Plan for Jeff Gran

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. :)