Reuse animation files

Troubleshooting import-assets
1

What is the best way to reuse animation files ?

I was thinking to export one character, and reuse the AnimControl object (clone it) for every character with the same rig.

Does this work or are there better approaches?

2

could you write more precise? what do you want to achieve?

3

Ok,

I have about 20 animations that I want to use in my game and 20 characters. I do not want to store those 20 animations in every character. Instead I would like to use a “prototype” character, and load all the animations that I need from this prototype character.

Hope this makes it clear.

4

This has been posted just a few days ago :

@diener175 said: This helped. All you gotta do is create a mesh for your character with a skeleton and create a mesh for your clothes with the SAME skeleton. You can then use the same animation on both your channel for the clothes and your channel for the player. http://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/forum/topic/character-and-equipment-animation-for-many-nodes-using-only-1-skeleton/
5

Thx yang, but it is not what I want to do. But I will try out my method and report back :wink:

6

So maybe you have not explained your point clearly enough. I thought you wanted to use several animations with several objects.

7

dont’ know if JME cashe it, because it would not be hard when JME have cashe mesh/etc in assetLoader.

if not, then your idea is ok. you just need to have other channels to avoid setting active animation to ALL characters :smiley:

i was fighting with that months ago to make a character creator. but i still were storing many duplicated animations data(if JME do not cashe it).

so, first, you should ask Dev, or look into JME source, if animations are cashed or not.

8

Re-targeting of animations is a complex topic. Its not implemented/available as easy as you imagine it. If you want to implement BVH retargeting or something, you’re welcome to share what you come up with :slight_smile:

Just actually using the same animation for a model that is exactly the same should be a breeze though, just look at the animation classes’ code if you don’t see how from looking at the class structure.

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9

Yeah retargeting an animation to a different skeleton is a pain. Must be doable, but I failed quite some time ago.

However, what you can do is to make 1 model with a skeleton and animations (in blender or w/e). All the other models with the EXACT same skeleton with no animations.
Then you just have to add the animation taken from the reference model to the other models
[java]
modelN.getControl(AnimControl.class).addAnim(model1.getControl(AnimControl.class).getAnim(“myAnim”)));
[/java]

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