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On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:04:20 +0200, "Gilles Tran" <tra### [at] inapg inrafr>
wrote:
>You're right in saying that character animation is a weakness of POV-Ray,
>but I fail to see how a POV-Ray-only solution could be useful from a
>practical point of view (I mean for creating full animations, not just tests
>to prove a point).
I'd like to see some sort of boning features available for the meshes
I use with POV, and I don't even do animations. I'd like the ability
to accurately deform 3rd party meshes for still images.
Of course I *could* buy Poser, Rhino, or any one of several other
commercial 3D packages, but POV-Ray is free. It would be terrific if
there were some sort of practical way to accurately deform meshes
(boning comes to mind in particular), without spending a lot of money
on some external modeler.
Later,
Glen
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"Rune" <run### [at] mobilixnetdk> wrote in message
news:3bb719c3@news.povray.org...
> "ingo" wrote:
> > Yes, they can be assigned to several vertices, but they
> > don't have to be! Nothing stops you from writing a mesh
> > that specifies a normal per vertex
>
> Ok, but that's rather inefficient.
>
> I think there's plenty of good reasons to implement the feature I've
> proposed.
>
> Is there anybody besides me who thinks it would be a good idea?
>
I think it's a good idea, considering there are so few Pov animation entries on
IRTC. It might just help to get more animations on there.
- Nekar
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On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 15:06:59 +0200, "Rune"
<run### [at] mobilixnetdk> wrote:
>I think there's plenty of good reasons to implement the feature I've
>proposed.
>
>Is there anybody besides me who thinks it would be a good idea?
I don't know the technical details of the best way to implement boning
in meshes, but I would definitely like to be able to use meshes with
bones in my renderings. I'd love to be able to deform and tweak
meshes, instead of using them as static objects, as I do now.
Later,
Glen
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Glen Berry wrote:
>
> I'd like to see some sort of boning features available for the meshes
> I use with POV, and I don't even do animations. I'd like the ability
> to accurately deform 3rd party meshes for still images.
>
> Of course I *could* buy Poser, Rhino, or any one of several other
> commercial 3D packages, but POV-Ray is free. It would be terrific if
> there were some sort of practical way to accurately deform meshes
> (boning comes to mind in particular), without spending a lot of money
> on some external modeler.
>
Just like to point out that deforming meshes (meaning translating the
vertices in a certain defined way) is really not much problem in current
pov/megapov. Just define a vector field in a user defined function or
pigment and use it to translate the vertices. It will work like displace
warps for patterns.
I haven't used any character modelling packages at all therefore i can't
say much about 'boning' and the things required for that, but looking at
Rune's first proposal i think implementing a transform weighting method
would really be the first step (either in SDL or as a patch) Having this
function limited to meshes would be a major restriction (just imagine
blobs could be nicely 'boned' too)
Christoph
--
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/
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Rune <run### [at] mobilixnetdk>
> How was this done? One mesh per frame? How long was the animation? And how
> much disc space did it take?
The horse movement was created in Poser. It's cyclical and uses 24 frames.
Each mesh was exported and converted (using the batch procedure of 3DWin).
There was 50 Mb of meshes. The POV procedure loads each mesh and puts it
where it should be. I never finished it for time reasons and the best I did
was a 400 frame animation of the whole herd which is far from perfect. I
plan to redo it with a mocap file anyway.
> Would it have been possible to make the horses run over a height field and
> other such demanding interactions with the surroundings?
Running on a height field can be possible using the trace function. Other
interactions could be simulated within Poser using dummy props and then
exported.
> And yes, I *do* believe quality character animation can be done writing
> numbers in a text editor. With the proper macros of course.
My own *** limited *** experience with animation indicates that it's already
very difficult to do with a GUI, as you need precise visual references to
adjust the speed and movements, and for the most complicated stuff a mo-cap
file becomes necessary. A Povray-only boning system could certainly be
implemented and fun to use but only for a limited number of users in a
limited number of situations (movements that can be described
algorithmically). For starters, I suggest that you try animating a
walking/running dog-like quadruped (not a biped !) using simple cylinders to
see what I mean. And make it a system flexible enough to be adaptable and
usable by other people...
Now, if Povray was able to communicate smoothly with apps providing this
sort of service, that would open very different perspectives.
G.
--
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
Graphic experiments
Pov-ray gallery
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"Nekar Xenos" wrote:
> I think it's a good idea, considering there are so few
> Pov animation entries on IRTC. It might just help to get
> more animations on there.
Exactly, that was one of my considerations too.
Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
Rune's World: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated June 26)
POV-Ray Users: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk/povrayusers/
POV-Ray Webring: http://webring.povray.co.uk
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"Christoph Hormann" wrote:
> Just like to point out that deforming meshes
> (meaning translating the vertices in a certain
> defined way) is really not much problem in current
> pov/megapov. Just define a vector field in a user
> defined function or pigment and use it to translate
> the vertices. It will work like displace warps for
> patterns.
While that kind of mesh deformation can be use for very simple deformations,
it definitely can't be used for things like character animation. I'd like to
see you define a pigment or function that deforms a character mesh so that
the right arm bends in this way, the left arm in this, the legs in that way,
and the head looks to the right!
Besides, it doesn't work for smooth meshes.
> just imagine blobs could be nicely 'boned' too
No they couldn't. But bezier pathes could perhaps.
Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
Rune's World: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated June 26)
POV-Ray Users: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk/povrayusers/
POV-Ray Webring: http://webring.povray.co.uk
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"Gilles Tran" wrote:
> The horse movement was created in Poser. It's cyclical and
> uses 24 frames. There was 50 Mb of meshes.
50 MB for just one second of animation seems like a pretty inefficient
solution to me!
> Running on a height field can be possible using the trace function.
Well, didn't mean a smooth flat height field but one with a rather bumpy
ground so each foot have to adapt to the ground...
> Other interactions could be simulated within Poser using
> dummy props and then exported.
Again, I think this works only in a limited extent...
> My own *** limited *** experience with animation indicates
> that it's already very difficult to do with a GUI, as you
> need precise visual references to adjust the speed and
> movements, and for the most complicated stuff a mo-cap
> file becomes necessary. A Povray-only boning system could
> certainly be implemented and fun to use but only for a
> limited number of users
Well, users could choose to animate the bones in a different program and
then export the animation of the bones to an include file. The mesh
deformation in POV-Ray would then be controlled by the bones in that include
file. The advantage here is that it would only require about 10 to 50 lines
of code per character per frame, much much less than exporting a whole mesh
per frame.
I'm sure the proper converter programs would pop up over time.
> in a limited number of situations (movements that can be
> described algorithmically).
Splines are available in POV-Ray.
> For starters, I suggest that you try animating a walking/running
> dog-like quadruped (not a biped !) using simple cylinders to see
> what I mean. And make it a system flexible enough to be adaptable
> and usable by other people...
I've already made a walk and a running cycle for a biped, but not yet for a
quadruped. To make it usable by other people is something I'm working hard
on.
Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
Rune's World: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated June 26)
POV-Ray Users: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk/povrayusers/
POV-Ray Webring: http://webring.povray.co.uk
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Rune wrote:
>
> Besides, it doesn't work for smooth meshes.
>
No problem with some extra calculations.
There are many cases BTW, where a field based deformation is much more
convenient than something based on transforms.
> > just imagine blobs could be nicely 'boned' too
>
> No they couldn't. But bezier pathes could perhaps.
>
What's so different about blobs (the blob component coordinates can be
compared to the mesh vertices)
Christoph
--
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/
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> 50 MB for just one second of animation seems like a pretty inefficient
> solution to me!
Absolutely. But nice enough in the present case (and I hope impressive if I
manage to finish it one day).
> I've already made a walk and a running cycle for a biped, but not yet for
a
> quadruped. To make it usable by other people is something I'm working hard
> on.
My point exactly. What I'm suggesting is that this sort of large-scale
proposal would be much more convincing and "saleable" to other people if
you'd do first some sort of feasability study of what you propose and
demonstrate it on a smaller scale. After all, there's an infinity of
features that one would like to find into POV-Ray and I could post one of
them every day, with every detail of how I would like to see them
implemented.
So, making a working, usable include file of a generic (bones only)
quadruped (not biped) walking/running animation would be a first step in
that direction. It will show you the various problems involved, and, if
successful and appreciated by other Povers (not just the "wow cool!"
reaction, I mean something actually used like Chris Colefax' macros are),
will constitute a basis for a larger project that would get developers
interested.
G.
--
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
Graphic experiments
Pov-ray gallery
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