37 replies to this topic

[Pandaboy]

I haven't worked with game maker in quite a while now (more than a year), and I've heard the new version, 8.1, have a great boost in 3D performance. I love creating low poly models, but I hate the fact that I have to make each limb into a seperate model for animation.. animating that way takes a whole lot of time, and creating a big project isn't really worth it, especially if you're gonna have a bunch of 3D cutscenes :v.

so I'm wondering...

• Is there a way to manipulate vertices using "bones" in game maker these days?
• If not, is there an extension or dll that can do it, and which doesn't "take over" GM too much (like GMOgre does...)?

I know that Ultimate 3D can do bone animations.. but.. isn't it a bit outdated by now...? is it worth learning and using?

or.. a better question would be: what animation technique do you recommend for a 3D game with lots and lots of animations?

Edited by Pandaboy, 12 March 2012 - 10:38 PM.

[chaz13]

What's wrong with writing your own bones animation system?

[Pandaboy]

What's wrong with writing your own bones animation system?

I have made a "simple" animation system which animates different "sub-models" of the character (the most common way I've seen people animate bones with game maker).
what's wrong with it is that making an animation in a modelling software like Autodesk Maya and importing it into a game gives a much nicer result since you can have 1 single mesh with eg. 25 bones, while in game maker you have 1 mesh PER bone.. so the creation process (animate/export/import) of each animation is also a lot faster with a 3d software. when making a cinematic-based game with lots of animations it can save hours (even days) of extra work. This is the main reason I haven't used gamemaker for such a long time. Used unity3D for a while.. but.. My heart belongs to GameMaker .


Edit: well.. It may not be totally impossible to create a bone system for GM that tweaks vertices.. but it's far beyond my knowledge to create such a system/extension.
Edit2: I know i should probably learn c++ for stuff like this instead of using game maker, but I'm really too lazy D;

Edited by Pandaboy, 13 March 2012 - 01:37 AM.

[The Scorpion]

I think bone animation is hard to make in gm! cause you'll have to use primitives at each frame (which is pretty heavy and slowly in GM) you'll have to use pre defined animations and insert them as models for each frame!
You see this is the only fast method for animations!


There are 2 scripts out now for .md3 and .md2 files + .G3D file importer! (see my signature)
Look for them in this forum! Of course this will let you use 3D max / blender/ maya animations into GM.
Hope I helped!

I don't want to discourage you! go for it and give it a try! as much as I know GM 3d, these are the best methods!

[Pandaboy]

thank you for the reply ^^.
I've tried that method before, but it's not what I'm after at the moment, because.. while the method of having one model per frame works really good when you have few animations, it really, really enlarges the file size and slows the import if you have lots of cinematic animations which can have 250+ frames for only 10 second long cutscenes.

I guess I'll try either GMogre3D or Ultimate3D, even though I'm only after the bone/skin weight system .

any recommendation which one of those two is preferred?
It doesn't really concern me which one of those has the better graphics, I only care about performance speed, ease of use, and that it doesn't give problems or bugs later on

Edited by Pandaboy, 13 March 2012 - 02:28 PM.

[kibblesbob]

GMOgre is way more up to date, although more complex than Ulimate3D, it also has many more features and tools than U3D. I recommend learning and using the GMOgre dll/extension PS: It is much faster!

Edited by kibblesbob, 13 March 2012 - 02:53 PM.

[Pandaboy]

GMOgre is way more up to date, although more complex than Ulimate3D, it also has many more features and tools than U3D. I recommend learning and using the GMOgre dll/extension PS: It is much faster!

Last time I used it though (over a year ago).. I couldn't even figure out how GMOgre's file system worked.. Managed to convert and import a .mesh file, but I gave up when I couldn't figure out how to give it a custom texture.. I'm guessing other people have also tried it and given up, since, GMOgre have been around a long time, but I haven't seen a single game using it, even though people say it's the best to use. I saw a GMOgre "game" on youtube, with a robot kicking around some boxes, but that's about it... GMOgre seems like the better choice though, regarding speed, functions and graphics... Are there any tutorials here on gmc regarding the file system, or a "get started" tutorial? I tried finding the official GMOgre forums, but it seems to have shut down :c.

Edited by Pandaboy, 16 March 2012 - 06:38 PM.

[luiz_eldorado]

Hello, I do not know if I'm reviving this topic (I am newbie), but I know a program that can make animations bones. But it is in Brazilian Portuguese, you will need to use the Google translator, as I'm using to write this now ^^
Here's the link to the topic:
gmbr.forumeiros.com/t19718-

Until soon!

[EGF]

I've created a bone structure animation program in GML for this exact purpose. Im releasing the first beta version of it this friday

this is the video with information about it
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=a33FAJwUnW0

[YellowAfterlife]

More of revival to this dead topic, bone animations are easy to handle via d3d transformations.
I wrote a tutorial on these a long while ago.
Less recently I made a editor with keyframe support, using the same principle. That isn't publically released yet, though.

[bcarroll]

EGF,
Can your animation program output the animation as gml code?

[orange451]

Or you could animate using MD2 models, which are easy to load into gamemaker

[EGF]

EGF animator currently doesnt give you code, but the next version of the program will give you code. Im hoping to make a GM extention to make it even easier for people

[NicholasJB]

I believe I know of a way. I'm going to be making a 3D modeling program here soon, hopefully. I would like to get other on board, I will invite you to my design document (Google docs) if anyone is interested in joining and has the skills.

[EGF]

i released EGF animator today as its first beta version
EGF Animator

[hardcoreguy]

Quick question what is ultimate 3d

[Pandaboy]

Quick question what is ultimate 3d

quick answer

[cadekaito]

have you learned anything about 3d physics? i dont know anything about it myself, but it could be very helpful to making it look natural. but this idea requires almost 100% gm knowledge... so i dont know. it might be worth a try if you know it.

[Keypress]

The developers of GM don't have the time or the skill to implement this.

[Syynth]

The developers of GM don't have the time or the skill to implement this.

Really? Have you seen* what they're doing with Game Maker? I feel like that's a pretty uncalled for statement. I agree they might not have the time, but Russel, Mike, and the rest of the team are pretty good at what they do.

*edit

Edited by Syynth, 23 July 2012 - 01:21 PM.