Animation

R

Ravu al Hemio

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Nov 29, 2003
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Hello,

Can anybody help me with animating a mesh? The stupid DX9 SDK has kicked out the SkinnedMesh for VB and added none for C#.

Could you also tell me how I can specify to only play a specific range of frames (eg. 25 - 35)?

Thx.
 
So far ..

all the advice ive got has been to look at the dolphin sample, which i found too hard to follow,.. if anyone could help us out with a better sample or explain animating meshes to us that would be great....
 
You can manually interpolate meshes, www.directx4vb.com shows how to animate meshes simply, I haven't started using animated X files yet, so I can only recommend a net search, www.gamedev.net or www.flipcode.com may have something, albeit probably in unmanaged C++ which most likely won't help

There is a structure in Direct3DX called SkinMesh, it has a FromX function and has a property returning SkinInformation and a Mesh object, the SkinInformation can be altered to animate the mesh and then you call ConvertToBlendedMesh to get a mesh with specified animation applied apparently but I've never used it so can't be sure how it works.
 
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Directx4vb.com was helpfull

But its in dx8 with vb 6, i couldnt figure out how to get the verticie data from the meshs so i could manually interpolate. Thanks very much though hopefully i can do it with the skinned mesh
 
ANIMATION TYPES

There are 2 main types of animation shown in the SDK, TWEEN used in the Dolphin and BONE HIERARCY like in the tiny.x model.

The standard for serious animation is to use BONE animation ... If you've never creatred a model, it works like this.

you create a mesh shape.
Add a outer texture UVW Map of a bitmap for example to create the clothes, face, etc.
put a skeleton inside, that has a relationship to all the other bones, usually haing the hip as the main starting point.
Then you skin the model, which is a proccess to assign which VERTICES/FACES ( little triangle faces that move when the bones do ) are associated to what bones.

You move the bones around over a time line creating key fame points in animation.

The total animation is then merged and named. Multipul animations can also be added.

This information is saved in the text of the \DX90SDK\Samples\C++\Direct3D\MultiAnimation\tiny_4anim.x file in the SDK.

Try loading it into the mesh viewer and choose between animations.

Creating an Instance of tiny_4anim.x is no so easy.

There is an Animation Controller to change between animations, a frame controller for the animation, a mesh blending index controller and a bones object to address.
 
ok,.. dont really understand C++ all that well,

IM a vb programer,.. and ive been working on tweening cause it doesnt seem so hard, big deception, i still cant find a way to extract the verticies from the meshs.. ive tried copieing the dolphin example and it doesnt work for me!
 
To get the verticies out, use MeshObject.LockVertexBuffer, it returns a graphicstream which you'll have to parse manually into a vertex format, I'm not sure which format it is
 
Well Tweening is getting Closer

Ive finnaly figured out how to get the vertex's out of the mesh now i have to put the new ones back in,... Any advice? By the Way im creating an annimated mesh class once i figure this out so ill post it here thanks for all the help so far and yet too come.
 
Finnally

Finnally have working mesh,... Heres My Class, the .anm file contains the number of keyframes and the addresses of each mesh,.....
Visual Basic: 
Public Class AnimatedMesh
    Public cmesh() As CustomMesh
    Public tMesh As CustomMesh
    Public Key1 As Int16
    Public Key2 As Int16
    Public Dtime As Single
    Public Const tChange As Single = 0.05
    Public KOT As Int16
    Public KeyOrder() As Integer
    Public Structure vertexlist
        Public vertexs() As Vertex
    End Structure
    Dim vertexlists() As vertexlist
    Public Function LoadAnimatedMesh(ByVal anmFile As String, ByVal fFolder As String, ByVal device As Direct3D.Device, ByVal Texturefolder As String)
        Try
            Dim icount As Int16
            Dim icount2 As Int16
            Dim keys As Int16
            Dim stemp As String
            Dim Gs As GraphicsStream
            FileOpen(1, fFolder & anmFile, OpenMode.Input)
            Input(1, keys)
            ReDim cmesh(keys)
            ReDim vertexlists(keys)
            Do Until EOF(1)
                Input(1, stemp)
                cmesh(icount) = New CustomMesh
                vertexlists(icount) = New vertexlist
                cmesh(icount).LoadMesh(fFolder, stemp, DX9.D3DDevice, Texturefolder)
                icount += 1
            Loop
            FileClose(1)
            tMesh = cmesh(0)
            For icount = 0 To keys - 1
                ReDim vertexlists(icount).vertexs(cmesh(icount).xMesh.NumberVertices)
                Gs = cmesh(icount).xMesh.LockVertexBuffer(LockFlags.None)
                For icount2 = 0 To cmesh(icount).xMesh.NumberVertices - 1
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).p.X = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).p.Y = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).p.Z = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).n.X = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).n.Y = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).n.Z = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).tu = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                    vertexlists(icount).vertexs(icount2).tv = Gs.Read(GetType(Single))
                Next
                cmesh(icount).xMesh.UnlockVertexBuffer()
                Key2 = 1
            Next
        Catch ex As Exception
            Debug.WriteLine("Load Annimated Mesh:" & ex.ToString)
            ExitGame()
        End Try
    End Function
    Public Function DrawAnimatedMesh(ByVal automatic As Boolean, ByVal d3ddevice As Direct3D.Device)
        Dim icount As Int16
        Try
            If automatic Then
                Dtime += tChange
                If Dtime > 1 Then
                    Dtime = tChange
                    KOT += 1
                    If KOT >= KeyOrder.Length Then
                        KOT = 0
                    End If
                    Key1 = Key2
                    Key2 = KeyOrder(KOT)
                End If
            End If
            Dim gs As GraphicsStream
            gs = tMesh.xMesh.LockVertexBuffer(LockFlags.None)
            With vertexlists(Key2)
                For icount = 0 To vertexlists(0).vertexs.Length - 2
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).p.X, .vertexs(icount).p.X, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).p.Y, .vertexs(icount).p.Y, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).p.Z, .vertexs(icount).p.Z, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).n.X, .vertexs(icount).n.X, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).n.Y, .vertexs(icount).n.Y, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).n.Z, .vertexs(icount).n.Z, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).tu, .vertexs(icount).tu, Dtime)))
                    gs.Write((lerp(vertexlists(Key1).vertexs(icount).tv, .vertexs(icount).tv, Dtime)))
                Next
            End With
            tMesh.xMesh.UnlockVertexBuffer()
            tMesh.DrawMesh(DX9.D3DDevice)
        Catch ex As Exception
            Debug.WriteLine(Key1 & " " & Key2 & " " & Dtime & " " & icount & "/" & vertexlists(0).vertexs.Length - 1)
            Debug.WriteLine("Draw Animated Mesh:" & ex.ToString)
            ExitGame()
        End Try
    End Function
    Public Function lerp(ByVal n1 As Single, ByVal n2 As Single, ByVal time As Single) As Single
        Return ((n2 - n1) * time) + n1
    End Function
End Class
Thank you all for the Help you have given me i hope this code helps some of you,...
 
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