Im writing some a test game in Turing(ooturing.cjb.net) and I want to do an animation of a fighter kicking. I don''t think I could make a IK skeleton for the 3D objects so I can only really think of two other methods of doing this. 1. Cuttin it up Break the object down into different parts and have animation paths for all movement. ie rotate_left_leg 30 degrees rotate_mid 10 degrees head 2 degrees blah blah... or 2. Choppy frames [I think I might do it like this, but the first one would look better) break the body up into parts but have models of say a kick, a punch or w/e much like the sprite based fighting games.. is there any other method I haven''t considered?

Yes, tweening like the old Unreal engine. Have a full (or cut up) sprite in your poses like option 2 but smoothly move between one frame and the other by averaging out the point positions. This way you can have smooth movement without the need for a skeleton. Basically a smooth option 2, although you''ll need to process the points each frame of the game.

For example you might have frame 2 standing, frame 3 kicking so frame 2.5 would be automatically calculated as an average between the two.

Mark
mark@cornutopia.co.uk
http://www.cornutopia.co.uk