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Can milkshape be used to create and animate a player model?

by Glynn James · in Torque Game Engine · 05/27/2005 (4:50 pm) · 8 replies

Sorry - i know this has lots of different posts in the forums but having looked at them a lot are quite old and some give varying answers.

Ive been looking at creating a player model, i have a basic mesh i might be able use to model from in milkshape but the whether i can use it is a bit vague sofar

Some of the forum posts mention exporting animations separately from the model, and using a convertor, but also mention lots of problems during the process (wierd results)

Secondly - i had a look at the bravetree girl pack and it says it comes with a milkshape file - but one of the review notes someone put in says the animations cant be replaced/changed in milkshape? its a good model but my only use for it would be as a base to work from - so is this still the case? will i only be able to change the textures?

If anyone has successfully done this i would be very grateful for any help/hints. Buying max or maya isnt an option for me.
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Torque Owner Sam M
#1
05/27/2005 (5:41 pm)
Alright, you can absolutely make animations in milkshape. The only thing is it doesn't have a fancy bone mesh system like 3ds max. In milkshape you make a skeletion out of joints, then assign vertices to a specific joint. The problem some people have with that is the animtation can look blocky because of the joints pulling some things the wrong way. 3ds max has a bone system were it smoothly moves the mesh around.

The animations can be changed in milkshape, however you'd most likely start over from scratch by deleting all the keyframes. Over a couple of months i've become a pro at milkshape, but i still can't explain it too well. Your best bet is to look at the Ken Finney book. The programming section of it has some kinks but the modeling and animating section is a great tutorial.

(P.S. I was writing most of this off the top of my head)

Torque Owner Sam M
#2
05/27/2005 (5:43 pm)
In short, there's nothing wrong with milkshape's way of animating, it's just not as nice as in other programs. You just have to get used to it and you'll be fine.

Torque Owner Glynn James
#3
05/28/2005 (8:55 am)
Ok cheers sam :)

Torque Owner Christopher Dapo
#4
05/28/2005 (9:27 am)
There's a great resource I used myself that goes into detail on how to do everything you need to do with milkshape.... from learning how to make the mesh, to animating it, to importing it to Torque... but I just can't find where it's at!

I'll post it here when I find it for ya!

- Ronixus

Torque Owner Glynn James
#5
05/28/2005 (11:24 am)
Thank you! looking forward to that one

Torque Owner BrokeAss Games
BrokeAss Games
#6
05/28/2005 (6:54 pm)
Yes, MilkShape animates fine, but like Sam said, it can look very ugly.
Creases in the joints are the first side effect I noticed.
Anyone have a method for fixing this?
For now, I currently use TrueSpace 6.6.

Torque Owner Sam M
#7
06/01/2005 (6:11 pm)
I personally love milkshape. It's just easier to use and more useful (In my opinion) then a program like 3ds max. I figure is someone wanted smoother animations they could just make more joints for better control and animate it carefully.

Torque Owner Chris Labombard
Premium Preferred
#8
06/02/2005 (4:30 am)
@SamM - That leaves a couple problems though... 1 is less performance, as complicated animations can start to kill performance. The other is the ragdoll pack. If you stray from that norm, then you cant use those animations.

What exactly let's 3dsmax do nicer animations? Is it that you an weight the vertices to multiple joints ? I thought you could do that in Milkshape as well (though the tutorials I read didnt mention anything about it )