UDK vs CryEngine 3 SDK - Exporting animated meshes

We've seen how to make and export static meshes, now it's time to look at meshes you can play animations on. As in the previous article, I'll investigate how the pipeline expects the data to be set up, then take a look at how you export that data, and what happens in the process.

Note that I'm focussing on non-character objects (i.e. humanoïds, animals, etc) because, well, characters aren't the only ones that need animations, and because it is slightly easier for me to generate data for them. I will cover characters though. Someday.

Why should I care?

Pretty much the same as usual, to see how restrictive or flexible the pipeline is, what's done in the editor, what's done in the modelling package.

Animation Chronicles - Episode 7: First animation, playblast and graph editor

I am now all set to animate my helicopter. I'll need a bunch of animations to make my tests and I'll start with a simple one : a looping animation of the rotors turning. This will be the opportunity to talk about a few of Maya's animation related features: referencing, playblasts, and the graph editor.

Animation Chronicles - Episode 6: Rigid skinning

Preparing a new article for the UDK vs CryEngine 3 SDK series, I had to rig a non-organic object (read: not a character) in order to test the animated object pipeline with something simple. It also gave me the opportunity to make a skeleton from scratch and learn about skinning (or binding, in Maya language), which is the topic of this article.

For a number of reasons that don't need explaining, I chose to rig a vehicle, an helicopter to be precise. I took the Black Hawk from the CryEngine 3's sample assets. However, it wasn't rigged, so I had to it myself as I wanted to try and export this model into UDK. Good exercise.

Animation chronicles - Episode 5: Character sets and poses

I'm about to create the control rig for my character's arms. Like the legs, it's going to be based off IK solving, though it's going to be a bit more complex. Unless you're making a dancing game or a fighting game, your characters are unlikely to have as complex movement in the legs as in the arms, especially when it comes to twisting. I'm going to need to test my shoulder controllers with the arm straight (as in bind pose) and with the elbow bent. And I'll probably want to go back an forth between those, which is I'll create a character set.

Animation Chronicles - Episode 4: Attribute locking and transform limits

I haven't progressed much since last time as I was too busy playing Forza 4. So far, I've got:

• A controller for each foot
• A controller for the hips
• A "world" controller for the entire character

Now I'll add controllers for the upper body and the head, which will give me the opportunity to talk about attribute locking and transform limits.

Animation Chronicles - Episode 3: starting over to "Evolve"

A grim sounding title, but there's actually good news in that article.

In a normal pipeline, you would model your character, then rig it and skin it. As I was using the UDN's skeleton, which is in a relaxed pose, I assumed I had to put that skeleton in a T-pose before being able to model something around it. This is why I started to rig the skeleton first. But today, I've made a discovery that would save me the trouble of modelling a character.

Animation Chronicles - Episode 2: Animation Controllers

I've created IK handles for my skeleton's feet, which allows me to quite easily pose them (e.g. in order to place the skeleton in a sitting position, I just have to translate the hip joint). Thing is, IK handles are a bit small and are hard to reach when the the skeleton is skinned. For this reason, I'm going to create controllers. We'll also see that it has other advantages.

Animation chronicles - Episode 1: Joints and IK handles

DISCLAIMER: I am not an animator, This series of articles represent what I understood from my experiments and may contain mistakes.

When making my custom rig, I intend to work from the feet to the hands. Since the feet are closer to the root in the hierarchy, that should make things easier. But before actually starting on making the rig, let's quickly to talk about bones in order to understand why I need to do what I'm about to do.

Animation chronicles: Prologue

Character animation is one the aspects of game development in which I have little to no practical skills. I know how it works, but I don't really know how to do it. I've decided to change that.