Chapter 12
Skeletal Animation
WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?
- Learning about the skeletal animation system
- Learning about the MD5 file format
- Loading an MD5 mesh
- Animating an MD5 mesh
- Learning how to use different interpolation methods to get smoother animations
- Blending two actions together
- Additively blending two actions together
In this chapter, you will learn about skeletal animation. I will first introduce and compare the traditional ways of handling character animation and describe the modern way to handle them.
Moving forward in this chapter, you will learn about the MD5 file format, which is a format especially built for skeletal animation. You will then learn how to use the book’s API to load and animate an MD5 mesh.
Once the necessary code is in place to play back animations, you’ll learn how to use different interpolation methods to dynamically generate frames between action frames. As a result, your animation transitions will become smoother and a lot more realistic.
Finally, you will learn how to interpolate multiple actions together using either regular blending (multiply) or additive blending to create an infinite number of action combinations.
TRADITIONAL VS. MODERN ANIMATION SYSTEMS
Traditionally, animation in games was basically done the same way as in cartoons. Animation sequences were built using multiple versions of the same mesh corresponding to each frame of an action. Then at run time, a different version of the mesh is presented to the user as the current animation ...
