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3 Dimensional Chat / Why are animation tools so behind programming and modeling?

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Greenster
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Joined: 3rd Feb 2005
Location: US ©
Posted: 15th Oct 2011 10:12 Edited at: 15th Oct 2011 10:16
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Is it me or do what little animation tools for supported formats exist look like they did 20 years ago? While you have super powerful and managed programming and modeling tools? Is this not a problem, especially for indy devs?

EDIT: It also seems nobody is working on this, as far as I know tools like Poser don't support rigging game model formats..I won't even mention affordable mocap..just being able to frame up animations and rig them to common indy model formats would have a major impact on quality and production in the independent and commercial realms..IMO
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Quik
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2008
Location: Equestria!
Posted: 15th Oct 2011 12:50
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I know some indie companies usually make up their own solutions, like using camera recordings for animations etc such things.

Really if you want to make animation UP TO DATE, then iam fairly sure that you should use say kinect and such things to record your animations


The result of origin.. Oh and ponies
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Chris Tate
DBPro Master
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Location: London, England
Posted: 15th Oct 2011 13:34
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I am finding delight animating characters and scenes in single .x files exported from Blender 2.5. Once you learn how to use it, you never use anything else.

What’s your best game moment?
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Greenster
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Posted: 15th Oct 2011 15:11
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Last time I used blender it took 2x the clicks to do a medial task apposed to other tools such as AC3D, Maya, Wings, TrueSpace, Zbrush etc..

I'm not a big fan of tools that have drastically redundant and over-tooled UIs, blender has it just on the main window alone. It just doesn't make sense if you're trying to be productive. Also most of their exporters and plugins are abandonware, especially for quake formats. I'm sure their devs won't confess to that though even though updates and bug persistence speak for themselves..

Two cool tools I used for some MMOs are Qavimator and avimator, they were done by independent devs and export BHV, there is a huge untapped market for a rigger/animator with that simplicity, so it makes you wonder why no vendors are trying at it..Sales would easily surpass those of these game engines being put out inside a month..
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Chris Tate
DBPro Master
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Posted: 15th Oct 2011 23:05 Edited at: 15th Oct 2011 23:07
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I hated Blender's UI before learning it; particularly 2.4. But 2.5 has a more tidy layout; by default.

The thing about Blender is that you have to lay things out yourself. The UI is 100% customizable. I have a layout for building characters, maps and special effects.

You have to weight what it does quickly against what is difficult. IE: Some aspects of navigation can be tedius; and others are more easier than in other programs.

Being free, the price you do pay is having to learn it and configure it.

What’s your best game moment?
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