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DS development > Animating the character

#46511 - G-Pjube - Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:57 pm

Well, this is another question of mine, when i'm done modelling etc. the character, i need too start animating it. But how for god sake am i going to do that? I'm using LightWave to create and texture the models, but when that's done they need animation O.o

Do i need to do this in LightWave? Or is it code related? Or do i need to do it in another program? That's my main question for now, since i tryed to look for it, but never couldn't find what i was looking for. So as a last option i'll do it here.

And this is my question from another thread, still needs to be answered too:

"When my model is finished (i use lightwave) too what kind of format i should export the model? And what about the texture's attached to a model? Do they need to be converted to?"

Thank you :)
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#46513 - TheChuckster - Sun Jun 26, 2005 2:17 pm

Looks like you need to write both your own model format saving script for Lightwave and parser for the DS. Keyframe animation would be good to start with because the only math involved is linear interpolation. Skeletal on the other hand requires extensive use of quaternions and spherical linear interpolation.

#46541 - mike260 - Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:57 am

I'm afraid you have a large list of things to deal with:

1) Find out about the NDS display-list format
2) Find out about how skinning works on the NDS
3) Code either a Lightwave exporter, or an LWO converter to NDS display-lists
4) Find out about skeletal animation
5) Write an animation exporter or converter
6) Write an animation system

You can find out about 1-3 from ndslib and the forum archives, and 4-6 from the internet. I don't want to discourage you, but be prepared for a lot of work.