Dave,
Sure, for a single 500 vertex model it isn't a concern (with decent
hardware). My concerns are if those models shift up to say 1000 vertices
(better quality) and you put 100 or 200 of them in a scene! (not to say
that we won't have problems with our method either). Quake, Halflife,
etc all use low polygon count models and rarely have more than a few
models in the scene at a time. It sure would be nice if Verant would
comment on how they do this with Everquest.
I agree, at this point there isn't much choice than to just make an
educated guess and try it out.
- John
"Yazel, David J." wrote:
>
> Its too early to tell on speed, but since the vertex delta's are
> pre-computed on a per key-frame bases, the only calculation is the
> interpolation per frame for each vertex. On a 400-500 vertex model this
> time is negligible. This is the same method used by quake and halflife to
> great effect. We are in fact experimenting with half-life models converted
> using 3d Exploration. As always we are just plodding along trying different
> things. Our thought is also to attempt to "attach" items to the model using
> control vertices, where for example you can specify two of the hand vertices
> as anchors for items that are held, then use a single transformation on the
> item to synchroize with the animated char. That way we can have smooth
> animations of flexible characters, with rigid objects attached. But like
> John said, we will have to see if its fast enough.
>
> Dave
>
> > ----------
> > From: John Wright[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Reply To: Discussion list for Java 3D API
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 8:34 AM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] How to REALLY get humanoid content into a Java
> > 3Dapplication?
> >
> > As David said, it's not exactly a simple task. Our 3DS loader certainly
> > can import excellent looking models (there are some quirks and my 3D
> > modelers are getting better and better at making models that work) but
> > animating them is possible in a couple different ways.
> >
> > To animate in real time you are going to have to sacrifice some quality
> > until the hardware gets a LOT faster. Moving a few joints (what we
> > intend to do) shouldn't be too bad but won't do the nice deformations of
> > a "Hollywood" style animation (keep in mind that we can't do in real
> > time what takes Max hours to generate a couple minute clip). I'm
> > intrigued that David states they are going with morphing (my intuition
> > tells me that is going to be too slow / CPU intensive).
> >
> > - John Wright
> > Starfire Research
> >
> > David wrote:
> > >
> > > There are a few people here with real-world experience, and they are
> > > probably all different experiences :) www.roboforge.com is an
> > application
> > > using Java3d and has quite nice animation. You can bring a non-animated
> > > humanoid into Java3d very easily using Starfire Lab's 3ds loader. I
> > would
> > > stay away from VRML in java3d as a primary loader unless you plan on
> > writing
> > > your own loader. Java3d does not have complex humanoid animation built
> > in.
> > > Even if you want to do something as simple as single skin keyframe
> > morphing
> > > you have a job ahead of you. We have just started work on this
> > ourselves.
> > > The path we are starting to experiment with is to model in 3dmax, use
> > > character studio to define the animation, use 3d exploration to read in
> > the
> > > model and animations and then use the 3d exploration sdk to write out
> > our
> > > own file format. Inside of java3d we would be using a loader which can
> > > read our own file format and then creating animation classes which morph
> > > between keyframes using geometry by reference and the geometry updator
> > > callbacks. If you want to do skin and bones directly inside java3d then
> > it
> > > is more difficult because you need to handle the transformations
> > yourself.
> > > I think it would be slow to set up an animation using a hierarchy of
> > > transform3d's but you could try.
> > >
> > > Good luck. I know there are people on this list who have this working,
> > but
> > > no one can/will post their code on it, so you will have to figure it out
> > > unfortunately.
> > >
> > > Dave Yazel
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Rudolf J.C. Buijs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 6:24 AM
> > > Subject: [JAVA3D] How to REALLY get humanoid content into a Java 3D
> > > application?
> > >
> > > Hi everyone -
> > >
> > > We are considering Java 3D for development of a new application which
> > > involves animation of humanoids with motion capture data.
> > >
> > > This is a must-have: the humanoids MUST look good and realistic!
> > >
> > > I would think that it would be best to use a 3rd party tool to define
> > > texture-mapped geometry, export this to VRML (or .3DS etc) and use any
> > of
> > > the loaders.
> > >
> > > What's a good way of going about this? I am thinking of content creation
> > > packages like Poser or 3D Studio Max and exporting to VRML, but I don't
> > know
> > > for a fact that it will work.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have REAL-WORLD experience with this? What software are you
> > > using that will actually allow creation of humanoids and import them
> > into a
> > > Java 3D application? Preferably in the H-ANIM 1.1 standard if that's
> > > possible. Which loaders to use for Java 3D? Any gotcha's?
> > >
> > > This is what I have so far: I've searched the web for loaders (found and
> > > tried latest X3D) and VRML models (H-ANIM 1.1 preferably), but so far I
> > have
> > > been unsuccessful in importing even one humanoid (every single VRML
> > model I
> > > managed to find runs into problems with PROTO's, I have some models
> > > available if anyone else cares to try, the demo VRML runs fine on my
> > > system).
> > >
> > > Many thanks in advance and many regards - Rudolf
> > >
> > >
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