I'm trying to get my head around animation and Assimp. I'm trying to just get the bone positions in bind pose (no animation or anything like that). According to various sources, I should be able to use aiBone::mOffsetMatrix. The way I am doing it is (psuedo code):

MthVector4 v(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f);
MthMatrix invOffset = mOffsetMatrix;
invOffset.Inverse();
invOffset.Transform(v, v);
pos = (MthVector3&)v / v.w;

pos should give the position in model space, right? I've spent a while fiddling around with this stuff for a while but nothing looks right at all. So what is the correct way to do this?

Thanks.

Ok, maybe a clearer question would be: What are aiBone::mOffsetMatrix and aiNode::mTransformation, what is the difference and when/how should I use them?

Thanks.

To my knowledge, assimp does not store bind pose.

The skeleton you have is stored in whatever frame 1 is.

The offset matrix is what you need to multiply a vertex (taking the joint's weight into account) by in order to get it into the bone space of frame 1.

I love assimp, but i can't stand the datastructures / orgonization / matrix handedness they chose.