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3 Dimensional Chat / Animation blues...

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RyokuMas
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Posted: 7th Aug 2005 22:53
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I've just started working with 3D - I'm putting together a few tests using DBPro and MilkShape, and I've run into trouble with the animation:

I've made a "blob-figure" out of basic primatives and animated it for 18 frames, the first being a standing still "resting" frame, the next 16 being the walk cycle (18's just a copy of the first walk frame so that the other frames can be generated) - it animates fine in MilkShape, but I'm having problems with the export.

It seems that the only formats I can export that DBPro will accept are .MD2 and .X - the other two possibilities just give some error message about a missing file when I try to export. However, when I try to run the animation (using "set object frame"), if I use .MD2 format, all colouring etc. is lost from the model, and if I use .X, none of the animation run properly - only one of the primatives moves, with everything else being left out of place.

Any ideas? Thanks.

"It's not the great who are strong - it's the strong who are great"
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Blazer
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Posted: 8th Aug 2005 05:22
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try importing the model into Character FX then exporting it as a .X. I had this problem and that fixed it.

I discriminate against discriminating people....
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RyokuMas
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Posted: 8th Aug 2005 12:09
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Got hold of CharacterFX 1.3 and gave it a try - no joy. Tried importing both from MilkShape ASCII and .3DS formats, and exporting to both versions available for DX - nothing appearing onscreen when I run my DBPro test program.

Have I missed out something?

"It's not the great who are strong - it's the strong who are great"
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moreVD
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Posted: 10th Aug 2005 22:07
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hello ryokumas

sorry to ask this one are you sure you dbpro test program works post your code someone might be able to help you out
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Blazer
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Posted: 10th Aug 2005 23:02
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heres the options I export my .x model in Chracter in try this (if I dont name it it's not cheacked and vice versa):

General:
Format: Direct X7 Retained
Output Templates
Geometry:
Absolute Texture Paths
Animation:
Loop anmination
Spline Positions
Spline Rotations

I discriminate against discriminating people....
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Mikada
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Posted: 11th Aug 2005 09:48
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Dont feel bad I cant get anything to export to Dark Basic. The animations work fine in other viewers but not in anything to do with Dark Basic, seems a lot of people are having this problem for something that is suppose to be an industry standard. You would think the guys that made the program would address the problem and post a fix or remedy, because there are way to many people having this happen in other forums that don't even know this forum exist, Ive been trying to find a solution now for at least a month.

Cohoon

Mike Cohoon
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moreVD
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Posted: 11th Aug 2005 19:26
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hello Mikada and RyokuMas

i am having the same problems as you guys i think it would be a good idea if some of the mods in this site would write a tut on how to do this with a list of program they use and what file types are been used instead of complaining about people like us asking the same questions again and again
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Mikada
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Posted: 13th Aug 2005 02:47
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I'm normally a light spoken guy and I don't like to complain. But Ive been watching for someone from the company to post about a fix to the problem. E-mailing them doesn't do any good, I am a 49 year old and not a kid thats just playing making programs who bought Dark Basic Classic a few years ago for my little company. I got sold a line of goods from a salesman in a CompUSA that it was the greatest thing invented since light bread. I read the box and I was impressed, enough to buy 8 box versions so my people could have a copy each and I bought support software that the guy recommended to use for graphics and images and stuff that would work with Dark Basic, thats another story, anyway I parted with several bucks that day and headed back to work happy my company was going to transition from 2D to 3D stuff with the top of the line stuff. I assigned 2 people to start major time learning how to read and write the code, they were in the forum here a lot 3Beth and MarinaDoba along with myself. I knew this process was going to involve considerable time before it started showing any returns, I assigned a year and a half to it. That time has now been passed by 6 months and were no closer to anything than the day we opened the box and started to learn to program in the db script. Why? Because the program doesn't do what it advertises itself to do. Its incomplete, and basically has no support from the company at all. This animation thing has finished it with me. Since the other day when I made the first post on this problem Ive taken my non working Dark Basic directX and 3ds animations which I was told by way I didn't know how to make proper animations, and put them in now 2 other compiler programs, they work beautifully, but they choke when I put them back in the DB program. The append command doesn't work in DBC the fps slows to almost nothing with little amounts of objects installed even if you hide them. The program still has a long way to go before it should of been put on the market. I really think the guys that are pocketing the money for the program need to start giving some serious support to these problems, instead of working on other things or leaving it to guys that bought the product to help in the forum (nothing against that but it aint your job its theirs) or they should drop the classic and replace everybodies classic with pro if its any better.

Its a suggestion, I've been told its my fault (you don't know how to code and we don't look at scripts)its not Dark Basics fault for the last time. I no longer use the program, the damage is finished here.

Michael Cohoon

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Sephnroth
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Posted: 13th Aug 2005 20:17
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I'm sorry to hear your story Mikada. I am not too familier with DBC as I havnt touched it for over a year and i'm quite surprised someone doing it profressionally (even on a small scale) used DBC over DBP. I doubt there will be updates to DBC as it was replaced by Darkbasic Profressional (I think?).

One point does remain though, there are lots of other people using the milkshape/darkbasic software combination and with little problems. I did once have an animation problem with milkshape to darkbasic pro but after following some posts on this forum I managed to fix it and have been happily using the two in unison since. It is also very strange that you are not getting support from the creators or even a reply to your emails. I, and others I have talked to, have had excellent response times from the dev team and many are even found posting on this forum. All i'm saying is I don't think your experiance here is the norm as it were and am sorry it came to this.

A heads up though, any indie language you use like db, blitz, etc is going to have its own set of bugs and problems. Even if you move it is possiable, even likely, that you will eventually encounter some issue at some point in development. If you truely wish to avoid it I would recommend c++ as a better investment to learn. It doesn't have the fastest records for dev times (although additional apis help, some free like allegro etc, others not like darksdk) but its the most powerful and flexiable and you KNOW it works and dont have to fear if the language is causing bugs you can't fix. If you truely have spent a year and half with darkbasic, then you could of certainly been well to grips with C in such a long time frame

Eitherway, good luck to you in the future. Hope it works out.

DarkSDK/WinAPI Tutorial
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RyokuMas
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Posted: 13th Aug 2005 22:08
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Sephnroth -

If you got the DB/Milkshape animation working, I'd be interested in knowing how you did it!!!

Also, from the sounds of it, it seems like DBPro has not resolved this problem, as that's what I'm using - and having no joy with the animation...

"It's not the great who are strong - it's the strong who are great"
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Mikada
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Posted: 14th Aug 2005 08:25
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Sephnroth and RyokuMas,

Thanks for the encouragement, I have c+ writers here, they hate do do anything with animations, you know I get so flustered sometimes I have to vent. I've spent so much time learning to write this code I hate to throw it away like you say, there are 3 people here that have 2 years each learning to write this bug infested script. The problem with Pro is I spent about 500 bucks on Classic and got it to the shop and almost instantly was told replace it with Pro. That hurts, Im stuborn I balked, I did try the demo and it didnt do anything any better than what we were aiming for classic to do, IE animations, scenes with a lot of characters and such, we were using it more or a movie tool, the animations are really critical, we needed a character to walk to a waypoint turn then sit in or on a chair, or get in a car, and then the car drive off or walk up to another person and go through the actions of carrying on a conversation. We wrote all the AI and Im talking about 100s of megs even into the gigs. We have gotten sorry support from the company there easy escape is to say they don't debug code or there not interested in looking at code. I never asked them to do it for free, but I should hope they would, if it wasn't to deep of a look. Ive never bought a product that claims it is or can do commercial stuff and not gotten some kind of phone support.

Anyway your right, Ive had a little change of heart since the other night. I didn't throw them in the trash like I was aiming to. Ive got one of the surviving boxes here with me and Im reading it very carefully. It actually says XOF and 3ds files supported. Thats the first line in the 3D Features section they do brag a lot about making 3D objects spring to life very easy. I know there lots of people having problems with what were having problems with. They should make a fix, if they don't know how they need to fess that up to and do a little open source code research and let someone try and get it fixed instead of hanging everybody with a defective product. Thats there honest and stand up way out and I'll even support them again if they do that. Them doing nothing is ripping people off and thats bad. I would really like to see the product working and the company take off and do good.

Ok, Im finished with that ramblings, Ive moved the db stuff to the back of the work load here, but I will have someone spending time trying to make a .X animation work. If I get one to work I'll post the process. But everybody should keep the designers of the programs feet to the fire to fix the problem.

sincerely,

Michael Cohoon

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Sephnroth
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Posted: 14th Aug 2005 18:45
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Hello, glad to see you still with us

I can attempt to try and help both of you get animations working, I don't know how successful I will be but it cant hurt

Ryo and Mika, if you have time start by grabbing one of these two models:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=55476&b=3
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=53144&b=3

They are both models I made. They arnt anything special, they are simple place holder models for my game to represent a player and a badguy, but they ARE both fully animated models and I know they work for me. If they don't work in your copies of db/dbp then something exceptionally odd is afoot, if they do I can start explaining my milkshape setup

I use milkshape 1.7.4 btw.

DarkSDK/WinAPI Tutorial
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Mikada
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Posted: 14th Aug 2005 20:02
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Sephnroth,

I downloaded your models and dropped them in the game. Static they were fine, your construction in milkshape is the same as mine too. I put in the loop command and they flew apart no working animation. Im running XP professional, ive upgraded the dark Basic classic to V1.13 its a 2400 mhz cpu 1 gig ram so im not hurting. I tried it on several slower machines here and same results. I dropped manakin-walk in T-r-ue and B-i-z and she worked just fine. Tim works with me hes in Indianapolis and he is getting the same problem. We are just at a loss.

sincerely,

Mike

Mike Cohoon
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Sephnroth
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Posted: 15th Aug 2005 02:22
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This is very curious. My work is primarilly with the DarkSDK these days, but I think I have an old copy of classic hanging around and certainly have pro.
I am going to perform a few experiments using whatever i can get my hands on, see if I can figure out something specific causing these problems. Will get back to you asap.

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Neodelito
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Posted: 29th Aug 2005 22:23
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i have the same oproblem.. milkshape dont export well .. but in characterfx works... (for old darkbasic)

"La Ignorancia es no saber lo que se debe"
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