Hey guys!

Up till now, modelling and animating a character (e.g. a human being) in
POV-Ray is often a project-specific task. That means: You can do animated
characters (e.g. Rune's Alien), but the code for controlling the movement
always depends heavily on the model. Often, model and movement code can't be
seperated at all.
This makes it hard to reuse both the motion code and the model itself.

Therefore I thought about the following approach: Would it be possible to
split up the task into:
1. Modelling
2. Movement-Calculations

To make this possible, we would need something like a "Unified Motion
Protocol" (UMP), describing the interface between a model and the movement
code. My dream is as follows:

Every model that is built upon the rules of the UMP can be used with every
motion built upon the UMP.

A little example:
You have modelled a nice character for your upcoming animation. Normaly, you
now had to develop motion code for all the movements your character is
supposed to do, even if it's something that has often been done before
(walking for example). That sucks.
But if you had used UMP, you could just search for a suitable motion file
and just by including this file, your character could learn to play
basketball, dance, hold a speech...

A POV-file could propably look like this:

<code>
#include "santaclaus.inc" //a santa claus model
#include "hulk.inc" //hulk model
#include "walking.inc" //walking motions
#include "ump.inc" //ump system

//...
UMP_ResetModel
Walking_Run(/*lots of nice parameters go here*/)
SantaClause_ShowModel
UMP_ResetModel
Walking_Sneak(/*parameters...*/)
Hulk_ShowModel
//...
</code>

This would result in a running Santa Claus and a sneaking Hulk - and all
elements (Hulk, Santa Claus, Motions) could be developped individually by
different persons - the UMP would make sure that they all interact properly!

It is the same as searching for textures for your object - why do everything
from scratch if somebody has done it already?

My problem right now is: I am not experienced in character animation with
POV-Ray. So maybe everything i said right now is totally impossible and
therefore complete bullshit.

I'd really like to hear what more experienced povers think about this idea.
Fantastic? Impossible? Not worth the effort? Just tell me what you think
about it!

Thanks,
Florian

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