Seperate limps, body parts..
by Dan Kronholm · in Artist Corner · 05/27/2004 (5:17 am) · 8 replies
Hello all, another line of stupid questions from me..
Has anyone had any success with splitting up the geometry of a character?
The reason I ask this is, ideally, I would like to have seperate animations for legs, arms, head and torso. Maybe even take it as far as having various head objects attachable and changeable on the main body (to save system resources).
It wouldn't be a problem doing this with a combination of mount points and loading seperate objects for the character. However, there would be trouble at e.g. the neck if torso and head were not the same geometry; It would look like the head was severed when animated.. Is there currently a way to combine all of this so it will appear to be a single animated object inside of Torque?
Has anyone had any success with splitting up the geometry of a character?
The reason I ask this is, ideally, I would like to have seperate animations for legs, arms, head and torso. Maybe even take it as far as having various head objects attachable and changeable on the main body (to save system resources).
It wouldn't be a problem doing this with a combination of mount points and loading seperate objects for the character. However, there would be trouble at e.g. the neck if torso and head were not the same geometry; It would look like the head was severed when animated.. Is there currently a way to combine all of this so it will appear to be a single animated object inside of Torque?
#2
You dont want to mount images for this because you can only have 8 and there are problems with them lagging behind the player. I just made seperate meshes for each of the limbs and clothing articles (all in the same dts). Then I wrote some code to hide the meshes that I wasnt using. The only problem is that there are visible seams in the legs and arms. I cant figure out how to fix that.
Theres actually a resource for the mesh hiding thing now: http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5421
05/27/2004 (6:37 am)
I have done this.You dont want to mount images for this because you can only have 8 and there are problems with them lagging behind the player. I just made seperate meshes for each of the limbs and clothing articles (all in the same dts). Then I wrote some code to hide the meshes that I wasnt using. The only problem is that there are visible seams in the legs and arms. I cant figure out how to fix that.
Theres actually a resource for the mesh hiding thing now: http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5421
#3
I have to ask; Was that just, "Eh, tehere's some left over texture space so might as well use it" or something along the lines of you intending to blow that character into seperate body pieces? :)
As for the topic of the OP, then I'd say the invisible mesh method is the best way. Either that, or just re-use the .DSQ animation files for different models. Depends on how much change there will be per model.
On Eric's question, not sure how to fix that. I'd say just hide it inside of other geometry (like the very far right women and her skirt with overlapping shirt), but with open-necked clothing there's not much you can do about this...
05/27/2004 (9:17 am)
@Eric: Glad to see someone visually demonstrate the mesh hiding part. I have to say, however, that torso (both lower and upper) with the bloody texture for the inside is...decisively creepy.I have to ask; Was that just, "Eh, tehere's some left over texture space so might as well use it" or something along the lines of you intending to blow that character into seperate body pieces? :)
As for the topic of the OP, then I'd say the invisible mesh method is the best way. Either that, or just re-use the .DSQ animation files for different models. Depends on how much change there will be per model.
On Eric's question, not sure how to fix that. I'd say just hide it inside of other geometry (like the very far right women and her skirt with overlapping shirt), but with open-necked clothing there's not much you can do about this...
#4
05/28/2004 (8:06 am)
Well I was going to have limb severing sword combat where you controlled the sword directly with the mouse. I got the mouse-sword control working single player but i had trouble getting it to work in multi. Even if I got it working, I'm not sure it would work very well at all over the internet. I was basically just fooling around.
#5
So what I could do is just create, say, five different heads all in one file, then use the invisible mess stuff to select which head I would use? What if I was using collision that created a bounding box for each limb, would I be able to update the collision along with the meshes? Like if the player wanted his/her character to have a tail, normally you wouldn't calculate collision for something that isn't there, but when the tail becomes visible could I cause the collision to update and include the tail?
07/20/2004 (6:15 pm)
I know that this is 2 months old, but my question sure does fit this post.So what I could do is just create, say, five different heads all in one file, then use the invisible mess stuff to select which head I would use? What if I was using collision that created a bounding box for each limb, would I be able to update the collision along with the meshes? Like if the player wanted his/her character to have a tail, normally you wouldn't calculate collision for something that isn't there, but when the tail becomes visible could I cause the collision to update and include the tail?
#6
07/24/2004 (11:24 am)
Were actually trying to do the same thing but we are using mount points for our heads. You might be able to do a similar thing here with mount points and images maybe but i haven't tried it myself. That way you could even seperate animations per segment. Were still testing so I'll update if we can get it to work.
#7
thanks
[g]
07/27/2004 (11:05 pm)
@Eric: How do you set the LODs on your model? I have a character that implements seperated mesh and couldn't figure out how to do the LODs on them. Sorry for hijacking this thread :)thanks
[g]
#8
10/21/2004 (12:01 am)
Still some unanswered questions here, so I'm bumping this :) 
Torque Owner James Sun