animating .x WITHOUT bones

apanjocko · 2003-10-25T15:42:47

everywhere i search about animating meshes in directx (even this forum) it''s always about bones. if the question is not about bones, the answer is. i have a regular simple animation with keyframes in 3ds and have exported it to a .x file. how do you animate it using directx9? where can i read about it? thanks!

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming

Started by apanjocko October 23, 2003 03:20 PM

14 comments, last by apanjocko 20 years, 5 months ago

SiliconMunky

202

October 24, 2003 09:02 PM

quote:Original post by zarthrag
Instead of instantly displaying the next keyframe, you create a function that produces a *transition* from one keyframe to the next. Basically that just (incrementally) alters the vertexes to match the next keyframe. You can easily adjust your framerate by changing how many frames are in-between each keyframe. Get my drift?

yeah, that''s called vertex tweening

apanjocko didn''t want to do that

SiliconMunky

202

October 24, 2003 09:09 PM

quote:Original post by Sphet
If you are using Direct3D, take a look at the D3DXVec3Lerp function. It takes two vectors and interpolates linearly (hence LERP, spherical interpolation is SLERP) based on a factor from [0..1].

If, for example, you have a bunch of boxes that are animated moving around (forget rotation for now). If you export the animation at 30 frames a second, but play it back at 60 frames a second, obviously ever second frame of display will be a duplicate of the previous frame''s animation data.

yeah, that''s called vertex tweening

apanjocko didn''t want to do that

PaulCesar

524

October 24, 2003 09:16 PM

Well, if your really lazy you could just animate, take pictures, and post the animations on a nice billboard sprite.... i did that once

SiliconMunky

202

October 24, 2003 09:16 PM

quote:Original post by apanjocko
aaah,
i suddenly see the light
now i get why there is so little information about that...

so, more or less, you use vertex shaders to animate stuff like dolphins, wheels and such, and bones for characters?

as Pipo DeClown said, no you don''t have to use vertex shaders. It''s just normally faster to do the vertex manipulation in the hardware with the shader, rather than using up the cpu.

Doing the animation with bones isn''t something different than using vertex shaders. The vertex shader is just used to manipulate the verticies in hardware. Whether you are doing key frames with tweening, or using bones, you still have to manipulate verticies and it is helpful to be able to do this in the hardware with vertex shaders.

I''m fairly new to shaders, so please correct me if i''m wrong.

apanjocko

122

Author

October 25, 2003 04:47 AM

there are occasions where bones are not applicable, i think.

for example, i'm doing this tank animation in 3ds, where the caterpillars (the moving carpet around the wheels of the tank) are moving around... i can't see how bones fit into the picture, but I see how vertex shaders can help.

so i think it may be wrong what silliconmunky said: "Doing the animation with bones isn't something different than using vertex shaders.". please correct me if i'm wrong.

anyway, thanks everyone for the input!

thank you sphet

[edited by - apanjocko on October 25, 2003 5:57:37 AM]

SiliconMunky

202

October 25, 2003 03:42 PM

quote:Original post by apanjocko
there are occasions where bones are not applicable, i think.

for example, i''m doing this tank animation in 3ds, where the caterpillars (the moving carpet around the wheels of the tank) are moving around... i can''t see how bones fit into the picture, but I see how vertex shaders can help.

so i think it may be wrong what silliconmunky said: "Doing the animation with bones isn''t something different than using vertex shaders.". please correct me if i''m wrong.

anyway, thanks everyone for the input!

thank you sphet

[edited by - apanjocko on October 25, 2003 5:57:37 AM]

I think you misread what I was trying to say. Vertex shaders are a way to manipulate verticies. Bones and tweening are two different ways of defining how the verticies should be manipulated. So it doesn''t matter if you are using bones or keyframes with tweening, you can still do the vertex manipulations with a vertex shader or not.

Yes, there are definetly situations where bones are not applicable. Bones are normally just used for creatures or characters. But that has nothing to do with vertex shaders.

animating .x WITHOUT bones

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