Blog for Rex at GarageGames.com

Hey Ho....Let's GO!

Rex — 2008-07-01T01:44:03+00:00

Time for Change! More Guitars, Less Crossbows!

After having been immersed in the 'modern' combat art of CSK for the better part of last year, I thought I would take a break from the 'standard' artistic fare you see pimped here at GG; so I thought I'd present a little 'HooHa!' from my recent pourings from Vat#17. Presenting rockingKORK! LOL.

This is a little Electric 6 string I've been hammering together; along with a new vehicle for flying about in either a military or civilian setting[that project will remain under a dark cloak, for now]. Those "Rockers" amongst you will probably be able to interpolate which Mfg this might resemble; I'll not put a trademarked name to my art without some permission....right now, it's just an ole Electric 6-string. Plus a little voodoo Dr.'ing to KORK to get him mounting this Axe, fit for an ORC!

Being around this type of object all day long has supplied me with a nice wing in the vault dedicated to some art other than Guns, Guns, Guns, and soldiers, soldiers, soldiers! March, March!

I guess it's part of 'maturing' as I grow older[LOL-never!]; I'm finding my art branching out in less 'obvious' genres. I've also got a nicely scaled, working QWERTY keyboard w/10 key; all nodeded up and ready to have some 'words' animated out on it...lol. I find this type of setup far more interesting than the simplistic mechanizations of weaponry, although; I do find my vehicle work a lot of fun! So many working parts, linked together to give the viewer a nice experience. I really tried hard to get the dashboard in the CSK guntruck as nice as I could for 1st person FOV. Also, giving a few riders in the back seats of the HGT something to gauge their exit from the destructing vehicle, was quite satisfying to accomplish; and it was with stock SDK code....priceless!

Hopefully I'll be able to get my 'cloaked' work up to a visible state with some snappies, soon.

Rock On!

Vehicles: WheeledVehicle: introducing, "The uniFrame"!

Rex — 2008-03-19T16:37:30+00:00

This is the uniFrame, multi-purpose vehicle chassis system I have been developing for a while now. After having worked the DTS/DSQ character/playerAvatar pipeline to a fine hone with BrokeAssGames this past year; work began around this time last year on a side project, away from RUIN Online, involving multiple vehicleTypes. Vehicle physics and their corresponding animations were a bit of a mystery to me, until I got involved with the side project the BAG coding Department was working on, as a character animator and rigger. Things got more involved at the close of that phase, and I was asked to improve upon the vehicles intended for the codeBase.

The frame and suspension system pictured here is based upon the US mil vehicle M998+, commonly referred to as a 'HMMWV" or 'humvee', manufactured by AM General Independent suspension for each tire, along with all wheel drive for each wheel bearing, made this vehicle attractive to model and setup for Torque. There are at least 15 variants on the basic frame of this vehicle.

Along with the hub node for the tire mounting, the uniFrame system utilizes a few nodes in a chain to give the associated components life of their own, simulating the working suspension the vehicle. Parenting the hub node, is a tire node that represents the root of each independent system. Branching off from this root node, are three more nodes for the associated vertices of the A-frame arms,spring/piston combo, and tie-rod geometry. All of these work in conjunction to produce both the spring sequence and the steering sequence motions.

In this image, you get a closer look at the alignment system I employed to get my multiple components in sync while animated and scripted. Pictured are several differing colors of widgets I created and located at very specific locations with the geometry of the vehicle's wheel, or well; where the tire object will mount when called by the generic vehicle script. The red horizontal bar widget represents the hub node's location within the vehicle's rig and extending out past where the wheel would be. The white horizontal widget is actually part of the tire DTS file. By exporting and mounting the wheels via script, this will tell me if they are at the same plane/height/position. The small multi colored cube primitives are incremental measurements, in real world measurements applied to the geometry. Oh, btw, that steering wheel in the background; it works as well, with the steering sequence, along with the wheel components. That was fun to throw in as well....

The last little bit of 'zazz' for this bloq, is a close up from the wheels center area back into the suspension of the driver's side front tire. In the background is barely visible the last bit of detail I put to the uniframe before production of the side project got fast and furious. It's a V-8 engine model I threw together in about 15 minutes to get my interiors detailed to some kind of scale. I rigged it up and animated it to cycle thru it's 8 pistons continuously. There are 8 keyframes, one for each piston in an up while each other is in the down position. I know it's not a real engine's firing order...but hey, looked pretty dang-dawg cool when I scripted it to be running while I tooled around as KORK in the SDK...lol.

Well, here it is, my recent workings with the Vehicle class, specifically the WheeledVehicle, anyone need a used car, I know where to get a big shiny one?! ...till next big adventure in 3D game modeling. Drive Safely. Enjoy.

As a side note: CombatStarterKit is where the majority of this vehicle work went. I was asked to document the process I used to get the HGT vehicle to where it stands today and that work is included with the update to the Starter Kit. I'm usually sitting in the DreamGames, BFT, IRC chat room so any questions from license holders can be answered there. I don't mind at all; it was a great round of discovery and development and was a bunch of fun working with Dave, Ash, Kittle, James and the gang there...and a big, Thanks[& bow], to Fafhrd: the artist/coder who allowed me the privilege of working with the HGT geometry and getting it's many different parts working together, doin' some cool stuf...

The baseHuman Project

Rex — 2007-01-04T01:32:36+00:00

Happy New Year!

After having gotten my rig protoTyped well enough and discovering that I can rearrange my structure at will and manage to keep some animation saved, I am unveiling my latest Project: baseHuman.

The baseHuman Project is the Heavy Industries version of a biped animation puppet. It will be a normal humanSized physique, unlike the KORK playerAvatar. I intend to include many logically positioned and rotated Nodes for mounting of images and objects inside the Torque Game Engine. I will be using the default namingConvention utilized by the SDK for Nodes and Skeleton, and will base the animations to be generated upon the standard TGE playerAvatar .DSQ sequences.

Here, in the snapshot[I hope], you'll see that work has begun in fragMOTION on the Project. This is close to what the 'Kork' physique's Root sequence would look like, if you put a 'human' into the 'Root' pose. The M16-A weaponImage is compliments of NetGeos, with some Heavy Industries voodoo[werk!] to get it to become a true mountable DTS shape. At present, the Image of the M16-A is actually a cached Image, much like a ShapeBaseImage object; it's not really in the fragMOTION Scene[and will not export as an object]. My mount0 Node has a fragMO 'attachment' object linked to it. With this attachment object, comes a few parameters you can specifiy. CharacterFile is the path to the file. Also, somewhat like ShowToolPro, you can specify an Animation sequence name and render any frame you like! Origin specifies which Node in the Image object you would like to use for the mounting transform....very nice, indeed.

...more to follow, as it developes!

Adventures in fragMOTION: Merging & protoTyping the baseHuman

Rex — 2006-12-30T16:58:15+00:00

Greetings! Happy New Year!

My last Posting on fragMOTION delt with the program's ability to mimic Torque's mounting scheme and the Customizable UI that the author has provided. Both of the features lead to an increased workflow for the lowEnd modelling enthusist/developer.

Today's Posting will concentrate on Merging and how it relates to Skeletal Rigging and Animation Sequences previously created and stored within another file. I believe Importing to replace the current Scene, while Merging will combine portions of another file with the current Scene. This became important as I found, thru protoTyping, that my skeleton needed a bit of extra freedom between the Clavicles and Head.

I had been working on my 'baseHuman' figure recently. This is my attempt to get a nice, generic-sized human figure with a fair number of mountNodes logically positioned and a high degree of hand articulation constructed for my long range workSim I'm constructing. Having a little familiarity with the Character Studio Biped, I based my initial construction on that hierarchy, which coincindently; is what the TGE 'Kork' is based upon, as well as any early SDK examples, if I'm not mistaken.

I gave the Biped a little more flexibility and localization by separating the upper and lower parts of the body, having them branch from the base Biped Node, that was not an issue as I'd not really animated anything yet. This, I'm thinking, will perhaps help later on with keeping my lowerBody actionThreads from conflicting with my upperbody armThreads; plus it gave the player a very flexible lower body in relation to it's upper, keeping any kicking sequence from throwing any IK into the upper body holding a steady weapon, ;). I had been building my DTS skeletons by keeping a gameSpace scene with IK Groupings and it was simple relinking inside the objectTree and off I went...I began to animate some poses and basic motions. This is where I began to encounter some issues that normally would prove fairly hairy to navigate, but as this series of articles is intended to show, fragMO has some features that make this type of 'quick thinking' manuever possible.

I animated some quick sequences to check articulation again and 'thought' everything was easily poseable from the current configuration; ha! I did a backFlip, walkForward, sitDown, fallDown, crouchDown and some typing poses...things looked grand. I quickly found my original placement of the baseThumb node wasn't going to accomodate the lovely NetGeos M16a offered as a Christmas gift, so I went back into gS and gave a wider grip to the hands and I began to pose away! Gee, this seems to be about gS and rigs...almost. This is where the features of fragMOTION begin to shine brightly.

So, I had lower body & some upper body animations stored inside a shape that had Thumbs positioned differently than the current Scene inhabitant, bummer. To further 'complicate' things; I also noticed that the original location of the Clavicles below the Neck and above the Head would not allow the Head enough flexibility to get a decent look to the rifle. Man, I was hosed, so I thought. I've lost my other sequences...

Resigning myself to redoing the earlier test, I decided to rebuild my rig inside fragMO this time. That took a little T & E to get things worked out, and shortly I had a new rig, still Bound to the Mesh btw, that had been relinked to have the Neck[& arms] and newly created "Biped01 Throat"[& head, etal] node branching from the Spine2 node. This was really going to screw up my earlier animations dealing with typing and griping the weapon; or so I thought.

I decided to attempt a full onslaught right away. With the newly restructured skeleton with mesh bound inside the fragMOTION scene, I decided to 'attempt' to bring my completed sequences into this entirely different file. File--Merge, and I was presented with a browse dialog. I selected my previously animated .ugh file, and was presented with another dialog. This dialog resembled the entire CharacterSchema of a fragMOTION Scene, I think. Listed in Tree form, with radioCheck boxes to include/exclude stored data, I began to exclude any mesh, material, and texture information. I then checked the sequence I wanted keyframe data for and then began to systematically exclude the Thumb nodes[and down] and the Head node[etal].

Well...it worked perfectly! I went back and brought every sequence I created with the earlier restructured rig into this current Scene with a new skeleton, and the existing Bones followed the keyframe data exactly, except for any Bone I didn't include with the Merge. So, I got no keyframes for my Head or my Thumbs...but I brought in all the other exisiting keyframes, and better yet; nothing seemed borked. All stored poses and motions played as before, while using a different skeleton! Whew! Saved a little work and learned some new stuf! Looks like even more is possible, in the lowEnd, ;)!

I've established a Group over at GGE, [gge_group=lowEndz], join in the lowEnd maddness!!

...Oh, and btw: I also embedded a new Tool Button in my Main Tool Menu. One nice animation Feature is called Onion Skin Preview. This is a Preference setting to show an editable number of Keyframes before & after the current Frame#. Rendering is variable from beginning to end frame, how cool; from a lowEnd modelling program! Really helps get feet and other limbs aligned from Keyframe to Keyframe. Now, I can toggle on/off in the main UI, instead of having to open the Preference dialog and paging around...;)! Thanks fragMO!!!

Got Market Base? you should...

Rex — 2006-11-17T16:49:41+00:00

It's over....

The awaited hour approached like a cresendo; all the while THEY waited. THEY waited for roughly 30 hours in sitting on the pavement, in camping chairs, and even tents to keep the elements at bay. THEY waited, and waited, and waited; and not really any of THEM complained. And, at the appointed[annointed?] hour, THEY were rewarded. In fact, THEY were rewarded throughout the entire Event. THEY were rewarded by a very caring staff of Sony employees with free hot coffee in the morning, free lunch prepared on site, free water, free rain gear when things turned slightly 'misty', and a free live Rock show in the streets they were permitted to close down; eventually 3 lanes of a 4 lane street in downtown San Francisco in the middle of a working day.... Things were kept orderly and it must have been a trememdous undertaking, keeping several lines of customers 'comfortable' while they waited patiently.

Who is THEY. The market base that Sony has cultivated over the years to become a very loyal group dedicated to promoting the core product.

Over the past two days[my participation ended at 3AM-5 hrs ago...], I've been involved[up to my ears] in the release of the PlayStation3, here in SF. It was a huge undertaking. A street was closed, first one lane; then as the release approached, we closed another 2 for the stage to be driven into position and things were powered up[ahem, my 'Production' participation]. We had video screens, we had moving lights, we had a countdown timer, we had enough 'support' to bring any Event to a successful conclusion. And we got many more participants than expected...more barricades were ordered. It was non-Stop madness for two straight days.

What surprised me was the level of dedication[back/forth] between customer/manufacturer. I was stunned to discover folks lined up at around 11AM on Wed. to purchase a product that was going to be dellivered[in a most dramatic fashion, ;)], at Midnight the following day...! Equally stunning, was the level of dedication given back to the customer as they waited in line for ages... The patrons were waited on, pretty much hand and foot, by a staff from Sony that waited as patiently as their wards, for things to get 'rolling'... It is fairly amazing to see one of these Events unfold from beginning to end.

It all culminated with a police escort and a 53' tractor-trailer rig pulling up in front of the store to cheering crowds who watched while it was unloaded in front of them[insert drama here].

I am trying to figure out how this simbiosis evolved. Is it that the game platform is of superior quality...or more a factor of {I think} knowing what your paying customer really wants/expects for their money. Not thrusting a product at them, and expecting them to feed[on cue], like a obedient lapdog....

I wish I could upload some images from the Event, undoubtly; it made the news and you've seen a bit of it on CNET or elsewhere. It was something else...at this point, I am a very tired guy.

Can't wait for the next BIG thing...it'll come, always does! I'll be there.

Adventures in fragMOTION

Rex — 2006-09-28T14:51:51+00:00

I have recently become very 'attached' to fragMOTION, a robust, lowcost 3D modelling package that concentrates on animation as well as handling other standard shape creation commands; UV unwrapping/mapping, Primitive generation, Object Transformation, and so on. Being very graphically oriented[good gosh, I'm in ShowBusiness afterall{for pay even, lol}!], I've always gravitated towards programs that provide this type of workSpace and workFlow. My purchasing gameSpace, albeit with it's frustrating animation system, was because of it's layout and workflow and I enjoy working the program from a 'flow' standpoint. Borks not withstanding...

To this same end, I've stayed far away from programs that I consider to be a 'programmer's' commandLine toolBox rather than a graphically 'intuitive' INTERFACE[kinda thought the name says it all...]. In my opinion, programs like Blender fall into this category, and for this reason, I never really evalutated it's performance. Now, I'm not stating that program Such-n-Such is worse than any other, I'm merely expressing my perspective and experience from a graphic standpoint. This isn't about Blender...or gameSpace. It's about how dang cool, fragMOTION is, to me at least.

Let me give a few examples of why I think fragMO is so neat to work with.

One of the best thought out features of the ShowToolPro is the ability to mount image to object in the viewer to judge node placement in objects for Weapon/Item prototyping. It helps out so much and is possible[without some neato buttons/dialog] inside gameSpace with it's superb Axis adjustment toolset and object manipulation features. World Coordinate Info is output to a small everpresent dialog, love that box. It doesn't act exactly like ShowToolPro, but close enough for engineering[mathematicians need not apply...;)].

fragMOTION has almost the exact same lightweight Image caching system to allow for 'Attachments' to be made to any Bone object. I was very excited to learn this feature existed and immediately ventured forth to investigate. Yes, indeed; it did mount any specified object, but at the Object's Origin, nowhere else. What to do , what to do. What I thought best was to post at the Forum's at Fragmosoft, the author is always very present and updating the core in a respectible fashion. And guess what? After I explained the Torque schema of 'mounting' and 'nodes' and provided some examples of 'proper' alignment node-node; the author privately emailed me with an executable .DLL file and an .XML file that totally mimics the 'torquish' method of mounting. Oh, did I forget to mention the ability to custom render this Image[wire/flat/shaded/textured], too? How cool is that, object specific rendering...well, gS does it pretty well too. I can now specify which node to make the 'Origin' for attachment. Truely amazing, the author popped this out to a 'newbie'.

Next example of ultraCoolness[coders pay attention!]:

So, for quick prototyping and animating a 'meshed' rig; I utilize "BoxyBoy" my generice box humanoid based upon the stock Kork interior structure/hitboxes/weighting envelopes. I know him pretty well; yeah, he's boxy, but he's my boy... After dragging my shape thru UltimateUnwrap and bringing it into the fragMOTION environment, I notice a huge FaceCount difference on the total shape. Something was amiss, I needed to check things out. Now, in stock fragMOTION, there is a way to check the selected grouping face/vertex count. It involved highlighting my Grouping, then navigating to another portion of the ShapeTree to highlight the entire Mesh object, which would set the value in the appropriate field of the Mesh object, not the Grouping object. Too bad. What to do, what to do? Once again; ask the 'experts' for advice. I posted this as a new Feature request and got way more than I expected.

As stated before, I stay away from 'scripting' as much as possible[well, not in TGE, it's a necessity], as this is not my forte. fragMOTION allows for LUA scripting to extend the core Classes and yadda, yadda, ya lose me after that. Don't read LUA, don't speak LUA, isn't LUA a Hawaiian beach party? LOL. Island brothers, please, no offense intended... When I asked about this process, the author took me through a step by step outline to doing what I had asked!! What, Rex coding his own UI?? Call the authorities at once, have this activity stopped. Through the wonderful graphically driven Drag/Drop in the ShapeTree and a small LUA script snippet provided by fragMO, I added this feature to my UI permanently. My main point here is to codingHeavy developers needing a GOOD lowcost modelling/animation package, fragMOTION should have a serious looking at. With some good LUA scripting skills, many things could become possible in the fragMOTION environment.

At present, there is no DTS/DSQ format exporter, although the author has stated it's an intended feature for a future update. No matter, since there is a strong handshake between fragMOTION and Milkshape3D, so any exporting can be accomplished in that pipeline.

Well...that's my first two adventures in fragMOTION; stay tuned for future adventures in fragMOTIONing....I'll keep trying to find out more how it can be used for good leverage.

oh, btw: at present, I've asked the author to allow me to post these small scripts[executable may be a different story...], as tools for other developers utilizing fragMOTION in their art asset pipeline, I'll keep you informed.

Milkshape3d: Vertex Weighting: Possible!

Rex — 2006-06-10T04:39:49+00:00

Warning: Large Image involved...

Sorry all, to Blog again so soon, but my, my I've been busy investigating things here and there; helping tutor someone on Ms3d modelling to successful player & animation content. and taking care of a boxful of newborn kittens from a local stray[within a few feet of my workstation....my they're cute at 3 weeks]. Well, I shouldn't take all the credit and I hardly did any of the 'heavy' lifting. Several programmer types and 'Smoki' the stray should take all the credit and to them it is due, well...I am doing some tutoring across a language barrier, and that can be taxing.

In my last Blog just yesterday, I launched into a rather confusing explanation on how to perhaps create a skeletal rig from within gameSpace that works with the default SDK sequences and left no images[what!] for the Masses. I have not embarked upon that Project yet, I want to settle up on this tutoring, which will take some time. That gameSpace project is still in the works, but this Blog ties into that other in an offhand way, since I was crossing back/forth between the two programs and once again notice how the stretching and crunching of meshes is ugly.

With helping someone with their Milkshape model building and rigging, I always feel somewhat embarrassed by the limitation of only full weighting of each vertex to a SINGLE Joint/Bone/Node in the environment and having to explain away the sometimes less than desired deformations achieved by this schema. Until Mete finishes and releases Milkshape v2, everyone thought that good deformations were impossible without increasing the Joint count and using extra Joints as 'helpers' at the pinch points of shoulders, elbows, ankles, necks...etc. This necessitates either doing the extra rig work, or segmenting the shape, or very clever vertex placement. To any end, quality content was not thought possible from the 'low polygon' program. If you call a poly Max count of 60,000 a low polygon modeller.

Attention all Developers utilizing Milkshape3d for their DTS/DSQ TGE content! I have an announcement, and it's BIG:

VERTEX WEIGHTING FOR DTS SHAPES IS NOW POSSIBLE!!!

That's right, I said it, and I'm so excited, I'm practically falling out of my chair as I text.... I have just finished a very preliminary test on a shape created in Milkshape, rigged in Milkshape, animated in Milkshape, and exported from Milkshape, that contains vertices weighted to at least two separate Joints/Bones/Nodes; and never left the Milkfarm.. In fact, with the upgrade to the exporter I'm working with, I can have up to 3 Joints affecting a single vertex.

Knowing I have to proof my concepts and really the only way I feel valid is to release the files[not about ready to do that, more tests needed], or with a picture:

In the above snapshot you will see the Ms3d program running with the shape at the extreme end of my second animation, one which would cause obvious extreme stretching on the vertices as the skeleton deformed to X+ direction and placing the ring of vertices at a Y +/- extreme verticle[ms3d coordinate system]. An example of such an area on a mesh would be the elbow, a trouble spot for few too many vertices and no helper.

In the second program running on the desktop, you'll see the same shape and animations after exporting to the DTS format with the animations embedded; performing the same sequence in ShowToolPro. Now notice the same ring of vertices, highlighted with their weighting color. I choose Red as 100% weighting and Yellow as 0% weighting, and you'll notice that the highlighted color is orange. Reading the .DMP file would also indicate the weighting actually happening during the Process. All the vertices were at 50% to Joint7 and 50% on Joint6, it's parent[below it]. Also notice their location in relation to the verticle Axis of TGE/STP.....looks like a nice 45 to the 90 I rotated Joint7. If the object were viewed in 3d; you'd see the perfect circle of vertices had become a nice ellipse, as front/back vertices did not contract towards the rotator, :). I'm having some issues with Firefox and this Blog Text entry field snapping to the top of the field, so, I'll close now with a promise to update this or create a new .Plan to give updates on the Process.

Cheers all! Milkfarmers Unite!

Rex

PS: Chris Robertson, you are the best! And the big thanks goes out to a Member of the Milkshape Community by the name of W. Wesley Howe!

This is a snapshot of the Sims2 UniMesh Bone Tool V4.05. It is found under Vertex--Sims2 UniMesh Bone Tool V4.05, oddly enough, lol. To use it you must first select some vertices Assigned to a Joint, either by selection in the Viewports or by selection of a Joint in the listing and then hitting the SelAssigned button, under Joints Tab. Then the plugin will activate, and you are presented with the pictured dialog. One limit of the process is that you need to know what vertex is what; even though they are listed in the dialog's lowest set of fields & numbered, to the right of the Left/Right arrows. You still need to know which is which if you have multiples selected. Too bad they don't highlight in the VP with the selection, it would help a lot. Another limit is that you need to Commit the change before moving on to another vertex with the selector, or the data doesn't hold. You can do a 'global' type Apply to All command and that applies the data across the board, you still need to Commit to All it seems to lock in the edits for good. Then you're tossed back to the Ms3d interface. Now, you can proceed with a 'normal' export. Another caveat is that to perhaps make certain your shape's vertices have been welded together, I don't know what might happen, it's something I do a lot in Ms3d. Program seems to unweld seams with a mind of it's own. I know activating some plugins do it as well... Also, too; I find the DTSPlus! exporter and/or Ms3d unwelding the shapes after the Process is complete. I mention about welding, as the number of vertices may change unexpectedly in the dialog.

More later...

...something to again remember if I haven't stated this before: you will not see these weights render with deformations in the ms3d enviro, although the data remains within the Scene. Saving the file after editing and then revisiting the selected vertex and calling the plugin; will show the data to be preserved. Unless something has gone wrong with Commiting the edits. Reading the .dmp file for the shape will indicate the weighting has occured, it's indicated on some lines during the process. So that made me fairly convinced the plugin and the exporter did they jobs, quite admirably...

IK Groupings, Nodes, & the Magik of Exporters

Rex — 2006-06-09T00:14:29+00:00

I have stated, in probably more than a few places, that you would never see a player shape exported from gameSpace that would load the default SDK sequences...it's a FAQ by users of the Caligari package based upon trueSpace 6x series. I should have quantified the statement by inserting the words, "deforming with the Bones system", after 'player shape'. There is more than one way to build a shape needing Nodes, I've discovered, and it may have it uses, ;). That is to someone who regularily pounds together things in a cast iron vat here at the Heavy Industries werks at RHI; wearing protective gear, of course!

I am a regular Milkshape3d user also and it was during a recent & ongoing help/tutor session with a struggling Community Member that I implimented an idea I had kicking around for a while to see if it would hold some weight. Aligning Joints in Ms3d is a very frustrating endeavor, since there really is no way to affect the Pivot of the Joint other than rotating it, which affects all children's rotations, whaaa...hate that. I have outlined a method to add additional Joints without borking the existing transforms and it works...but, I thought that I would try another approach rather than edit the shape file textually. I sent the shape thru the milkfarm to form a .dts and then sat back and really took a good look at the shape in the ShowToolPro. I used the World Coordinates for the Nodes and looked at each in turn, noting it's coordinates in a spreadsheet. Indeed, my Nodes were all off, and mounting something would have been messy. But I expected that, with the milkfarm's existing tools. Now, time for some IK voodoo.

In gameSpace, you have the ability to build hierarchal objects, or in gSspeak[an IK Grouping]. These 'Trees', once exported, form the standard chain of bones most artists expect to see inside a mesh shape. I would imagine that most Bone type systems organize the objects in some such similar manner. It's a bit of an art & science in building these IK Groupings in gS, in that to form this Grouping, two objects are needed, and there's Parent Pivot issues to be mindful of. One being my mesh object, the second object is a NULL type placeholder, which gS isn't capable of dealing with. Mesh geometry only and Bones...no helpers. You must substitute a mesh object and have the exporter use naming convention to handle exporting,rendering, etc...

Everthing seemed to unfold fairly quickly after that. I placed _dummy objects where I knew my Nodes to be and edited the Pivots to reflect the information I'd documented from STP. I completed my shape in gS and exported to dts. ShowToolPro confirmed my handiwork! All my Nodes ended up as I wanted them, in proper orientation! But I was not finished yet, as I still had to do this work in Ms3d, since that is where I was answering questions. Luckily, I have a few tools in my workBox and pulled one out that reads dts files and exports to Milkshape3d. When I examined the shape back on the 'farm, my Nodes were aligned as I'd intended. Sorry for the digression, and how does this all fit in?

My next big adventure; once I finish this tutoring on Milkshape 2 DTS, I'm going to attempt to recreate the SDK standard skeleton in gameSpace as an IK Grouping and see if it will load the sequences. This won't give me a skeleton I can use in gS[not true, just segmented-and allows for great Scalability], but it allows me to create skeletons I can use in Milkshape...and I 'think' in the past I've been able with this 'flow' to create .dsq's in milkshape that will load into a .dts created in gameSpace, as long as it's from the same flow...and I may be able to scale the object in gS and have it follow the .dsq's! That would be something.

Sorry, no images to accompany this blog....it's just a quick plan.

Rex

testing, testing:

Thursday Nov 3 18:47

Rex — 2005-11-03T18:47:54+00:00

Having finished and published my gameSpace to DTS player example in the TDN, I'm pushing forward after seeing the outline provided by the Max & Maya articles, and will attempt to put onto the network, any gameSpace examples that will mesh with the existing framework. Stay tuned; the 'simpleShape' article I'm working on right now is being hammered together and is looking pretty good. Nothing about gameSpace is 'simple'...

To keep the consistency of the network; I'm utilizing the theme of a radar dish and hope to provide some example files to prove I'm not simply making up steps that lead to nowhere. Nothing in gameSpace is 'simple', so this may take some time to properly weave a flow thru the program without exposing the developer to a mulititude of crashing...no one wants that! I've just now finally exported a radar dish very similar to the image in the Maya article[and what I think the Node structure may imitate] and it took some time to get my hierarchy correctly linked and the IK grouping transforms properly located. Even though it's a 'simple' process, it should not be undertaken without a lot of patience ready to keep the developer on an 'even' keel and not heaving your box into the ocean's deeper recesses. Most all of the data needed is contained within the documentation of the exporter. _dummy objects are utilized to get it all tied together properly and not have my meshes with the detail numbers appearing as Nodes.

Depending on my progress, I may begin on the Milkshape3D branch of articles, using the same shape, with slightly different construction techniques. There are no booleans in ms3d and a different method of construction is utilized, however; extreme accuracy is needed with the cursor and it's onscreen/viewport location.

Rex

Sunday Oct 23 15:44

Rex — 2005-10-23T15:44:24+00:00

Having recently completed porting a Milkshape Blends article from my personal webpages, I'm now beginning to bring a gameSpace2DTS player character article to the TDN. Stay tuned as it developes. I'm mirroring the structure along the lines of the Max articles, although the complex character tutorial is not yet present on the TDN, I'm forging ahead to bring the gameSpace and Milkshape modeling packages into the fray, as it were.

Working away on a gameSpace player shape exporting article, watch the TDN as it progresses.