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Noob question about animation files in general.

Development Discussion Animation
#1

I’m going through some tutorials right now about hooking up animations with State Machines.

In the tutorials, he has access to a bunch of different animation .fbx files. For example, jump start, jump end, jump in air… etc.

So, my question is; when I’m creating animation files, do I export out my Mesh with the Skeleton (bones) first?

Then, do I make a bunch of separate animation files after that and just export the Skeleton (bones) out??

(Like I’d have 3 separate 3ds Max files, jump start, jump end, jump in air)

#2

I do this in Blender …but I guess it’s similar in Max as well. Usually I export the skeleton-mesh in the rest-pose without any animations and afterwards only the animations without the mesh.

#3

Thanks for the reply. Good to know. :slight_smile:

I also got one more noob question; do you parent your collision meshes to your bones, similar to how you parent the regular geometry to bones?

#4

Usually I don’t use meshes from my 3D app for skeletal-mesh-collision but start with the physical asset that could be created automatically at import. It’s not 100% perfect but that sphyl or sphere collisions should be faster than accurat but expensive poly collisons. Regarding collision itself I just modify the sphyls a bit (there are a lot of them) and probably replace a few with some other basic shapes or some convex but the most of the time goes into tinkering with the constraints (same window)… so your bones are not allowed to rotate in any possible direction in ragdoll but are locked to an angle and get a bit of resistance so it still looks natural if you pull out the player-controller and let physics cause some ragdoll.

#5

Sorry, I think I’m understanding what you mean. I’ve only ever imported just standard static meshes, like a prop. Always made custom collision in 3DSMax… Never worked with animation.

So, it’s generally better to use the physical assets for collision as opposed to making them in 3DS Max? (for animated stuff)

#6

If you can get away with a capsule or box in the Unreal Engine, those will be more efficient than whatever other geometry you can import (and which will likely be turned into a convex form of some sort.)

#7

Thanks for the tips. :smiley:

I’m seeing what you guys are saying.

What about something like a hardsurface vehicle, a Tank for example. If the top of the tank’s turret is moving left to right, the physics assets won’t track; right? For instance, if my character jumped up onto the tank, would the turret just clip through my character??

How would one get around a problem like that??

#8

Doh, I think I got it. Just add another physical asset to the bone… should track. :o Sorry, I’m new to the animation dept.