An important question about cal3d?

[Hilake]

Hi! all

May I ask that if cal3d cab display a model wearing a skirt which can be swinging as the model walking? If can, can it display normally in cel or cs? For I've designed such a model which display normally in cal3d miniviewer, but the skirt doesn't swing in cel or cs.

I've looked up many files, but still can't solve it. I'm looking forward to the answer.

Thanks!

[zaz]

It sounds to me like you're using the cloth simulation feature of cal3d.  If you are, that may or may not be supported by CS and is likely to depend on the version of CS you're using and/or how it was built.  I was considering testing this out, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

If you are using the cal3d cloth simulation, one thing you should be aware of is that it will cost you some CPU cycles.  Since CPU is such a valueable resource when it comes to games, I'd consider simply hand animating your skirt.  Whether or not this is important depends a lot on your project.

[Hilake]

I did used hand animating my skirt. As you say, But there had alot of problem for me as I described.
Can you test it for me in your module using cs?

It sounds to me like you're using the cloth simulation feature of cal3d.  If you are, that may or may not be supported by CS and is likely to depend on the version of CS you're using and/or how it was built.  I was considering testing this out, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

If you are using the cal3d cloth simulation, one thing you should be aware of is that it will cost you some CPU cycles.  Since CPU is such a valueable resource when it comes to games, I'd consider simply hand animating your skirt.  Whether or not this is important depends a lot on your project.

[zaz]

Can you test it for me in your module using cs?

Do you mean my modified blender2cal3d_2.py ?  I'm not sure that that'd help much as the changes I made to it were only to accomodate my exact convention of naming bones.  Also, the scripts I wrote to clean up actions and such are based on those conventions also.  For example, the script I use to clean up my actions is as follows:

Code:

#!BPY
 
"""
Name: 'Clean Actions for Torque DTS Export'
Blender: 235
Group: 'Animation'
Tooltip: 'Deletes Null/IK bone channels for baked actions.'
"""
 
import string
from string import *
 
import Blender
from Blender import Armature
from Blender.Armature import NLA
 
print
print '==============cleanForDts.py-start====================='
print
 
actions = NLA.GetActions ()
 
for key in actions.keys ():
        if key [0] == 'b' and (find (uppercase, key [1]) >= 0 or key[1] == '_'):
                action = actions [key]
                channels = action.getAllChannelIpos ()
                print
                print 'Action:', key
 
                # Remove control, IK and Null channels.
                #
                print 'Cleaning action of control, IK and null channels:'
                for chan in channels.keys ():
                        if chan [:3] == "IK_":
                                print '\tremoving ', chan, '<<<<<< IK_'
                                action.removeChannel (chan)
                        elif chan == "FacialCtrlBase":
                                print '\tremoving ', chan, '<<<<<< FacialCtrlBase'
                                action.removeChannel (chan)
                        elif find (chan, 'Null') >= 0:
                                print '\tremoving ', chan, '<<<<<< Null'
                                action.removeChannel (chan)
                        elif find (chan, 'Lock') >= 0:
                                print '\tremoving ', chan, '<<<<<< Null'
                                action.removeChannel (chan)
                        elif chan [0] == 'C' and find (uppercase, chan [1]) >= 0:
                                print '\tremoving ', chan, '<<<<<< Control'
                                action.removeChannel (chan)

I hacked the blender source code to name baked actions such as "Walk" becomes "bWalk" instead of the normal "Walk.BAKED" as it was affecting other things once upon a time.  So, what the script above does is find all actions starting with a 'b' followed by an uppercase letter or an '_' (underscore) and then delete the channels associated with my IK, control or otherwise constraint only related bones.

I'd be happy to take a quick look at the .blend and/or attempt to run the model in CS as long as there aren't any intellectual property issues with it, i.e. copyright, tradesecrets, etc.  I just won't become responsible for insuring the protection of someone else's IP in a situation like this.

If you decide to do this, let me know, either via another post or a PM, how you want to make the model available to me.  I am running on linux and only have blender available to me for modeling though.

I'm using a pretty recent version of CS 0.99 with a few week old cal3d.  Depending on your environment, it may or may not mean anything if it works for me and not for you.  If its possible, I'd really encourage you to make sure you're using current or reasonably current version of CS and cal3d.  If you're using blender, you should be using a recent version of blender as well as the blender2cal3d_2.py script in the recent cal3d releases.

[Hilake]

Thanks for your answer!
but I think that you didn't understand what I say!
So briefly! Do you have a model that with a skirt? Do you model's skirt can move when it walk? Do it display well in the cs or cel?

[zaz]

No, sorry, I have no skirts on my models.