Skeletons and Animations

#1 Provided that the skeletal structures are the same you can reuse animations across multiple models. The catch of course is that the bone names must be the same and that there are very minimal size/scale differences to the bone lengths (if there are, you can get some goofy result that will work, but visually distort your mesh to varying degrees).

As for milkshape compatible version of the rig for the Orc I think Jeff Grans skeleton creator should do the trick for you. I am not sure about the other packs as they might use a different setup.

With regards to DTS importers, the only app that does this is some 3D Unwrap application. You should be forewarned though that these importers don't pull in all the data necessary to recreate the DTS shapes (simply because you can have control data that is in a scene that creates the DTS that can handle the mshe/model/animations/etc, but isn't actually exported, like IK chains). If you want to learn what goes into a DTS shape you should look at the source art that comes with Torque, or use TST Pro (which provides a lot of information about the mesh)

#2 So basically the only real sure fire way of getting a TorqueMotion compatible skeleton is to buy the Adam or Ava pack and extract the skeletons from those meshes. Just seems a little strange to me that the skeleton for Kork isnt an actual resource supplied by GG.

I think what concerns me most at this point is that I also have the AFX combo pack, and the demo once more uses Kork for its animations. If I wanted to substitute my own player mesh how am I supposed to do that without having access to the base skeleton used by AFX? Does that make any sense. It could be that I'm just confused - in fact I know I am :)

#3 Actually if you are a TGE licensee you have access to the 3DS Max source files that were used to generate the Orc and you can just steal that scene and reuse it from there with your stuff. There are also compatible skeleton files that have been posted by other users in the resources section (ie. Jeff Grans skeleton tool, the Blue Guy by Joe Maruschak, etc.).

#4 Thank you - I will search around for those.

I think what could be really handy would be for a resource on TDN with a "kork compatible" skeleton in all the various modeling package formats, i.e blender, maya, 3ds, milkshape etc...

This just seems like such a fundemental resource to be missing.

#5 The problem is that making a single skeleton that would work in all those model formats is a bit tricky. Does the 3D application follow the left hand or the right hand rule? Does it operate the bones the same? What about IK constraints? Lots of questions like those which have plauged the 3D industry for a long time with regards to moving data from one application to another. The short answer is "its not very easy to do this sort of thing".

The only reason why you have Orc compatible skeletons for Milkshape, Maya or Lightwave is the fact that there were some really motivated and hard working community members that bashed their heads into their keyboards for a few days trying to solve this problem themselves.

As for TDN, its a Wiki, so if you find the information, add it.

#6 Thank you for all your insight. I'm starting to appreciate the complexity that goes into setting up a working pipeline, and trying to retain compatibility with other content (such as the torque motion package). It's definitely not easy, and I do appreciate all of the work others have done.

I will carry on plodding along - I'm sure I will get this nailed down at some point.

#7 Shaper might be able to help you use the standard Kork skeleton with your own character meshes. It will import and export Torque dts and dsq files.

There's a 30 day free trial for each version. New versions seem to be released fairly often. Purchase price is only 35 USD.

Shaper