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[fuirippu]

Hi,

I'm hoping somebody can help me with some questions regarding getting rigged meshes (and then keyframes) from 3ds into .X file format.

I've had some success using the Panda exporter to get geometry, normals, tex co-ords, bone matrices and vertex weights from .max files I've created myself (using bone objects linked to each other and assigned to mesh vertices "by hand").

What I'm trying to find out about is "Character Studio". I'm reading "Animating RealTime Game Characters", 2003 by Paul Steed. It's written for 3ds max4, but is presented in a fairly generic manner. The book is starting to mention saving .fig and .bip files.

I want blended, skeletal animations (created by an artist, imported into my game engine). I'm wondering if it's worth taking the time to learn about CharcterStudio, or just focus on Panda and .x files. I'd love to hear any thoughts from anyone with any knowledge in this area.

Cheers,

[JbOnE]

check out the directx 8 or 9 sample projects (both contain same stuff so whichever you have installed will do) - there is one that uses a boned character walking around a grid. bones are nothing more than a heirachy of matrices, so however you choose to make the char meshes is up to you. both char studio and poser will "simplify" (in quotes cuz you'll have to learn their methods/ui on top of max methods), but all can be done in max itself by grouping and setting pivot points properly. code wise you would use a matrix stack in your executable to move the char rig.  you also might want to make a custom mesh format as loadmeshfromx is going to add an ani "hiccup" as it loads the mesh and texture data from it's respective .x/.bmp files - Jay

[fuirippu]

Yeah thanks, I've looked at SkinnedMesh and MultiAnimation (Dx9) quite extensively.