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Morph anims, I wantsss it my precioussss

by Michael Niedda · in Artist Corner · 12/27/2005 (12:13 am) · 6 replies

Ok, I figured out Character and rigid/non-rigid animation export, I just tested spline IK system and works, now I want to know what exactly I need to do to export morph target anims.

I have a head model thats all rigged up with some eye, jaw/lip, and head controls. I read some docs saying morphs dont use nodes. Does that include Sequence nodes? Cuz I put one in the DTS anyway, cuz it has a Morph Animation box that I checked.

Also, the docs said that the morphs are snapshots of the main model. Now, do I create those new snapshots or does it generate them automatically, also does it set the keys too? Cuz they need to be planted for every frame.

Anybody know how to set up a morph animation? Any help will be appreciated.
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Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#1
12/27/2005 (12:26 am)
Using "morphs" (actually, I'm not even sure I want to call it that. "vertex animation" is probably a more fitting word) is most likely nothing you want to do.

You do need a sequence marker though, the way the exporters work the animation (both "morph" and skeletal animation) is sampled and one key per frame is created. With vertex animation this means that each vertex position is going to get saved to the file once per frame. This will produce huge files, and it will most likely be rather slow to process in game too.

You would really be much better of rethinking things; setting up facial animations isn't -that- difficult with bones.

Torque Owner Michael Niedda
#2
12/27/2005 (12:50 am)
Yea, sounds alot like Granny, their morph target methods seem to be almost the same here. I use facial expressions morphs for main characters, some of which are too extreme for bones to simulate.

Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#3
12/27/2005 (12:57 am)
I would still consider bones (if you know what you're doing there's really no reason not to use bones... it does require some slightly messy setup though but nothing a few look-at and link constraints can't deal with =).

Another problem with morphs, as far as I know (I haven't tried though), is that you can't mix it with bone animations so you're going to have to detach the heads and mount them to your bodies in game. Not really an ideal solution.

Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#4
12/27/2005 (3:07 am)
Oh, and yes; The DTS format actually is quite similar to Granny, in features at least.

just that granny may perhaps be slightly less error prone =). I haven't used granny in years but back then it was extremely stable so I'm guessing that haven't changed. But still.... at least $12,500 for JUST an animation subsystem. hm...

Torque Owner Michael Niedda
#5
12/27/2005 (4:08 pm)
So, how exactly do i set it up anyways?

I have 2 sequences, test1 and test2, frames 0-40, 41-80. Theres no Morph Object or Morpher modifier its just plain ole animated verts. Do I need to set keys for every frame? I have the sequences in my DTS file, my .cs looks like this;

datablock TSShapeConstructor(PlayerDts)
{
baseShape = "./morph01.dts";
sequence0 = "./morph01.dts test1";
sequence1 = "./morph01.dts test2";
};

Is that correct?

Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#6
12/27/2005 (4:58 pm)
I'm afraid I don't quite know, haven't done much with morphs. But I can always guess though. =)

If you put the sequence markers into the DTS this should probably be enough. Just load the DTS in showtool pro to make sure.

datablock TSShapeConstructor(PlayerDts)
{
     baseShape = "./morph01.dts";
};