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Animation Combining

by Greg Gardinier · in Torque Game Engine · 01/15/2006 (4:35 pm) · 1 replies

Greetings, I recently just got a character into the engine and a collection of temp animations.

We are using the melee combat resource found here: http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5377

The problem that I am having is that the animation blending is pretty much freaking out, and doing it at random. For example, the root animation will often times combine with the forward run animation cause the lower body to play the root and the upper body to play the run animation, and there are also several other combination.

Now, I suspect this might be because the root animation is soo different from all the the other animations. (the legs are spread much farther apart than he is when he is running, and the engine might be having problems blending between these animations. However I am not sure.

I have never tried something this drastic in torque with regards to characters. Everything is original, model, rig, and of course the animations so I am a little confused as to what is going on.

The main things that I am fuzzy on at the moment is threading and blending, and I have my suspicions that these things are related to the problem.

If anyone has any advice it would be appreciated.

Thanks
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Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
#1
01/16/2006 (11:14 am)
Some of the common issues with totally custom rigs, blending animations, etc.:

1) There are some hard coded nodes expected in Torque for proper blending, specifically spine nodes as well as a few others. If you haven't adjusted your c++ source code to not look for these nodes, then you'll probably want to either adjust your rig to conform to the expectations, or modify the code.

2) Blending can be confusing, but you need to keep in mind that it is always additive: each of the three threads (look, arm, and movement) are going to be blended by the engine to achieve the total animation. For example, try to picture a clock face in your head, with the hands pointing to noon:

1) If you have one blended animation that advances the big hand an hour, then you'll see 1 oclock on your face.

2) If you have a second animation that advances the big hand by 2 hours and the little hand by a half hour, you'll see 3:30 on the face, not 2:30 or 1:00.

3) If you have a third animation that is also blended into the mix that has the root hands position at 5:00, but then advances the big hand by an hour, you'll see 4:30 when all the animations are blended...or even possibly something quite unexpected depending on the starting position for the hands in the 3rd animation.

I'm not an animator so I don't know the exact specifics, but I suggest you read the docs on blended animations here at the website.

Here is a quote from Logan Foster (experienced Torque animator) that may also help out:

Quote:
You should take a closer look at the information regarding the 'Sequence Helper' shape, defining an animation as a blend is option found within it's properties/settings.

Some other things to note:
1) Blends are additive (as the DTS Docs explain), this means that they will add their positions and animations on top of whatever sequences are already running.
2) You can only export transform information as a blend.
3) Try to set the root post as frame 0, at frame 1 set your blend pose start (and set your final blend animation piece whereever). Export a sequence only between frame 1 and frame end... do not include frame 0. This will allow the blend animation to not introduce any unwanted transforms to the character model and give you the result you desire.

Logan

as well as a TDN Article on blended animations with Milkshape that may help. Finally, the same for 3DS Max.