Animating files into .atm

[Dilli]

Hey

I can animate fine in .X but how do i get it into the .atm? Does the model convertor from the site work for animations?
Cya round ;-p

[Mit]

Hi Dilli
Atm, (sorry, pardon the pun :] ), the atm exporter won't read the animation data in .x files - you currently have to compile individual frames together to form the animation. (i.e. For a 15 frame animation you'd need to export 15 separate .x files and use the 'Build Animation' option on the converter to compile them together.)

Can be a bit of a tiresome task, i know.. it should be made a little less painful in the 0.4 converter which imports .3ds files - that'll be available soon. At some point in the distant future i'll get time to write the stuff to process the animation data directly, but don't expect that for a lil while..

[Dilli]

Will see if i can get it to work that way thanx. If i do ill try put them on the site
Cya round

[Fooli]

Tho it's a pain exporting all the separate frames, you get a lot more control that way, Dilli - at least, for animations that work with the whole linear blending thing (if you're trying to get stuff to rotate, like wheels, you'll need to wait for the next version of the converter). The converter lets you specify the length of time it takes to draw each keyframe, and blends between each frame, so often you can lose a lot of the frames you need to make it look smooth in Max (or whatever). A 16-frame walking animation, for instance, prolly only needs 4 frames in the converter to make it look smooth. Often the blending helps make it look more realistic. Tho sometimes it does produce weird effects

If you have any probs post em here, and mebbe i'll be able to help. I've spent more time than is healthy compiling animated shtuff for the game (a lot of which will hopefully be available soon).
Fooli

[Dilli]

I noticed the prob with rotatig things, manage to get around it abit by change the munber of frames and the ms value, dont know if that changes the time between frames or delay of each frame
I See mit saw my untextured models, dont have a descent unrapping prog at the moment so :-p, will get round to finding one 1day , till then im shore some1 will be bored enough to eventual texture them .
You must tell me what you thing of them
I see mit sort them out the model page
By till when eva

[Fooli]

It's the time it takes to draw each frame. Yeh, you can sort of get round the rotating thing with more keyframes, but it always squashes it a bit.

[Dilli]

Just uses the convertor ot animat as u would a vehicle, just dont set what makes it move i think and it`ll always move.
Good luck
Email me if u cant get it to work and ill write out what i did step for step
(pansy@hotmail.com)

[Dilli]

THe thingy above is to do with Fooli quest on animating buildings

[Fudrake]

Lemme formally ask here, for some help with the converter.
Please let me confirm these points. Correct me if i'm wrong.

1) .atm files rely on a seperate bitmap for texture
2) .atm files have the mapping information for the texture.
3) .atm files can only use 1 texture (bitmap).
4) .atm does not allow glued objects in a hierarchy (from a .x format), and will drop data if so.

If these things are all true, then

1) How do you map a single texture around the whole strange model?
2) what do you use?
3) How do you make the texture so that some faces refer to certain parts, and others refer to other parts?
4) Is this "mapping" (although mapping for every face may be different) information carried in .x, and then into .atm?

Say example, you need a electric keyboard to be modelled. the model is done. but you need the texture for it. How do you make the texture contain both black and white keys, and make that correspond onto the model, and then have all the rest of the buttons' textures also, and it correctly places the textures on? I've seen the complications of making the TRACTOR01.BMP, the four wheels are on one side, and the rest are unfolded into the rest of the part. how is this ever done, i cannot comprehend. HELP!

[Fooli]

1) correct
2) correct
3) correct
4) dunno wot u mean by "glued objects"

I think basically you're asking how to texture models. Yes, "mapping" (or "unwrapping") is the process of telling your 3d program where on the texture file each face will find its texture. The result is a whole bunch of "UVW" information that is preserved in an .x file and also the .atm format. There are lots of ways of doing this... and it's far too involved to explain here. Find some texturing/unwrapping tutorials. I've pointed to some in other posts on this board, I think. I believe some games allow you to use more than one texture for a model - at the moment, however, this one doesn't.
f

[Fudrake]

Hehe, me= competent modeller, less-thanbeginnerish-novice texturer.

I actually think putting things into one whole texture is quite good, since downloading individual textures for every part of the vehicle can be quite a nightmare. It will give the creator some flexibility, but surely, if the UV information is correct, it should be just as good. Thank you fooli, zaroba also directed me to look at guides.

Glued objects. They are, in TrueSpace 6.5, a collection of several objects put into a hierarchy, but once glued, are treated as one whole object. One can travel back down a hierarchy of glued objects and edit them seperately. However, this process is reverseable, unlike "union", where multiple parts are combined together face-wise, gluing is not a boolean tool. Gluing is helpful when people want to make IK joints, where multiple parts are not strictly attached, but have a certain range of movement away from another object. e.g.

Main object Car
Glued as Child to "Car" |
Glued as Siblings Wheels --- Frame --- Windscreen --- Doors
Glued as Child to "Wheels"| Glued as Child to "Doors" |
Glued as Siblings LF --- RF --- LR --- RR LF --- RF --- LR --- RR --- Backhatch

[Fooli]

Ah, oki, gotcha. Well, ultimately mit's aim is to have .atm as an export option for Max (and ideally other 3d programs too) via a plugin or wotever. Then the game would simply interpret bones and stuff directly. But that's way, way way into the future. Like 2006 or something :)

The way the converter works is slightly different at the moment. To make animations it simply blends between one frame and the next; so to create a little guy walking, for example, you'd have one frame with R leg forward, L leg back; one frame with the legs in the central position; another with L leg forward, R leg back... and so on. It simply blends between the frames to create the walking animation. So whether or not an object is part of a coherent mesh or is just a separate shape positioned correctly on the model is kinda irrelevant - the converter just sees the whole kaboodle and blends between frames.

Except (!) for wheels and propellors and turrets. These actually are separate models that you attach to your main model using the converter. They still use the same texture but the game positions and rotates them in code, rather than blending using the model format (my nomenclature is probably wrong, but hopefully u see wot i mean).

I'd never use IK to do something as simple as a wheel anyway... it's just a rotational transform, after all. But I use Max, and have no idea how TrueSpace works. As always, I say if it works, do it!

f

[Fudrake]

Ya, I always thought that the convertor thing was a little cool piece of software, little spiffy turrets, little spiffy wheels/propellers...... Luckily, my newest untextured 53KB Harrier GR7 model doesn't quite need propellers nor spinning wheels (well, so little, might as well miss it out ) and that saves a bit of time.

I must appreciate the newest .3DS format compatibility, .x files i've hated since the day I found out it cannot carry polygon manipulation animations. When exported and imported, it also (that means, VERY OFTEN) misses out several faces and makes it look strange.
(Probably the worst false judgement on Earth, but that's the idea I get from them They're not all that bad, but eeeeerrm, not too convenient )

ATM rulez. a round of applause to ATM!!! (wo ho.)

[Fooli]

Aye, it's a nice lil format (not that I know a great deal about these things). Mit's a clever lil' chimp, and no mistake :)

X files can carry animations. But the converter can't read em. Nor can it read animations in .3ds files, as far as I know.

If you're having trouble with missing faces and that it's almost certainly because you need to collapse and/or reset transforms on your model (or whatever the truespace equivalents are). Sounds like a problem with whatever you're using to export to .x. They work fine for me. In fact, they're better than .3ds, cos they preserve smoothing groups while .3ds doesn't seem to. Altho, again, it's all to do with the various combination of software involved in the export process, I think. I found a way that works with Max and Panda Exporter and Deep Exploration, and I'm feckin sticking to it :)

f