Working to extend AnimationPlayer of “Skinned Model Sample”

I am working to extend AnimationPlayer. Here a list of what i wanna add.

1. blending two animation clip (track/AnimationSet)
2. blending betweens two consecutive keyframe transform (so they can be less numerous)
3. store bone name to quick search for these uses:
   1. add some vertex to selected bone: I use these to find, for example, where a line of a blade sword is, for collision test
   2. add a transform to a bone: I use it, for example, to calculate transform of sword mesh to put it in hand of animated model
   3. set for each bones (and its soons) to use a specific clip animation (AnimationSet)
4. inverse cinematic, for example, to rotate model head so it look at a specific direction
5. using only one instance of the same FX file
6. add shadow map (and post filter) and better light calculation in FX file (4 light max)

Here some pictures:

Go to site download area to see some movies: click here.

The source code will be downloadable from my blog pages when it will be completed.
At this time is not completed, I am working on other features, but not very fast, just in free time.
Source code has many dirty parts inside, because I am doing many experiments, I also will clean it before share it.
I will write here (in this post) code progressions, and also when it will be ready for download.

My Lego Mindstorm experiments with my students

I started to make some experiments with Lego Mindstorm RCX, to make some lessons for my school students.

I use leJOS plugin for Eclipse to work with Java.

 

To see an example:

http://www.tonigreco.it/_XNA_/download.asp?name=PathFinder.java

 

To see a movie about path finding RCX robot:

http://www.tonigreco.it/_xna_/download.asp?name=PathCommandsFinder.zip

 

 

My collaboration with Mphinite

I started a collaboration with Mphinite to look for potential companys interested to their services.

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Mphinite supplies Engineering Design (CAD/CAM/CAE) services:

 

• 2D/3D modelling design (conversions too, also from paper support)
• mechanical simulation (static, dynamics and for the vibrations)
• thermal simulation
• numerical control programming
• multimedia (animated 3D movies for presentations, publicity, and for "electronic handbook" of the apparatuses

The MPHINITE has a long experience in these fields and offers its services at competitive prices.

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In my "Mphinite album" on the right you can see some examples of their works.

To see some movie examples please click these links:

• Architectural Animation
• Flow Animation
• Machine Animation
• Pneumatic Animation

If you want more info you can write to me at

  

(I am sorry for this antispam precaution)

 

XNA Skinned Model Sample

 

At the end an animated sample from Microsoft comes: XNA Skinned Model Sample.

Dowload it from "Creators Club Online":

http://creators.xna.com/Headlines/developmentaspx/archive/2007/02/13/Skinned-Model-Sample.aspx

More good samples from this link:

http://creators.xna.com/education/samples.aspx

 

I will use this sample to convert my "Dwarf VS Ninja fighting game" project from C#/MDX to XNA: you can see it in second picture.

Last picture shows a shadow map test.

For the movie click here: http://www.tonigreco.it/_xna_/download.asp?name=dwarf-ninja.wmv.

Mesh and texture from:

http://www.panda3d.org/artcats.php

http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/gallery/index.php

 

First picture shows the "MD2/MS3D to X converter" (and Mesh Viewer). I wrote it from application wrote by Jim Adams for the "Advanced Animation with DirectX" book. With my extensions it is possible to save, in X file, many AnimationSets from one animation track stored in MD2/MS3D file.

Who I am in few words

Name: Toni Greco

Born: 1963/02/19 at Cesena (Italy)

 

Married with Susanna Favali – the girl of my dreams

 

Bachelor: Electronic Engineer

 

Programming Linguages

• Assembly 80×86
• Pascal
• C/C++
• Java
• Visual Basic 6
• HTML/DHTML javascript
• ASP
• .NET/C#/ASP.NET

Jobs

• Teacher of computer science (at ITIS Cesena and, for two years, at University)
• Programming of "3D World Tennis" (a 3D game for DOS sold in Italy)

• Magazine writer (DEV – Infomedia)
• Managerial Applications writer (VB6/SQL/Access)

Moon Eclipse

I taken some photos during the moon eclipse at 03/03/2007.
I used OLYMPUS µ740.

3D Studio Max short Movies

3D Studio Max is a wonderful application.
My school students and I tryed Trial version (8 and 9), here you can see some pictures and movies from these experiments.
For the walking girl I used DAZ Studio.

Go to dowload area or click links below:
Simple animation
Cylinders animated with bones
A man walking in the street
Particicles animation
Physics simulation
Visibility animation
Walking in city street (slow version)

New Game Editor

At the end I have decided to not use XNA to build my videogame editor: I think XNA is not the best for this task.
Probably I will write a player using XNA too.

This last version uses C#, Managed DirectX and one DLL written in C++ unmanaged.

• The first photo shows old version written using C++ and DirectX.
• The second photo shows current interface of  "3D Game Editor".
• The third photo shows first version written – some years ago – in VB6/C++ and using OpenGL.

Rendering to Form’s PictureBox (for XNA GSE Beta 2)

This sample show how to render a 3d object (textured cube) to picturebox.
You can use some keys to move camera and click to button to reset view to starting point.
If you resize form the projection matrix it is updated automatically.

It work with XNA GSE Beta 2.

Link to download the project:
http://www.tonigreco.it/_xna_/download.asp?name=RenderToPictureBox21.zip

Interactive 3D graphic application (XNA GSE Beta 2)

Tutorial 2 – from XNA help and forum community contributes – by Toni Greco

This sample show how to load/draw 3D models and move the camera to all directions using keyboard.

It uses three kind of 3D objects:
FBX file (ship),
X file (asteroid),
low level with vertex buffer (cube).

All three cases can be rendered using standard basic effect, or HLSL fx file:
see the first rows of Game1.cs to choice which rendering type to use.

Link to download the project:

http://www.tonigreco.it/_xna_/download.asp?name=WindowsGame3D.zip