[JAVA3D] animating person in real time

[Evan Drumwright]

Evan Drumwright,   Have you got any help? Can I share it?   Pine Peng   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   I haven't really gotten any help beside the Java 3D tutorial, but I have made excellent progress with this project.  I'm aware from this list that there are problems (some rather severe!) with Java 3D, but it is working very well for my purposes.  Kudos to Sun!   Basically, I have an artist create the 3D objects (body parts) in 3D Studio Max.  He then exports each of these body parts to a separate .DXF file- .DXF is used because it handles the colors correctly.  He also exports a pivot point for each moveable body part- for example, the head pivot is a point inside the head around which the head will rotate.  I import each one of these body parts and pivots using the NCSA loader.  I also created a local rotation interpolator that will interpolate a transform group around multiple axes using a pivot point as the origin (I may have reinvented the wheel here...)  Currently, we have a moveable head, eyes, eyelids, mouth, and arms (upper, fore, and hand).  Of course, I am simplifying the implementation greatly, but can give more detail if requested.   Animation is very smooth, considering that I have been developing this on a 350 MHz Pentium II, 64MB RAM, and a decent graphics card (I forget which).  However, I have yet to incorporate the speech synthesis.  While I am well aware of how to implement the speech synthesis, I am waiting to complete a few additional behaviors before attempting to add it to the project.  It will likely require an additional or upgraded processor!   Of course, I can fill in more details as needed...   Evan Drumwright