Multiple actions per character

#1 Hmm, I baked all my actions and they seem to be working now. Is it mandatory to bake the actions? Does torque undertand bones and meshes being attached to them or is the animation by reading the shape data frame by frame? Thanks again for any help or guidance you can provide.

#2 You need to bake the actions if you are using any constraints, ie: IK solvers, etc.
otherwise you shouldnt need to.
if i remember baking records each vertex position and takes up more resources to compute = slower for games = bad.

#3 So there is no way to animate using an IK rig without baking your actions? Is that just for blender or all the 3d programs?

#4 Torque does not use constraints, so that would make it a no for all programs.


-as far as i know...

baking the actions records Each vertex placement per frame, this takes up alot more space, and possibly more work for torque to do, but you get the IK look.

from what it sounds like, baking animates the vertexs, so its like animating without the need for the skeleton, because all the vertex are being recorded independently.
kind of like what quake 1 and 2 did, they just recorded the animations of vertex placement. ( back before games used a skeleton)

#5 Just a word of note... If you are creating something that already has animations, i.e. a New Player model to use instead of the orc, you can create a mesh and a skeleton, name the skeletal bones with the names of the animated nodes (this can be figured out by looking at the player.cfg and player.cs files under Data/Shapes/Player (Look for the keywords Always Export and Never Export), then parent the armature to the mesh and export. Voila! This will create mesh vertex groups in all of the right places (assuming you have placed your skelly properly) No need to mess with animations, just set the .cfg for the .dts to use the already existing sequences.

Thats been a HUGE time saver for me, I make a basic body say quadroped, (any 4 legged animal) and re-use his animations on all the other 4 legged animals.

#6 I understand that torque doesn't use contstraints, as in, it doesn't support IK stuff directly. But it sounds like it supports bones of some fashion if you can make a properly named skeleton and have the animations work on your new character. I'm working on a quadraped also, and having a hell of a time with it. Are you telling me that I can create one skeleton, in blender, export the dsq's, and then attach the action to the mesh, assuming the mesh has been properly attached to the same skeleton? Ok, so, sort of a step by step:

1. Create an armature in blender.
2. Animate it.
3a. Bake your actions
or
3b. Don't bake your actions.
4. Export your actions as dsq's.
5. Save as...say from skeleton.blend to cat.blend.
6. Model or import your cat mesh.
7. Parent your mesh to the skeleton.
8. Select "create vertex groups from nearest bone".
9. Export your mesh as a dts.
10. Rename the actions in the .cs file to match your exported actions.
11. Re-open skeleton.blend
12. Repeat 5 - 11 for, dog, mouse, horse, wolf, etc.

And then, I'm also assuming that actions you would make on the skeleton would include walk, run, fall, idle, etc.

Is that right?

#7 Ok, maybe this will help.
from what I (only me) understand the dsq's are just instructions to rotate (transleate, sclae..etc) joints that are named.
so:
if in my skeleton i have a bone(armature) named "Knee", in the dsq during a run it tells the Knee to rotate 30 deg.
wherever Knee is placed it will rotate it. if the skeleton you have does not contain the bones the dsq calls for they are ignored- or at least i have not had any issues yet...

the dsq does not have any constraint information so IK's which search each other out in realtime, cannot be used/recorded. This does not mean you Cant us it, the IK is nice in blender- i love it, BUT every frame becomes a keyframe when you bake it.
COULD This BE USED AS AN ADVANTAGE?! say record your Keyframes using the IK, bake it, then go in and lengthen your animation sequence? I am currently trying to use IK to make the basic poses, recording the keyframes, then ill go in and time/extend each animation to its proper lengths...will be working on it over the next week.
dont know if this will work?



my steps for model creation:

Make mesh

UV mesh and paint it

build the skeleton within it. if you name your bones mirrored using .L or .R at the end you can mirror poses- which is GREAT! so my arms are:
shoulder.L - Forearm.L - Hand.L and
shoulder.R - Forearm.R - Hand.R etc

MAKE SURE that your bone rotations are setup correctly-
Z should point UP or Forward/Backward Uniformly for each set of mirrored bones, this keeps the pose flipping from going backwards

clean up the vertex groups, so a bone is only deforming by the bones you want, by adding/removing from vertex groups.

then make your animation sequences, each sequence will play on a similarly named skeleton.
export the dts and the actions to dsq's.

currently im using Normal IK to animate.
Ie: each leg in a run sequence has 4 poses:
Extended out front, under the character (holding weight), Extended behind, then Resetting (bent coming forward under character).
So i would use IK to set the 4 poses in only 1 leg, pose flip to other leg, done.
I dont know if the Baking of IK's are possible to pose flip?????



rename .cs to use the animation sequences you want, and play.

hope this helps :)

#8 Oh, as far as the action strips go
I make an action, then in the NLA (Non-Linear Animation) window i convert the current animation (you'll see keyframes) into an action strip also by holding the mouse over a keyframe and press "C", it will ask if you really want to convert it. i do then delete it
you can add the actions you want by mousing over the skeleton or Armature line (whatever your parent is named) and shift-A to add an action.