@Ex ShinRa
If you are willing to put a bit of work into translating one type of anim8tor's output file into directx, it is possible to get your meshes and animations out of anim8tor and into DBC - again, this is a bit of work. I started doing it once, then just decided to write an export script for Blender instead, because I was more used to Blender. Blender is also free and a very good 3d editor. If you want to try Blender and the export script I wrote specifically for DBC, here's a link. I haven't updated the website in months, and I've learned so much more since I put it up, but the script still works quite well:
Blender to DBC
Here's a small explanation of what I was talking about for anim8tor if you're interested. This is a discription of the method, but not the translation of the anim8tor file.
The type of animation that DBC uses is called articulated structure animation. It differs from bone meshing or skeletal animation in that you pivot and move separate whole meshes (shapes basically) in a hierarchical frame work based on parent-child relationships. So what does this mean in relation to anim8tor?
First thing for this to work is, you want to avoid creating skeletons in anim8tor. You can still do this, but this animation won't work in DBC even if you exported it to directx so basically it would be a waste of time. Instead, you just want to create a separate object for each arm, leg, head, whatever and position them however they should function together. That brings us to scenes.
Next, you want to go to scene mode and create a scene. This is the place where you will build your character and place all of the limbs. You will add one object at a time until you are ready. You can move objects all over the place and record their positions at key frames. The scene generation is actually an example of articulated structure animation.
After you've animated your character (as a scene), you'll want to export the scene as a
.an8 file. Inside the file, you will see the object and animation data that applies to your character(s). From this point you would need to have some knowledge of at least directx 7 to translate the file. But here would be the steps:
1. Locate the material and any textures and assign them to a Material template
2. Get the mesh data for each object(limb) and assign it the proper material template then assign the mesh itself to a Frame template
3. Collect any face, normal, and UV data and assign them to the proper mesh inside each Frame template
4. Find the animation data (Scene Data) and assign it an Animation Key template
5. Assign each Frame to the proper animation keys
This sounds bigger than it is. The information is in the an8 file, and it's very close to the directx format. Syntatically it's a bit different and if you use primatives like a sphere for example, anim8tor uses a formula to render the sphere, so you'd only see it's center and radius in the an8 file, not the individual vertices.
If you really wanted to use anim8tor with DBC, it would be a great learning opportunity to write your own export file, and there would probably be a lot of others that would benefit from it. I may pick up the project again some day...
Enjoy your day.
