Hi there, I'm just recently started using blender. Currently I just made static meshes with materials associated. They import without problems to XNA. Now I wanted to start creating an animation for my model. However, I am very confused about how to do this. I read about lpo-curves, aramtures, bones, Soft-whatever. I don't know what to use for game modelling? I just need advice on what type of animation games use and to what that corresponds in Blender. I've been searching to find blender tutorials specific to Game Modeling but I couldn't find any. If someone could shed some light onto this I'd be grateful

Well I'm sorta a beginner to Blender as well but I think armatures would be the best for games. I'm about to create a tutorial on modeling and animating a stick person and I'll be sure to get it to you. And to my knowledge bones are the same as armatures in Blender.

My friend is an excellent modeller in Blender. He dosen't have internet anymore so I can't send him to this page, but I believe when he does animation he uses IK Movement or something like that. I am sorry, I am just not up to all the animating techniques and stuff. Sorry. But maybe googling IK's or IK Movement will bring something up. Good luck.


Chad.

The Blender website has several tutorials on how to rig an object using an Armature and the naming conventions and buttons to use that will make rigging a lot more easier. Trust me, I've followed the directions and successfully rigged a character in about 2 days ;)

The thing is, though, that making a good rig takes some time, because no matter what you do, you will find that some piece of geometry just won't deform properly or look natural and you have to accept that it never will when you animate for games.

I will say this, though; When rigging in Blender, you may be tempted to use the "Armature" modifier in the object modifier menu. I don't recommend doing this because in my past experiences, it does not attempt to make vertex groups for you. Instead, I would recommend doing it the old way: choose the object, then choose the armature, and Parent the object to the armature (hit "CTRL + p").

For animating, you'll have to have a good sense of timing and know how to keyframe while the armature is in pose mode. Then use the IPO editor to control your ease ins and ease outs on your keyframes so the animation looks as natural as can be.

Again, all of this information is available on the Blender website.

Thansk for the info everybody. Especially esrix. I know that there are lots of info available at the Website and in the Blender wiki. It was just because I am completely new to modeling I wasn't sure what method to use for Game animations. Because as I understand there are multiple methods to animate in Blender? Anyway, the first thing I tried was actually using Armatures so I was on the right track :-) I just wasn't sure about it. I'm currently doing the GUS the gingerbread man tutorial.

While I'm add it: Almost every tutorial I saw is smoothing object using SubSurfs. However, I noticed that they don't get exported to .x files. It looks like they just export the boundingbox of the SubSufed objects? Is that an error in the export script or is it expected behaviour?

Yea look up rigging. Basically just do add->armature and you add bones. then you hold shift and click the bones and then mesh (might be the other way around). Then you have to link the verts to the different bones. Pose mode animates them. Theres other awesome stuff you can do with blender too, but its complicated to type and its long. Pick up the blender 2.3 guide book.

There are many different kinds of 3D animation and they're intended for different purposes. The simplest one is transformation based animation, which is used for moving static objects. Some might argue that it's not really animation, IMO it is. You can do that kind of animation in Blender with keyframes and IPO curves as well as with other methods. I don't know which (if any) model formats support this kind of animation. It's pretty trivial to write your own export/import for loading these animations in your application. Usually these animations are based on game logic/physics and not very often exported from the modelling application.

The second kind of animation is varying geometry. The mesh models change geometry over time usually by moving vertices while the polygons remain the same. You can create such animation in Blender using Mesh-keys and/or skeletal animation (bones/armatures, etc). I have no experience in exporting or otherwise accessing this data in Blender. An example of this kind of animation is the MD2 model format used in Quake 2.

Skeletal animation is a third kind of animation. It's fundamental idea is that there is a "skeleton", a simple figure that can be easily transformed and parts of the 3d model are transformed based on the orientation of the bones in the skeleton. Skeletal animation is a rather complex subject. CAL3D is a nice skeletal animation package and it comes with a Blender exporter.

You can of course animate almost any property of a 3D model, like colour, texture, material, transparency, etc. It's up to you to decide which properties you want to animate in your project. There is no one-size-fits-all solution available.

Collada is a 3d model format everyone's talking about these days. I personally think that it's a rather overkill format, but I guess it has pretty much everything you can think of. It might be the best attempt for a one-size-fits-all solution (read: compromise) there is. You might want to take a look at that, too.

Subsurfs don't get exported anywhere. They're only for Blender's renderer and are not really part of the actual model. If I remember correctly, you can't access subsurfs in Blender Python scripts at all (and thus they can't be exported).

-Riku

Just to clear a few things up for you:

An Armature is a rig for a model, its a set of Bones, connected together, that kind of make up a skeleton for your model. When working with a .x file, don't worry too much about your number of bones in the armature, do whatever works for you.

IPO curves allow you to determine how quickly your transformations on the mesh move and let you monitor the animation without actually watching it. You can look at exactly what happens by checking the IPO curves and then determine where you have problems in your animation.

The best way to animate something in blender for a game, is to make an armature for your model, create position after position as you insert frame keys, which blender will then morph each one into the next, creating your animation.

There are some good tutorials out there, but don't bother trying to search for game-specific modelling and animation. Your best bet is to search animation in blender, as long as it's mesh-based, most of them will all be the same, and compatible with your game engine.