Example.scn?

#1 1) Here is a sample scene for a DTS file with a collision mesh.
sample file

Here is a sample scene for a DTS file with skeletal animation:
Sample File

You'll want to look at the grouping structure in the scene editor as well as the contents of the object notes of things like sequence markers and such.

2) Another member of the community wrote a plugin that freezes the scale of object in gameSpace and trueSpace the file pack is here and more info about the files is in the forums here.

Best thing to do is freeze the scale of your mesh before you go to add your bones and skinning.

3) Because the sliders in the reflectance shader and in the color shader are used to turn on and off DTS material properties you must set default positions of the sliders to the settings in the doc and then change the sliders as your textures require to turn of the properties you require for your material effects. The file pack above has some material presets as well you might want to use them as well.

#2 Matt, thanks!

#3 Hi Matt - I downloaded the sample with animation and I am trying to export to dts. Im not sure what I need to have selected when I save to dts. I am new to GS 1.6 and have been trying to get an animation exported with no luck. When I save to dts it doesnt include the animation.
TIA

#4 The most comon problem for new users are not haveing the DTS 2.0 plugin installed. If you dont see an icon on your toolbar that says DTS 2 its not installed.

Its a bit confusing because GameSpace has built in DTS support that was written by a different company other than Dark Industries. The built in version "just works" but it doesnt have the same feature support as the version that we wrote.

Other wise if you hit the play button in gameSpace and you can see the animation play back in the sample file above it should export properly.

Let me know if you have any propblems.

#5 Thanks Matt, thats exactly what it was. I installed it using the .exe installer but it didn't include it on the toolbar. I used the 'Install new Gamespace extention' and it shows up now and the animation exports.
Thanks much!

#6 Matt, I tried to re-create the skeletal animation from scratch. The animation works in gamespace, but when I export it there is no animation attached. Any ideas? Here is my scene file. Thanks for any help.

#7 @Tom: I am looking at the scene in question; first thing I noticed that might be keeping the animation from exporting is that the sequence marker object _sequence::flex has no information in it's Object Notes. You'll need to define the sequence parameters in this dialog, brought up by selecting the sequence marker object and clicking on the notepad icon; of it's object menu. startFrame, endFrame, cyclic, etc....in the documentation, it describes this step and the available parameters to note.

So, for example; in your scene, the Notes might read as follows

startFrame 0
endFrame 20
cyclic true
frameRate 20

....as an example of the data you'd input. frameRate can be any you'd like, I think the default is 30??

#8 You the man Rex. That was it - Thanks

#9 Nub question,

I've used the sample DTS file with skeletal animation, given by Matt Summers. I'm using Dark Industries' V2.0 DTS Exporter. I'm having trouble getting it to work inside TGE. I can export the shape easily enough and the texture works fine, but it just sits there and does nothing. How do I get its animation started?

#10 To become an 'object' inside the engine and actually do something beyond sitting there, a script must be generated declaring the sequence and how/when to play it. Most 'items' pickups, etc...have an 'ambient' sequence. Usually when these items enter the world and start playing their 'ambient' animation, it's done with their onAdd function.

Nothing will simply 'work' in TGE,even when placed via the MissionTree....everything needs some form of programming to begin doing anything inside Torque. It's the nature of the engine. It is a programmers engine, needing to be told every single command towards building a game. Very few things will work by just creating a sequence. Damage is probably the only one I know of right off hand. Meaning if you create a 'damage' sequence...it 'should' fire when the item takes damage, if it has the proper setup.

#11 Yup. I see what you mean. I've read through the documentation and .dts's with animations need to be declared before they're even recognised as non-static objects. :} I found one handy bit of code that'll save some trouble for other nubs who follow in my footseps.

function Flag::onAdd(%this,%obj)
{  %obj.playThread(0,"nameOfSequence");
}

:}

#12 Ah, glad to see your success, Matt....:).

#13 I noticed that the docs for the DTS exporter don't talk about "Item" objects (too simple I guess... hehe)... is there anything special that needs to be set up for a TGE "Item"? How about a just a static shape?

Thanks,

Ed

#14 I think any 'shape' exported thru gS needs to be setup in the way the engine expects to find the object. Here's one I just did: It's a deco/staticShape. It has animations, scripting...so it's not 'static' in the animation sense.

Here's an 'Item' shape:

The hierarchy remains pretty much the same, you've got the main objectTree and the shape subTree, named base01 and start01 respectively...if you mean 'Item' in the sense of a pickup, not sure if it needs a collision mesh, but the hierarchy I believe should remain the same.

Oh, if it's super duper simple, with no collision, as a health pickup would be[no inventory item], you may need to buid a geomety 'dummy' of a simple cube or 3-sided pyramid, to supply the second object within the GameSpace scene to correctly generate the IK grouping...the base01 and start01 groups....