Animating Mesh Objects

[JustaTest]

Hey there, 

I've been looking for a tutorial or indepth explanation about how to make animated meshes but haven't been able to find any decent ones. Unsure if whether UV maps/materials/textures should be made in a certain way.

The program I'm using is Blender.

Would appreciate it if someone can pass some knowledge my way with steps about how I might go about making one.

 

Thanks for your time :)

[Tommy Rampal]

For standalone objects, two options:

1) You can have different 'frames' (faces) of the same mesh (up to 8), but each face altered slightly to mimic movement; use LSL to cycle the transparency of each face. The downside of this is that a lot of polygons could end up being used, raising the LI significantly.

2) The best option. Secondlife does not support this (yet?): Custom armatures/skeletons with unique animations attached to them.

For avatars:

There are many tutorials around, check out http://www.machinimatrix.org/

[LepreKhaun]

3.) Let us not overlook Puppeteer ( https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Puppeteer-Free-Edition/176832 ) or any number of prim animation scripts ( Google sl prim animation script )!

 

Though originally written for prims, one can do very convincing linked mesh animations if care is taken in crafting the joints, and thoughtfully combining both scripted part movement with texture animations can make for some awesome animations. 

[Nalates Urriah]

What Tommy siad but said a different way.

Presently the only way to animate mesh is to rig it to the avatar armature. So, everyone uses a work-around for anything that is not going to be attached to the SL armature.

Like the frames in an animation a mesh is made in each of the poses needed by each frame. Generally each pose is just part of the same mesh object. To play the animation in world each mesh pose is made visible in turn. While one part of the mesh is being made visible another part is being hidden by going 100% transparent.

Think of an avatar made into a statue with no armature being animated that way. One could pose the avatar for frame one. Copy the mesh and re-pose for frame two. Repeat until done. You could do this 8 times and keep it one object. You could use the same texture on all 8 poses (with each being a face - or a material in Blender terms) and then just change transparency one after the other to give the illusion of movement. Obviously this is going drive up the polygon count and Land Impact. But, it works.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

As the others already stated:

- the ways to 'animate' a mesh object / several mesh objects separate into these ways:

1) Rigged to an Armature / skeleton
   (wearable meshes that move with the armature and animation sequences made for those)

2) Scripted Solutions (worn or not does not matter here - except for certain scripting procedures such as rotations etc)
    which allow to move / rotate / scale mesh parts - just as you would do with the default primitives.
    Or make them transparent / opaque, in order to switch between sequences / frames and their visability.

So in order to give you even more explicit links to tutorials it would be helpfull to figure first if you want to make : rigged / wearable meshes (such as Avatars, Clothes etc) or if you want to animate static meshes (like a puppet, a drone, etc)

PS: The UV maps / materials / and textures have the same importance as with static meshes. And need to be taken care of with keeping the LOD levels and optimisation in mind. And an evenly and good distributed UV map will of course also help to avoid too many distortions on animated objects.

[Tristan Hoch]

According to Jeremy Linden, there are plans to have animated mesh without relying on the avatar armature.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Why_UUID_Flipping_is_Bad

However, that was back in August of 2011, and I'm trying to see if anyone has any information on when/if this is actually coming. I have not been able to find any recent updates on the subject, even though it's something that could be essential for the emerging products and markets in SL.

[Drongle McMahon]

Sadly, I don't think that indicates any concrete plans. It just says that if there ever are any plans, that's the form they would take. Still, you can always keep hoping.

[Logan70]

wow old post sorry

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Logan70

[Lucia Nightfire]

Theres also the Animesh Project which will hopefully be released by May.