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Hi all,

This is not a DBPro specific question, but I found no other forums for Character Shop, I thought I might ask here. I recently downloaded the demo for Character Shop, as I am looking for a quick solution to the humanoid body animation problem. As everyone here knows, character animation is one of the most troublesome areas of game programming, particularly for those of us who come strictly from a programming background (and not an artistic one). So I installed character shop and I decided to import one of my already made models in .x format. However, when I imported it, it looked very little, so little that it only seemed to have a few vertices. After trying to import a model in .3ds format as well, I looked for scaling tools, but found none. How, then would I go about importing my models on the right size, so I can fit them to the skeleton?

Character Shop is not a good piece of software. When I started I too was coming from a predominantly programming oriented background and I wanted an instant fix for character animation.

First of all, to even use Character Shop you'll have to have Milkshape (or a similarly capable modeling application) to scale it and position the limbs correctly. You'll have to restart CShop over and over, using trial and error to get the scale just right - if it's not perfect the model will look retarded when you animate it. Then it's just a matter of using CShop's clunky and incomplete interface to rig the model to the skeleton provided.

Here's the thing though - CShop exports models that are insane in size. Each animation might have hundreds of frames. A model with 10 animations might be 8 mb. My first model that I exported had something like 15 animations and was 13 mb. DBP REALLY didn't like that model. Model file size is extremely important in regard to performance. Polygons are just part of the equation. An animation that has 200 frames in CShop can be accomplished with 20 frames because DirectX automatically interpolates between frames. 20 frames looks just as smooth as 200!

Yet another problem with its exported files is that they are incompatible with game shadows. The skeleton is constructed in such a way that there are crazy shadow artifacts that fly around everywhere when the model animates.

It's also missing melee combat animations, which is a show stopper for many types of games.

I soon discovered that I can rig vertices to a skeleton in Milkshape just like I did in Character Shop, except that I could use any skeleton that I wanted. You can animate in Milkshape (but I use CharacterFX), you can create your own custom skeleton, you can add to an existing skeleton.

Have a look at Psionic's Site, he's got free and paid models that include an MS3D rig and the best tutorials on the subject. Visit Basil Studio for more, and Cubix Studio, and last but not least TrueBones for tons and tons of Milkshape compatible animations.

The greatest part about rigging and exporting from Milkshape is that the files are tiny. A file that would be 8mb in CShop will be 250k in Milkshape. Performance is infinitely better in game.

CShop isn't just disappointing software, it's unusable. It has so much potential, but it was never realized.

Hi Cash,

Thanks for your advice regarding Character Shop. By looking at its interface, I knew I might not be able to achieve much with it. I have tried many of these animation softwares, and most of them are the same way, an interface with just a few icons, exported files that are practically unusable and very poor documentation.

I have tried Milkshape and it did produce some nice results, but it was a trial version, and because I was looking for a "quick" fix to the problem, I didn't buy it. But I keep hearing about it everywhere (and it does have a lot of export formats). So I think I will give it another try. Thanks for steering me in the right direction.

Milkshape has been recommended to me by others on countless occasions, so I ordered it. Been toying with it for a while now.

This is a SHAME. CShop could've been a SLAMMING Contender! IF the interface had:

1: Import Model Size Scaling
2: Remove the Poly info that causes shadow artifacts
3: Allow Control of Animation "Frames" in Export
4: Skeleton "import" "Creation" and "Export"

You could use it for anything!

Glad I read this post boy! I almost bought that sucker!