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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / GameSpace and DBpro

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Alberto
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Joined: 24th Oct 2003
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Posted: 14th Nov 2003 20:28
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Hello

I want to purchase GameSpace but I have read that it can not export the skinned (Skeleton) animation in the .x file format.
It seems that GameSpace convert the bones based animation in a vertex animation , same as a .md2 file I mean, before exporting the .x file.
I so , I suppose that all the DBpro " Limb based " commands do not work.
Is anybody using GameSpace with DBpro?
Thnaks in advance

Alberto
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gbuilder
23
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: New Zealand
Posted: 14th Nov 2003 21:56
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Not sure about the animation files, but GameSpace has a fully functional (save works), 15 day trial, download available on their site.

gbuilder.

AMD900mhz, 256mb Ram, 64mb GForce2 MX400 Graphics card, Windows 98se.
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EddieRay
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Posted: 15th Nov 2003 09:38 Edited at: 15th Nov 2003 09:44
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gameSpace can export .X files that include animated bones + skins, or just animated meshes with no bones. There was a LOT of confusion on the gS forums about this - so you probably missed the "real scoop". gS *does* do the right thing, to the limit of what the .X format supports.

A major point of confusion was with people trying to convert things that didn't have bones to begin with (because they imported them from some other format that doesn't even support bones or whatever) and then tried to just export that out to .X format, expecting it to magiaclly have "bones" added. If you create a boned animation in gS and export it as .X format, it puts the right stuff in the .X file.

The main problem right now is that DBPro patch 5.1b can't load .X files that have bones + skins in them. They say the problem is already fixed, and that the new "X converter DLL" will be released in an update "soon". (Yeah... when is that?)

See my thread on the bug reports forum for a trivial example I did with gS to test a bones+skins .X file in DBPro (and had it fail).

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Alberto
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Joined: 24th Oct 2003
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Posted: 15th Nov 2003 14:35
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EddieRay

Thanks for your answer.
I am happy to learn that GameSpace can also export bones.
I agree that the .x file must be supported to its fully extent, otherwise it would not be fair of Caligari, stating ,in their Web site , that .x file can be exported , without any clear remarks.
I must say however that the confusion was mainly created by Caligari itself.
Reading Caligari's product manager answers in their forum, honestly I my self understood that skin and bones were not supported for export, even though I was never expecting that an .md2 animated file can be converted in an .x file skeleton animation.
please also check the Article on GameDev.net and relevant "hot" forum.
I came to the same conclusion.
Unless Game Space realeased a patch later on ( GameSpace 1.1 ???)
However I have downloaded GameSpace demo, thanks gbuilder I was not aware of it, and I will make some tests myself

Alberto
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Oryaaaaa
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Joined: 20th Mar 2003
Location: Aichi-ken, Japan
Posted: 15th Nov 2003 22:26
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Thank you. Although it is not gS, I have tS6.6. I bought gPak of sale next week.

Cheer EddieRay

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EddieRay
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Posted: 16th Nov 2003 06:07
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Thanks guys...

Yes, even the product manager was a bit confused about what the gS .X export could do. And there was a lot of people saying "Caligari sucks. Their .X export has always sucked. Why don't you guys just fix the .X exporter?"... but there were not many people actually trying it out for themselves. I contributed a few "false" statements myself (about gS not copying textures to the output directory along with the .X file), but eventually got a chance to try it out for myself, and reported that "all is well" with the .X exporter. There are only a few extra features (very minor) that I've asked for, and a somewhat annoying problem with gS hanging randomly during a .X export (this was fixed in gS 1.1), but overall, they really have done a great job with the .X exporter (especially considering how limited their .X exporter has been in products preceding gameSpace).

gameSpace itself is a pretty awesome program as well.

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EddieRay
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Posted: 16th Nov 2003 06:22
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Also, to clarify, .X format does not support saving "skeletal" data - i.e. IK linkages, area-of-influence parameters for bones, etc. It supports meshes and sets of pre-computed "skin weights". What this means is that basically, that the bones in a .X file (implemented as Frame sections) have pre-computed and fixed influence on the skin meshes. The bones objects from your modeller turn into DBPro LIMBs, and when you manipulate the LIMBs, the skin meshes are deformed according to the pre-computed weighting factors. (Note: .X files that include bone information won't load in DBPro patch 5.1b - see my bug report in the bug forum)

In contrast, some formats, like gS's native .COB format, support saving the actual skeleton, joints and bones and all associated parameters - which can be altered to produce different skin deformations, etc. .X format just doesn't have an data structure to hold this information.

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AlecM
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Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 17th Nov 2003 18:10
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In truth I think gamespace is just a justification to drop the price of TS. I mean TS used to be something around $750. A few hundered more and you could buy lightwave (which is infanitly better). I used ts for too many years and it was the bigget mistake... wasted so much learning time.

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