Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
With all that done, the animator can then make the character do whatever they want
simply by rotating and moving the bones around to define the required key frame
positions, just like with morph targets. The boned system will produce much better
quality in the final animation, and the amount of memory required to store the key
frames is normally not too large, since all that needs to be stored is the orientation
and position of each bone.
The Marmalade SDK comes complete with a boned animation system, which we will
be learning about in the rest of this chapter. The system is very flexible and there are
very few limitations to it.
The main things to be aware of are that you can only have a single root bone, a
maximum of 256 bones in total, and each vertex can only be affected by a maximum
of four bones. In most cases these limitations are unlikely to cause you any problems.
Using a 3D modeling package to create
animation data
Entire topics have been written explaining how best to create a 3D animated
character; so, unsurprisingly, we won't be looking at how to actually produce
an animated 3D model here. Indeed, my warning in the previous chapter about
"programmer art" probably goes double for "programmer animation". For evidence
to back this statement up, look no further than the graphics accompanying the
example programs of this topic, which are all examples of "programmer art" made by
yours truly. I really should heed my own advice.
Anyway, with that tip hopefully now rammed home, let's see how we can export
animation data from a 3D modeling package.
Exporting an animation requires a number of new file types to be exported. These
will be discussed in detail later, but in short they are files that represent the skeleton,
the skin, and the actual animations themselves. The following sections will show
how to export this data.
Exporting animations using the Marmalade
3D exporter plugins
If you are using 3DS Max or Maya to create your animations, the required animation
files are exported using the Marmalade exporter plugin. To refresh your memory, the
exporter plugin window is shown in the following screenshot:
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search