Creating a New Player Model

#1 Here's a decent beginner guide:

http://www.davidjsushil.com/tutorials/characters.pdf

#2 Also in ShapeEditor, it'll give you a list of related bones/nodes and animations if you select hints->player.

Creating a decent skinned mesh which doesn't deform in a horrible manner is more just knowing/learning how to build characters for animation. There are plenty of tutorials scattered around the interwebs and lots of little tips available like
Limb deformation. There's another good tut on limb deformation by a/ex Torquer who worked on PS2 Lara Croft but I can't find that link ... :\

It might be important to note that the whole spine/neck/head area is hardcoded for helping resolving certain animation. Having said that, I've not been using the "classic torque bone hierarchy naming convention" - but might change that ...

#3 Yeah, I understand that I need to know modeling, rigging, and animating. My question was more along the lines of how to rig for T3D, how to create the proper nodes, sequences, naming, etc. That kind of stuff is specific to Torque, and I didn't find any single document (except that pdf) that really described the process. I did spend hours and hours searching before I had a basic understanding.

So I think there needs to be better documentation -- in the official documentation -- with all the Torque-specific stuff, i.e. nodes, sequences, naming, hierarchy (with a legible schematic image -- can't read the one on TDN), exporting (including DSQ's), etc. There should be a documented procedure for using a model and its associated animations as a replacement for the default player.

I still don't know if there are requirements for naming bones if I'm going to use custom animations, i.e. if I have to follow the biped naming convention or if I just have to make sure the bones are linked up properly.

Just a few small things that would help the learning process...

Thanks for your reply.

#4 Have you seen the DTS guide by Logan Foster & Joe Maruschak?

#5 Very useful stuff. Thanks Michael.

#6 Ahh...finally got my first custom player with custom rig and custom animations created...and it works. It was very painful trying to determine why my eye and mount nodes weren't exporting, but now they are.

Thanks for the bits of guidance. Now on to something more complex. =)

#7 Or some playing around...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulfk5uOnMa4

#8 Hehe, cool.

Keep at it. Sometimes just playing around makes figuring something out a lot more enjoyable.