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Real time deformation/ blend shapes/ smooth bind

by Matthew Hoesterey · in Torque Game Engine · 04/08/2005 (10:04 am) · 4 replies

A few questions about how torque deals with animated characters.

1) Can the engine use blend shapes on the face while still using the bones system for animating the mesh in engine? Or will I have to rig the face of a character with bones to maintain the speed of RTD in the engine?

2) Does the engine recognize vertex weights. ie... can I use a deformable bind inside Max or Maya (smooth bind)? Or do I have to set up a rigid bind? Another way to ask this, can a vertices share weights with 2 bones?

3) Eyeballs? Assuming I wanted separate eyeballs on the character. (Yes I know this would add to the poly count) Will the engine recognize the rotation of that element of the mesh or will I have to set up bones in the eyes to manage their rotation.



Thanks!
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Torque Owner Teck Lee Tan
#1
04/08/2005 (10:17 am)
1. The way I understand it, Torque does not support vertex-level animation. Blendshapes/morph targets are going to be very performance and memory inefficient, since you would effectively be getting the entire model at each keyframe of your morphs. So it technically is possible, just not advisable.

2. Yes, vertex weights are supported.

3. See 1.

Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#2
04/08/2005 (10:41 am)
3) All you have to do is separate into separate objects and parent them to the head bone, and then yes, you will be able to rotate them with keyframe animation.

Jeff

Torque Owner Teck Lee Tan
#3
04/08/2005 (11:12 am)
3. Oops, duh. Didn't read the question properly. o_O

Torque Owner Matthew Hoesterey
#4
04/08/2005 (12:43 pm)
Hey thanks! Just one question could I parent the eyes inside max and use keyframe animation on them or would I need to do this with code in the engine?