Game Development Community

Need advice for "Character Clothing"...

by Bobby Leighton · in Torque 3D Professional · 09/22/2010 (7:48 pm) · 7 replies

What Techniques are people using for Clothing game Character? Such as I would like to have armor sets that attach to the Characters. I know about mounting in T3D, and I can animate the Clothing to match what the Character animations are, and that works, but I am wondering if i am making it harder than it needs to be, any advise would be much appreciated. Years of making models in Apps like Max has taught me a lot, but the game engines are more limited since I have to worry about poly count. I would be happy to give more specific information over what I am trying to do if necessary, just looking for possibly a link to some sites that outline different techniques. I have tried searching using Google but have come up empty handed so far.
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Torque Owner Ken Johnston
Indiestructable Systems
#1
09/22/2010 (11:51 pm)
For animating clothing in max for my game charactors I typically run a cloth sim with reactor through each players animation cycle then bake the sim into bones, I am sure there is also a way to possibly just use Physx cloth sim? not sure on the other if torque will utilize physx constraints on an animated shape or not...Personally i have been using the sim and bake method for so long i am just more comfortable with it....

Torque Owner Joe Melton
Fails At Making Games
#2
09/23/2010 (6:28 am)
You can bake it into bones? Cool stuff. If you have time, a tutorial would be great. ;)

Torque Owner Bobby Leighton
Mad Bomber Studios
#3
09/23/2010 (6:02 pm)
I would be interested in seeing more of the baking method myself.

Associate Manoel Neto
Default Studio Name
#4
09/23/2010 (10:01 pm)
In past projects we had extra bones for skirts, capes, etc. All clothing animation was baked in the character animation itself.

Torque Owner Bobby Leighton
Mad Bomber Studios
#5
09/23/2010 (11:12 pm)
OK I believe that is what I have been doing, do you mean using the same biped skeleton as I use for figure they go with, so the animations you export, in say COLLADA, match? That is what I have been doing, as long as I know there isnt a better way i will continue with my pipeline, I just help but feel like I am missing something sometimes:O)...perhaps Paranoia on my part lol!

Torque Owner Ken Johnston
Indiestructable Systems
#6
09/24/2010 (6:45 pm)
Baking the animations is a little labor intensive, but basically how it is done is you create dummy point helpers and attach them to your cloth sim (snap the point helpers to animated vertexes in the sim which make sense. then link dummy helpers to the point helpers..run the sim, then via the motion panel assign a attachment position controller to your game ready bones skinned to your game cloth and the dummy helpers. the dummy helpers will drive your bones, and you can now key frame the bones, remove all the proxy meshes and presto, fairly realistic cloth skinned to bones...there is a fairly detailed tutorial somewhere on polycount as well, i will dig around and see if i can find it, i saw it last year sometime....


edit: polycount tutorial link, its a little different then what i posted above but not by much (tuts on post 17)...www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66993



Torque Owner Bobby Leighton
Mad Bomber Studios
#7
09/25/2010 (1:35 am)
Thanks, I will read this:O)