Look Animation Issues (Need Help)
by Ben Halverson · in Torque 3D Professional · 04/01/2014 (2:29 pm) · 7 replies
I've been trying desperately to get the 'look' animation for my character to behave properly and I'm finally breaking down and asking for help. It's not that I have trouble with the animation itself. I understand the concepts of the 'look' animation and how to import it to get the effect to function. You'll noticed in this image that when my character is stationary, he looks up and down flawlessly. Everything works well for me at this stage.
i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/VladPiranha/lookanimation01_zpsb16efe9d.jpg
No problems here. What has had me stumped for a couple weeks is how the run animation and the look animation simply will not work together.
i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/VladPiranha/lookanimation02_zpsaeb49e01.jpg
As you can see here, the hands shift depending upon my aim. When I look downward, the hands and arms spread apart. When I look upwards, they cross over one another.
I've gotten the same result from many experiments. I've exported the look animation with frame 0 being a copy of the root pose for a blend reference and left 1-9 (or however many, I've tried that too) for the usual up to down aiming animation. I've tried exporting the animation with the middle of the animation (instead of frame 0) as the blending point to reference for 'root' (An identical pose). I've exported the look animation with every single bone keyframed in every single frame and I still get this result. The only thing I've managed to get to work was leaving everything in the Collada file completely motionless from the hips up with only the legs moving like some sort of wind-up toy. It looks absolutely terrible.
Has anyone encountered something like this before? I've been able to figure out solutions to every one of my problems with T3D on my own up to this point, but this one is unbeatable so far and I really need some guidance. I've tried everything I can think of and it's been nothing but failure for a while now.
i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/VladPiranha/lookanimation01_zpsb16efe9d.jpg
No problems here. What has had me stumped for a couple weeks is how the run animation and the look animation simply will not work together.
i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/VladPiranha/lookanimation02_zpsaeb49e01.jpg
As you can see here, the hands shift depending upon my aim. When I look downward, the hands and arms spread apart. When I look upwards, they cross over one another.
I've gotten the same result from many experiments. I've exported the look animation with frame 0 being a copy of the root pose for a blend reference and left 1-9 (or however many, I've tried that too) for the usual up to down aiming animation. I've tried exporting the animation with the middle of the animation (instead of frame 0) as the blending point to reference for 'root' (An identical pose). I've exported the look animation with every single bone keyframed in every single frame and I still get this result. The only thing I've managed to get to work was leaving everything in the Collada file completely motionless from the hips up with only the legs moving like some sort of wind-up toy. It looks absolutely terrible.
Has anyone encountered something like this before? I've been able to figure out solutions to every one of my problems with T3D on my own up to this point, but this one is unbeatable so far and I really need some guidance. I've tried everything I can think of and it's been nothing but failure for a while now.
#2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT-VxSiJYLA
I've already tried using different levels of priority for the animations too, but it did nothing to change this. The look animation isn't the only trouble here. I'm finding that running any kind of blended animation along with the run animation causes this problem. 'Head' does the exact same thing and the only thing that moves in that .dae file is the actual head bone.
The strange part of all of this is that I tinkered with the T3D betas back in 2010 and got characters with some blended animations to work just fine with the DTS exporter back then. Is it possible that the Max 2013 exporter is problematic?
04/02/2014 (12:46 pm)
This should clarify.www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT-VxSiJYLA
I've already tried using different levels of priority for the animations too, but it did nothing to change this. The look animation isn't the only trouble here. I'm finding that running any kind of blended animation along with the run animation causes this problem. 'Head' does the exact same thing and the only thing that moves in that .dae file is the actual head bone.
The strange part of all of this is that I tinkered with the T3D betas back in 2010 and got characters with some blended animations to work just fine with the DTS exporter back then. Is it possible that the Max 2013 exporter is problematic?
#3
04/02/2014 (1:10 pm)
Have you tried making the look-animation a blend animation? As far as I can see in the vid it isn't a blend anim at the moment.
#4
Good eye, though.
04/02/2014 (7:17 pm)
What you're seeing in the world editor demonstration is a blended look/root animation. It was recorded separately from the second part. That was a different session where I was re-importing stuff into the shape editor and forgot to select that part again.Good eye, though.
#5
The reason why I say this is because when I export from Blender the animation frames in Blender is a different number to what Torque compiles it into. So if I had 100 frames in Blender and put the animation in Torque it will become 60 frames. So when I go to play the animation I will get strange blending issues until I go in and alter the start and ending frames of the .cs file containing the animation references.
04/03/2014 (7:48 am)
I am not sure what is going on here, the last thing I can think of to check is going into the animation.cs file and look at the frames for each animation type and alter it manually to determine cause and effect. The reason why I say this is because when I export from Blender the animation frames in Blender is a different number to what Torque compiles it into. So if I had 100 frames in Blender and put the animation in Torque it will become 60 frames. So when I go to play the animation I will get strange blending issues until I go in and alter the start and ending frames of the .cs file containing the animation references.
#6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-hbJp8JlY
We are still at a standstill on the issue, any help would be greatly appriciated - paid or otherwise.
05/20/2014 (12:59 pm)
Here is a bit more detailed information on the problem we are facing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-hbJp8JlY
We are still at a standstill on the issue, any help would be greatly appriciated - paid or otherwise.
#7
Apparently the problem is which method of rotation animation in your 3D editor you choose, there may be the Euler angles or quaternions.
This choice affects the accuracy of the calculation, which will depend from how exactly will located vertices in space relative to the nodes-bones, or the default global center. Apparently the problem is in the that, in the interpretation of accuracy defect in the engine rotation animation method.
To solve this problem, you need to change the method of calculation and then animate the character again, and export to a new file colada.
Or fix the method of calculating conversion in the engine =)
PS tell if my advice is useful, I'll be happy =)
05/23/2014 (12:55 pm)
Hello every body, I work in Blender and I also encountered this problem and maybe I can give you a little firefly beetle, to solve this problem. Apparently the problem is which method of rotation animation in your 3D editor you choose, there may be the Euler angles or quaternions.
This choice affects the accuracy of the calculation, which will depend from how exactly will located vertices in space relative to the nodes-bones, or the default global center. Apparently the problem is in the that, in the interpretation of accuracy defect in the engine rotation animation method.
To solve this problem, you need to change the method of calculation and then animate the character again, and export to a new file colada.
Or fix the method of calculating conversion in the engine =)
PS tell if my advice is useful, I'll be happy =)
Torque Owner DreamPharaoh
Gods and Nemesis
What animation, out of the animations you had made, have the arms crossing (I am assuming it is a walk animation). The pictures you provided are all of the character aiming (very cool all the same). So I am trying to understand what the issue is from what you have written down. I am in the character dev portion and so I had to put animations to the side again in order to make sure everything is correct before proceeding. I remember there being an issue with the root pose getting confused with the walk animation and would result in a 50/50 chance of the animation firing between cycles.
When I was making animations (using Blender) I found out that the base character file (for the datablock)had to have all of the vertices, bones, etc in place without animations. You cannot change the character in any way later on without redoing all of the animations. The root animation was simply my breathing animation that it would use when not in use, and my walking animation was a walk animation that was based off an exact copy of the base character. If I changed the base character in anyway then it would effect the other animations. Also sometimes an export did not form correctly. Try reexporting the animations. Additionally, there can be confusion if the root animation uses bones that the walk animation uses -- this might have some relation to the issue you are having as well, which is why I asked if any animation you made so far involves the crossing of arms. Lastly, there is a way of selecting the order of importance of the animations in the animation listing -- I would look into this too.