Program to open .anm files

[rea00cy]

Does anybody knows which program would be able to work with .anm files?

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

rea00cy

[Fader_Berg]

Do a search at http://fileext.com

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by rea00cy

Does anybody knows which program would be able to work with .anm files?...

S3D - Silent 3ditor

[Hitman]

anm in SH3 is an animation or sequence of movements. A 3D object is placed in different positions and they are captured by a program (Usually a 3D one like Studio Max, Blender, etc) who reduces those positions to a sequence of position values the computer can read. Then, each time you play the animation the computer moves the object to the different positions recorded in a sequence whose speed can be defined, resulting in an animation. That's how many things in the game work, from crew movements to torpedo doors opening/closing.

Silent Editor can show and link animations, I don't know if it can create new ones, probably yes.

If your looking to do animations like
Thunder and I did for the LifeBoats stuff.
Here's what you need to do.

You need a base model to start with.
We used a simple SH3 Guy like you see on the Docks.

That model was imported then animated by building a Biped Rig.
Useing standard animation techniques?
Thunder created the motions.
Then exported the seperate frames at a 10 frame or so setting.
(He could explain his exporting better as to timeing)
So We ended up with like 20 different objects of the Guy
in different positions.
We used a different importer then S3D.
(S3D did not do animation exports/imports at the time)

The animations were then done!

I have a base rig that I built and use.
I plan on releaseing it with a base 'Man'
once I get some time to finish a few adjustments on it.

It will also use Motion Capture files if you know how to use those.
There's Tons of motions you can download!
So you don't have to build movements from scratch!

I thank Thunder for getting me going on Rigging and animation
stuff.

[skwasjer]

Originally Posted by privateer

(S3D did not do animation exports/imports at the time)

Sure it did, just not your version

Roger that Mate!


We had to rough it for awhile back then.


But your importer/exporter works wonders and I highly recommend it.


But do you feel I told the process correctly?
That may be more important in this thread.

[Hans Witteman]

Hi gentlemen's,

Talking about animation integration there is no tutorial on this so far, if possible i would greatly appreciated if someone can just give me some general pointers to help me finish it.

The animation is done i only want to know how to attach an animated object to my sub that could trigger a sound file with keyboard command from the player?

And since i am a men of honor i will do a complete video tutorial on it to help everybody. My goal when i will have enough time will be to do some video tutorial for the main aspect of modding because many good thing come up from sharing knowledge and a lot of fellows unfortunately won't share anything even in the world of free!

Thank again for any kind of support i will not forget it trust me

Regards Hans

[skwasjer]

Of course privateer. I am no expert on creating animations in a 3D studio, I've only did one () myself. But there's several methods to make an animation, there's enough info around to find that out.

I think a fair FPS is around 10-15 (meaning 10-15 OBJ-files per second). It depends alot on the complexity of the animation. Mesh animations are 'tweened' (interpolated), so they are smoothened out by the GPU, so that's why simple animations may even suffice with only 4-5 frames and still look smooth. The biggest problem with mesh animations, it is somewhat a memory/GPU hog (compared to skeletal/keyframe), so one has to be conservative with triangles.

I have made a (simple) tutorial over a year ago:

http://sh4.skwas.net/media/S3D_Animation.wmv

It is only a simple explanation, it does not deal with how to connect it to a controller/SMC. They have to be set up somewhat different. But the initial import process is the same. If all you want is a static (but looping) animation, this is all there is to it...

Last note: very important (!), each frame must have the exact same number of vertices (and the same vertex/face order), otherwise import will yield strange results (like Tomi found out last year).

[rea00cy]

Thanks to you all, guys!

I'm still in my infancy regarding 3D animation but moving on! I greatly appreciate your references and comments!