Hi all, I''m a computer art student, and I''ve just recently decided that I think I could best utilize (and best enjoy) my 3D skills in the gaming industry. I''ve checked lots of low poly modeling sources which cover tutorials on modeling your game character but there''s been a couple of things that aren''t covered. For one thing How, (and I know that each game engine probably does it differently), are the models animated? Are the models designed with seperatly modeled parts with axis points? Are the models modeled whole and run with a bone system? How are the models/the bg models/the camras animated in the game? What is left to the hardcore programmer to riddle out and what is left for the 3D animator to design with visuals (ie, the walk cycle of the model, the facial expressions of the model)? I''ve looked through Game programming books and low poly modeling books, but I''ve never come across anything that covers the bridging of the two. Any help to this newbie to the gaming industry would be very much appreciated.

The answer to your question is it depends. Every game engine is different, but recently engines have been using skeletal animation. For example, Wildtangent has a freely downloadable engine that allows animations to be exported from 3ds max or Maya. The 3ds max version allows you to animate using character studio and export the result. Many engines provide tools like these so you might want to look them over to get an idea of what is offered.

http://www.wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=dev_downloads

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http://www.3dcgi.com/

To answer your question about bridging the gap between the artist and the programmer: The animation is of course done by the artist, however, movement is controlled by the programmer. In new engines though, there are death sequences that are totally controlled by forces, like gravity and the direction in which you got hit. I think its called a ragdoll simulation.

Pretty much all engines now run with a skeletal animation system, a popular one, which we are using called lithtech uses character studio for 3dstudio max but also supports native bones.
For facial animation, the artist can set up bones to control these and have the programmer call upon certain facial expressions that the artist already defined. Theres a ton of methods so it really depends

cameras are under the programmers control

-Lou
www.louisferina.com


[edited by - seven79 on July 12, 2002 12:45:19 PM]