news:412d243a$1@news.povray.org...
> I'm not sure I have the required skills, but I'd like to write a program
in
> Java that can import a boned mesh in some format, move the bones around,
> deform the mesh according to the moved bones and then export the mesh as a
> mesh2 for example.
>
> Are there any widely used formats for boned meshes?

I'm really not sure that there's a format supporting boned meshes that isn't
highly proprietary and tied to a specific modeler. I could be wrong of
course. The Kaydara file format (which is supposed to allow easy exchange
between high-end 3D apps) is possibly the closest thing and it's
proprietary. This is not illogical: bones aren't just geometry, it's how
they interact with the geometry that makes the difference, and modeling
software have different ways to do that (the two I have sure work
differently).

I guess that defining formally the "rest" position of the bones isn't too
difficult, but the influence of the bones on their environment and on the
other bones (IK) seems tricky to conceptualise (heck, it's already difficult
to understand and memorise even going through tutorials with the manual in
hand...) and to store in the bone file in a formal way. The simplest way
seems to give each bone a mathematically-defined "radius of influence", but
that's rather artifact-prone. So a better solution is to link bones to lists
of (weighed) vertices. And after that, some bone-specific information is
still necessary to interpret those "basic" data and the final algo ties it
all together.

G.

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