

Creating good animateable meshes is a concept worth a whole book in itself,

yes i know just ask me , i read many articls in this field .BUT i do not understand somthing : there is many articl in this field but there is softwrae like 3dsmax that create character , why i read all this articls if i can create it with this software

The software is no more than a tool. You can compare it to a text editor. With a text editor you can write books, maybe even very good books that sell millions of copies or are considered literature or are accepted into the canon.
With a text editor you can also write code, like Ogre. However, because you have a text editor installed on your computer that does not mean you will create good things with it..
See what I mean?

3D editors are editors. You are the artist and create things with them (much as with classic tools like a hammer or chisel). What you create with them and the quality of the result depends much on your competences, experience and knowledge.

Creating a rig for inverse kinematics depends heavily on what you want to do with it. It requires quite some knowledge and experience to do a good IK rig for a character that works well.
Automatic tools can only get you that far, there will always be manual tweaking involved. It's very hard to get it right every time with an automatic tool.
However, the Makehuman project tries very hard to automate a lot of the process. (it's not easy though)

[rimie2387]

With a text editor you can also write code, like Ogre. However, because you have a text editor installed on your computer that does not mean you will create good things with it..
See what I mean?

3D editors are editors. You are the artist and create things with them (much as with classic tools like a hammer or chisel). What you create with them and the quality of the result depends much on your competences, experience and knowledge.

thanks , yes you are right you convinced me ,


i will now found how i create 3d character with 3dmaw with the respect of my idea (like create the arm in three parts , the legs too ..)

[duststorm]

As I said, if you want to create human bodies or human body parts, have a look at makehuman.org.
Using it you get an animated very high quality human arm almost for free.

I've used makehuman to generate animated characters in my crowd demo in Ogre3D. It worked quite well.
I did it in blender but makehuman can export to fbx, so it can be imported in most 3D packages.

[rimie2387]

Ok ,i will look at the website of makehuman.org
i can create 3d character with it ? is it software so i do not use blender or 3dsmax ?
when i create my character with it i export it in .mesh to use it in ogre3d ?

what is the utility to export in .fbx ? is i can use this in ogre3d ?

thanks very much ,

[duststorm]

You can export to various formats with makehuman. First model more or less the character you want by using the sliders,
then select save, export. You can choose .mhx format to export to blender or export to obj or fbx (to export to another 3D editor). If you want an animated character I think you can only export to mhx or fbx. Since you are going to render it in realtime you might want to select a proxy instead of the full resolution basemesh, but then again if it is only one arm you need even the full resolution mesh won't slow it down too much. Make sure to select a proper rig (simple or game rig will be fine).
Import it in blender with the mhx plugin, or import the fbx file in another editor like 3D max or maya. Prepare your model there (remove everything you don't need, for example if you only need an arm remove the rest of the body). Especially remove the inside of the mouth and teeth when using the main resolution mesh, as it's a lot of polys you probably won't need.
Then just export it to .mesh with the ogre exporter you would normally use.

Also, I advice to use the latest nightly build instead of the stable, as the nightly contains a lot of new features you might want.
There's lots of additional information on the makehuman documentation pages and the forum. If you're stuck, look there, or ask on the forums.

[rimie2387]

ok
thanks
i downloded "Nightly Builds" version , and i am now trying to create my character

i can't register in makecharacter forum
it make to me error in the password
"Password must be between 6 and 30 characters long, must contain letters in mixed case and must contain numbers." i tried : &a1e2t3 it does not work , i tried tor &A1E2T3
but it does not work , have you an idea why ?

[duststorm]

have you an idea why ?

Not really. Maybe it doesn't allow strange symbols like "&".
I'll ask around.

In any case: "&a1e2t3" will not work as it only contains lower cases.
What happens if you try something like "tzP44s"?

[rimie2387]

it work thanks