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Plan for Jeff Gran

Name:	Jeff Gran
Date Posted:	Mar 30, 2005
Rating:	4.5 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Jeff Gran

Blog post

Torque Skeleton Generator

Well, I've gotten seriously side-tracked from work on my character content pack. The issue was that we needed a skeleton that could be common across all human characters released and supported by Garage Games.

I had tried to come up with a workflow using the BraveTree Girl Pack's skeleton and editing it to work with other models, but it proved to be too much work for the result. The other problem was getting animations to play across different characters, which didn't work because of the different starting rotations of the bones.

Then I went to GDC, and saw a presentation by a major game company explaining how they tackled this problem with a script that generates the same skeleton each time, based on user-input joint locations.

So I took the idea and made my own script that generates a skeleton, at the correct scale and orientation for Torque, with the DTS hierarchy automatically created, bounding box, optional mount points, customized IK foot controls and spine controls, and a choice between IK and FK for the arms. If you turn off these customized controls, the bones will be generated but no control rig will, so advanced riggers or people with special needs can make their own custom controls.

You create the joint markers with a button, move them to your character's joint locations, and the script creates the skeleton - already ready to export. The joint rotations are zero-ed out as part of the creation process, so animations made with one character will play correctly on any other character that uses a skeleton generated by the script, as long as you use the "blend" animation type.

Also, you can save out the locations of your joint markers as a tiny text file, so if you want to have someone do animations for your character, all they need is the script and the locations and they can recreate the exact skeleton and export DSQs that will work perfectly for said character.

I put the finishing touches on the MaxScript version yesterday, and have passed it along to certain associates for testing. Next I will be making a MEL (Maya) version that will function exactly the same way (and soon after there are plans to get versions for other 3d packages). The marker location files will be cross-compatible, so you can give your locations to someone using another software package and they can use it to make animations as mentioned above.

Also, Chris Calef's pre-canned rag-doll animations will soon be compatible with this skeleton system, so any character using a script-generated skeleton will be able to use his animation pack.

Finally, here's a screenshot to prove it's real:

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Michael Cozzolino (Mar 30, 2005 at 21:32 GMT)

That is friggin awesome. Please make a LightWave version :)

Ed Johnson (Mar 30, 2005 at 22:04 GMT)

NICE!!! This should make the animation process easier, ehh???

Joseph Helm (Mar 30, 2005 at 22:07 GMT)

Hey Jeff,
Well done on the script, it's improved loads since I last saw it!

Danny Ngan (Mar 30, 2005 at 23:06 GMT)

Nice work Jeff. Let me know if you want help testing out the Maya version when it's ready.

Phil Carlisle (Mar 30, 2005 at 23:15 GMT)

Does it do the bounds box and all that other setup schtuff also? (schematic heirarchy thingumy)??

Cool btw.

Adam deGrandis (Mar 30, 2005 at 23:16 GMT)

Holy crap, Jeff. haha that sounds AWESOME. Nice work!

Jeff Gran (Mar 30, 2005 at 23:28 GMT)

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Michael: Definitely on the horizon.
Ed: yep, that's the plan
Joe: thanks. Did you tell all your friends about the wonders of the Burrito?
Danny: will do
Phil: Yep, see the check boxes for the hierarchy and bounding box?
Adam: thanks man.

Rob Parton (Mar 30, 2005 at 23:30 GMT)

Wow, that is very very cool!

Brian Wells (Mar 31, 2005 at 01:45 GMT)

I give it a C+.

Just kidding. This is awesome! :)

Mario N. Bonassin (Mar 31, 2005 at 04:04 GMT)

Any idea on when you'll release this? I'm not looking for an exact date just something like, next week or a couple of months.

Jeff Gran (Mar 31, 2005 at 04:28 GMT)

Mario: more like next week-ish. Just depends on whether the testers find it stable.

Canon (Mar 31, 2005 at 07:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Jeff, artists will save a lot of time with that kind of script. Bravo !

Joseph Helm (Mar 31, 2005 at 11:02 GMT)

Quote:
Joe: thanks. Did you tell all your friends about the wonders of the Burrito?

lol yeah, and I had to teach them it's "solids or stripes" not "spots or stripes"

Warpy (Apr 02, 2005 at 08:00 GMT)

jeff

if you could put me on the maya testing list i would appreciate it, i also want to ask you a few questions but your profile doesnt have any email/IM.

Jeff Gran (Apr 02, 2005 at 21:57 GMT)

Warpy: Your profile doesn't have squat in it either. About the maya testing... sure, as long as you promise to give quality feedback (Danny is a respected professional, has developed several torque-related scripts for Maya already, and wrote the online documentation for the Maya2DTS plugin). But we will need feedback on the ease-of-use for less experienced people too. :)

Warpy (Apr 03, 2005 at 15:43 GMT)

no problem

Chris Labombard (Apr 07, 2005 at 11:22 GMT)

Let me get this straight.... This is a 3DSMax plugin. You put in all the joints(which is easy to do) and it rigs everything for you(which is difficult to do)? Doesn't that take away over half the workload? All you have to do is put in joints and animate now. Sorry if I'm over-reacting but this seems amazing (I'm a progrmmer not an artist)

Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Apr 12, 2005 at 03:42 GMT)

Well this seems amazing but...I can't afford 3D studio and my trial has long since expired.

Dreamer (Apr 13, 2005 at 21:17 GMT)

Blender!,Blender!,Blender!

Mario N. Bonassin (Apr 30, 2005 at 01:57 GMT)

whats the status of this plugin????

Jeff Gran (Apr 30, 2005 at 04:45 GMT)

responses in new plan.

Dieter Eichert (Dec 09, 2005 at 17:43 GMT)

It would be very useful for us to get a quadruped version, cause we are actually in preproduction of a horse-manager-game. We need animated horses and separat riders also, we need animation to out the riders on a horse, horse walking, galopping jumping across borders with collision detections, horses eating grass, horses looking to the rider when he/she comes to the stall and so on. It would be very interesting for us to get the animation in Torque with our own models. We work in XSI and / or Max (better in XSI) doing all the modelling and animatingstuff, but if a horsepackage with several horsetextures and races is available I surely think about buy this. It is also very useful to get a detailed tutorial to put the things together in TGE
Regards

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