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Plan for Jeff Gran

Name:	Jeff Gran
Date Posted:	Nov 12, 2005
Rating:	4.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Jeff Gran

Blog post

Animation transfer.

I did it. :D

Animation Transfer
I can now transfer keyframe animation for the Torque Skeleton with correctly weighted tangents back and forth betweem Max and Maya. One thing this means is that the Soldier Pack will soon be updated with native Maya files. How soon? Who knows... ;)

I had to make a few more small changes to the Maya TSG script to get it to work, so there's a new version on the resource page.

TSG Pro?
The animation import/export utility is not very user-friendly at the moment unless you're me. And there are still some kinks to be worked out to allow maximum transferability (ie from different "style" and differently proportioned rigs), so I won't release this to the public just yet. Plus, I think I may make this the first of many new features that I will roll into a Torque Skeleton Generator Pro version, for sale. Other feature ideas I have are:

- the ability to generate the rig in any pose
- other helpful animation tools like a selection window to easily select and keyframe groups of bones like the hands or arms
- custom grip controls for the fingers, optional look-at constraint to control the head and neck, instead of manually.
- a walk cycle/run cycle generator
- a utility that will save the "Prop control" hand poses, and will be able to switch them out with a click, so you can save different weapon-holding poses and apply them to the same run/backpedal/walk, etc animation easily.

I'm interested to hear if this would be worth money to people. I've put a lot of work into this so far and I love working on it, but at some point I hope to start getting something back...

Blender
My next immediate plan is to get the Blender version working. I know I can do it with Blender 2.4, the problem is that the Armature module of the Python API is broken in the current alpha so I can't start working on it yet. But I'm amped about getting this to the lower-budget crowd, since that's what Garage Games and Torque is all about in the first place.

Animation Pack
After that my plan is to start work on an animation add-on pack for the Soldier and other TorqueSkeleton characters. What I'm looking for here is a partner - someone to develop an upgraded player class that can use all of the animations I produce - things like crouching, prone, swimming, and also platformer stuff like grabbing onto ledges and shimmying along them and climing ropes, trees, etc, the double-jump flip deally, etc. By that time the animations will be able to be released in MAX, Maya (and hopefully Blender, possibly XSI), all native and easily editable, compatible with the Soldier and other characters. I do the animations, you make them work like they should in Torque, we split the profit. Any interested parties?

3D Language: Spain
We just packaged up our final beta release, and anyone interested in trying it out is welcome to get on the list. Get more info at www.3dlanguage.net.

Thanks for reading. :)

Recent Blog Posts

List:	01/01/06 - 3D Language:Spain available for purchase 11/12/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 11/03/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 09/04/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 08/15/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 07/25/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 07/17/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran 04/30/05 - Plan for Jeff Gran

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Danny Ngan (Nov 12, 2005 at 04:00 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Wow. 'Nuff said.

Let me know if you want help testing the utilities going back and forth between Max and Maya. Got a couple of things I can work on relatively soon.

Dave D (Nov 12, 2005 at 04:04 GMT)

Really cool stuff. I tend to be on the low budget side of things. Since I no longer have access to Max or Maya, I am very interested in the Blender version. :)

Adam deGrandis (Nov 12, 2005 at 04:58 GMT)

This rules to an astonishingly high degree. :)

Vashner (Nov 12, 2005 at 05:33 GMT)

Soldier eats bad burrito :)
On a serious note, nice work.

Michael Cozzolino (Nov 12, 2005 at 05:44 GMT)

Quote:
Soldier eats bad burrito :)

LOL I had no idea what you were talking about at first Randy.

@Jeff anything that makes getting animation in Torque easier and faster is worth spending money on for me and i'm sure for alot of others.

Jeremy Alessi (Nov 12, 2005 at 06:41 GMT)

Great stuff Jeff! I might be able to assist with adding support for additional animations. It's something I'm very interested in anyway.

Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Nov 12, 2005 at 10:39 GMT)

I must have the animation pack...somebody help this man! Quickly! =)

Phil Carlisle (Nov 12, 2005 at 11:14 GMT)

Jeff, one thing that would be really nice is some kind of level of detail setting on the bones for things like hands and faces etc? So how about a method of setting the bone rigs to "highdetail" and "lowdetail" and not losing the curves for the rest of the bones.

I'm thinking of course that the facial animation would only be required on models where you see thier face move etc. Same for hands.

Great work though.

Anthony Rosenbaum (Nov 12, 2005 at 13:05 GMT)

Where is my Quadraped editor?

Nick Zafiris (Nov 12, 2005 at 14:48 GMT)

The animation pack sounds very exciting! I definitely could use it for my project.

Jonathan Groff (Nov 12, 2005 at 17:13 GMT)

An Animation Pack would be very cool. I bought the soldier pack, hoping to add crouch and prone animations, but I really stink at animating. Keep us posted!

Mark Berry (Nov 12, 2005 at 21:08 GMT)

I'll add that I would buy those animations, and especially the ability to crouch, prone, climb etc.

Andrew Kerr (Nov 12, 2005 at 23:22 GMT)

Jeff, are you considering offering your work for use with engines other than Torque?

I'll also add that I'm interested in the animation pack.

Barry Gallagher (Nov 13, 2005 at 04:30 GMT)

"- the ability to generate the rig in any pose"

:D

cool.. damn cool..

Jeff Gran (Nov 14, 2005 at 18:05 GMT)

Thanks for the comments. It seems that people are more interested in the fish than the fishing lessons... duly noted. Whatever speeds up development I guess. ;)

Andrew: Well, really the only thing that's Torque specific about the Skeleton Generator is the scale of it. And really, that's only the default scale - you can make it whatever size you want, it would just be a bit more of a pain to move all the joint location markers that far. As far as the Soldier goes, it's not really mine, it's Tridinaut's, so it's up to them what they do with it really. I'm just using it as the testing grounds and the foundation for all the cool stuff I want to do in the future.

Warpy (Nov 15, 2005 at 19:43 GMT)

tried it today, in a matter of hours and the help from jeff, i managed to take a character of mine and transfer rig, i have seen the walk cycle and jeff had tested it over some other animations.
so for all of you non believers...

this thing works !!

W.

Will Paicius (Oct 18, 2006 at 17:32 GMT)

Howdy,
Please forgive my nubie question. I loved the Maya plug-in. Now how do I get this animation into Torque?

Willi

Andreas Cocq (Apr 16, 2007 at 15:01 GMT)

Just a quickie question ... what's the actual status on this for a.) blender and b.) Lightwave ?

Cheers,
Andreas

Ross Pawley (Dec 05, 2007 at 17:45 GMT)

Any news on the Blender version of the TSG?
Edited on Dec 05, 2007 17:45 GMT

Jeff Gran (Dec 05, 2007 at 17:54 GMT)

Check out this recent thread in the forum for info on the progress of the Blender version. I wish I had the time/energy to work on this, but alas....

www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=68439

Ross Pawley (Dec 05, 2007 at 18:02 GMT)

@Jeff, *oohh yeah* I actually remember reading through that post some. When the TSG was mentioned to me though, I had it in the back of my mind and for some reason thought it was a post about something slightly different.

Thanks!

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