Vertex Animation
by Ian Wells · in Torque Game Engine · 01/09/2005 (3:17 pm) · 2 replies
Was hoping someone could help answer a question or two. I've a job making characters for a game using the Torque engine and its come time to animate them. Besides the problems inherent in rigging (or maybe just inherent in my ability) there are a couple of instances when useing the morpher modifier in max really helps.
According to the Torque DTS Matrix (http://www.alexswanson.com/torque/dts/) it seems morph animation is partially supported. Assuming it is, and i get the go-ahead to use it, can per-vertex animation be combined with skeletal, or is it one or the other per mesh?
It takes a bit longer and a bit more effort, but i really like the vertex-level control.
any light shed on the subject would be much appreciated
According to the Torque DTS Matrix (http://www.alexswanson.com/torque/dts/) it seems morph animation is partially supported. Assuming it is, and i get the go-ahead to use it, can per-vertex animation be combined with skeletal, or is it one or the other per mesh?
It takes a bit longer and a bit more effort, but i really like the vertex-level control.
any light shed on the subject would be much appreciated
#2
01/09/2005 (5:17 pm)
Its one or the other per mesh. In nearly all cases though, its a much better idea to use bones over morph animation. Morph animations are much more processor intensive, as well as resulting in much larger dts file sizes since its taking a snapshot of the mesh at every frame. So while morph animations are supported, in most cases you want to avoid using them. 
Torque Owner Matthew Jones
And to tell you the truth I am not sure if I even totally understand question so if you could dumb it down a bit maybe I can answer your question better.. if I didn't answer it already. :)
Matt