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I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into Blender. I would
like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially minifigs, with Blender
animation tools and scripts. I had to modify the color import script because of
changes in ldconfig.ldr, but otherwise the import script seemed to work quite
well.
Then I tried to animate the figure using Blender's IPOs. I made a key frame
(for rotation), went to a new frame, rotated the figure's arm, and then made
another key frame. However, when I move between frames instead of seeing the
arm rotate the way it's supposed to, I see all of the parts in the minifig
change. The rotation with the IPO does not look anything like the rotation that
I do with the normal Blender UI, and it messes up the model.
I tried simple animations with non-LDraw models to make sure I was using the key
frames correctly and was able to make animations that worked the way I expected
them too. I used various combinations of IPOs on parent and child objects with
no problem.
I suspect that the problem I am having with the imported models is due to the
way the flatten and flattenParts functions work, but so far have not been able
to verify that.
Can anyone give me help with this problem? I can post files and screen shots if
they would be helpful. I have tried this with Blender 2.36 on OS X and Blender
2.37 on Windows Media Center with similar results.
Thanks,
Brian Durney
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In lugnet.cad, Brian Durney wrote:
> I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into Blender. I would
> like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially minifigs, with Blender
> animation tools and scripts. I had to modify the color import script because of
> changes in ldconfig.ldr, but otherwise the import script seemed to work quite
> well.
>
> Then I tried to animate the figure using Blender's IPOs. I made a key frame
> (for rotation), went to a new frame, rotated the figure's arm, and then made
> another key frame. However, when I move between frames instead of seeing the
> arm rotate the way it's supposed to, I see all of the parts in the minifig
> change. The rotation with the IPO does not look anything like the rotation that
> I do with the normal Blender UI, and it messes up the model.
>
> I tried simple animations with non-LDraw models to make sure I was using the key
> frames correctly and was able to make animations that worked the way I expected
> them too. I used various combinations of IPOs on parent and child objects with
> no problem.
>
> I suspect that the problem I am having with the imported models is due to the
> way the flatten and flattenParts functions work, but so far have not been able
> to verify that.
>
> Can anyone give me help with this problem? I can post files and screen shots if
> they would be helpful. I have tried this with Blender 2.36 on OS X and Blender
> 2.37 on Windows Media Center with similar results.
> Thanks,
> Brian Durney
Hm, not seeing my original reply appearing.. so I'll try again.
I'd be more suspicious of a part origin problem. I highly recommend a run
through of Greybeards Tutorials
http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/
Very well done video tutorials, and using them I've done some relatively complex
animations.
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On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 22:08:02 GMT
"Brian Durney" <durneybr@uvsc.edu> wrote:
> I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into
> Blender. I would like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially
> minifigs, with Blender animation tools and scripts. I had to modify
> the color import script because of changes in ldconfig.ldr, but
> otherwise the import script seemed to work quite well.
Nice to hear it's used. That makes about three users. Would you mind
posting the changes? I never polished the scripts much, and the
material support was fairly confused when I tested it last. In
particular importing stuff several times messed up.
> Then I tried to animate the figure using Blender's IPOs. I made a
> key frame (for rotation), went to a new frame, rotated the figure's
> arm, and then made another key frame. However, when I move between
> frames instead of seeing the arm rotate the way it's supposed to, I
> see all of the parts in the minifig change. The rotation with the
> IPO does not look anything like the rotation that I do with the
> normal Blender UI, and it messes up the model.
A rotation ipo will only affect the rotation of the object, which is
around its "center". Hit Ctrl+Period to activate rotation about
individual object centers and the UI rotate command will match more
closely. The center is visible in Blender as a yellow or pink dot.
> I tried simple animations with non-LDraw models to make sure I was
> using the key frames correctly and was able to make animations that
> worked the way I expected them too. I used various combinations of
> IPOs on parent and child objects with no problem.
> I suspect that the problem I am having with the imported models is
> due to the way the flatten and flattenParts functions work, but so
> far have not been able to verify that.
They should do an OK job as long as your assemblies only refer to
parts, and don't contain geometry of their own. Anything that gets
flattened will become one object in Blender.
> Can anyone give me help with this problem? I can post files and
> screen shots if they would be helpful. I have tried this with
> Blender 2.36 on OS X and Blender 2.37 on Windows Media Center with
> similar results. Thanks,
> Brian Durney
Files would definitely be interesting.
--
PGP fingerprint = 9242 DC15 2502 FEAB E15F 84C6 D538 EC09 5380 5746
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In lugnet.cad, Brian Durney wrote:
> I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into Blender. I would
> like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially minifigs, with Blender
> animation tools and scripts. I had to modify the color import script because of
> changes in ldconfig.ldr, but otherwise the import script seemed to work quite
> well.
>
> Then I tried to animate the figure using Blender's IPOs. I made a key frame
> (for rotation), went to a new frame, rotated the figure's arm, and then made
> another key frame. However, when I move between frames instead of seeing the
> arm rotate the way it's supposed to, I see all of the parts in the minifig
> change. The rotation with the IPO does not look anything like the rotation that
> I do with the normal Blender UI, and it messes up the model.
>
> I tried simple animations with non-LDraw models to make sure I was using the key
> frames correctly and was able to make animations that worked the way I expected
> them too. I used various combinations of IPOs on parent and child objects with
> no problem.
>
> I suspect that the problem I am having with the imported models is due to the
> way the flatten and flattenParts functions work, but so far have not been able
> to verify that.
>
> Can anyone give me help with this problem? I can post files and screen shots if
> they would be helpful. I have tried this with Blender 2.36 on OS X and Blender
> 2.37 on Windows Media Center with similar results.
> Thanks,
> Brian Durney
This sounds like a center-point / parent problem. I recommend to clear parent
relationship for your minifig components (keeping the transform). After import,
all bricks are a child of the surrounding .ldr file, which is a empty object at
(0,0,0). Use the "outliner" window (View->Outliner) to visualize the parent
relationship for all scenes, objects, materials etc. Afterwards, you can regroup
the objects with the body of the mifi as your parent. This should resolve the
rotation weirdness:)
I have used NLAnimation for my mifis by attaching an armature (8 bones
[Head,Body,Lleg,RLeg,LArm,RArm,Lhand,Rhand) to a joined mifi-mesh. The vertices
of the mesh where grouped (Head,Body,..) use the same names for the vertex
groups and the bones (this enables automatic matching from bones to
vertex-groups). I have put a sample blender file on
http://homepage.mac.com/carstenm
(a single mifi walking circles while moving its head and one arm) not very
fancy.
Carsten
PS:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Manual
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
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In lugnet.cad, Yann Vernier wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 22:08:02 GMT
> "Brian Durney" <durneybr@uvsc.edu> wrote:
>
> > I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into
> > Blender. I would like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially
> > minifigs, with Blender animation tools and scripts. I had to modify
> > the color import script because of changes in ldconfig.ldr, but
> > otherwise the import script seemed to work quite well. • Hmmm. i was lazy, i used an old color-config file :)
>
> Nice to hear it's used. That makes about three users. Would you mind
> posting the changes? I never polished the scripts much, and the
> material support was fairly confused when I tested it last. In
> particular importing stuff several times messed up.
MeTo:) Add me to the list. Therefor we are 4 and counting ;)
I've made some minor changes to the color importer and the dat importer.
The pathes to the ldraw library and to the color config file are configurable
with a little UI (scripts->system...).
And the existence of color definitions is checked on import. They are loaded on
demand and i can't forget to load them in front :)
Maybe we should merge the changes from Brian and myself if you are interested.
Carsten
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In lugnet.cad, Brian Durney wrote:
> I am using the Yann import scripts to import LDraw models into Blender. I would
> like to be able to animate LDraw models, especially minifigs, with Blender
> animation tools and scripts. I had to modify the color import script because of
> changes in ldconfig.ldr, but otherwise the import script seemed to work quite
> well.
>
> Then I tried to animate the figure using Blender's IPOs. I made a key frame
> (for rotation), went to a new frame, rotated the figure's arm, and then made
> another key frame. However, when I move between frames instead of seeing the
> arm rotate the way it's supposed to, I see all of the parts in the minifig
> change. The rotation with the IPO does not look anything like the rotation that
> I do with the normal Blender UI, and it messes up the model.
>
> I tried simple animations with non-LDraw models to make sure I was using the key
> frames correctly and was able to make animations that worked the way I expected
> them too. I used various combinations of IPOs on parent and child objects with
> no problem.
>
> I suspect that the problem I am having with the imported models is due to the
> way the flatten and flattenParts functions work, but so far have not been able
> to verify that.
>
> Can anyone give me help with this problem? I can post files and screen shots if
> they would be helpful. I have tried this with Blender 2.36 on OS X and Blender
> 2.37 on Windows Media Center with similar results.
> Thanks,
> Brian Durney
Thanks for the suggestions that were posted. I tried clearing the parents but
still see the same problem. For one import I commented out the line in the
import script that links an object to its parent, but I still got the same
results. I also tried control-period, but couldn't tell any difference when I
rotated an object. There could be some problem with the object centers, but I
couldn't figure out how to tell for sure or how to fix it.
I posted the LDraw file, s Blender file, and a screen shot at
http://zephyr.uvsc.edu/~brian/LBlend/index.html
I also posted my revised version of Yann's color import script there.
Please let me know if you have other suggestions.
Thanks,
Brian Durney
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On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:58:59 GMT
"Brian Durney" <durneybr@uvsc.edu> wrote:
> I posted the LDraw file, s Blender file, and a screen shot at
> http://zephyr.uvsc.edu/~brian/LBlend/index.html
Got it. The issues are with Blender's data model, and for once of the
type showed more clearly in the Oops view than the Outliner. You have
the same ipo associated with every piece in your minifig.
Look in the Outliner view. Each DAT has a squiggly arrow next to it,
meaning it has an associated ipo. In the Ipo view header, the number
button next to the name (IP:step1) reads 12, meaning 12 objects share
this ipo. You probably caused this by inserting the first key while all
objects were selected, causing them to have a common ipo.
One way to clean it up is to select each object in turn and hit the X
next to the ipo user count to disconnect the ipo from that object.
However, the ipo has already destroyed the original orientation of all
the objects, so you'll want to reimport your minifig and carefully
animate only the hat. Do this by selecting the hat, and clicking the
user count in the ipo view to make it a single user ipo before
inserting keys.
Also, rotating by 180 degrees using ikey won't do what you want in most
cases. It only finds *a* Euler interpolation that matches the key
orientations, not the one you used, so the axis will be fairly random.
Bones don't have the problem the same way, as they can use quaternion
interpolation. Try either editing the ipo curve manually or rotating in
steps of no more than 90 degrees.
I believe I have an idea what's causing this common ipo to be present.
The STEP support in my script works by inserting Layer ipo keys; since
all your objects are in the same (indeed only) step, they were all
given a common ipo. This feature should probably be more clearly
indicated and not activate in the case of no STEP commands.
--
PGP fingerprint = 9242 DC15 2502 FEAB E15F 84C6 D538 EC09 5380 5746
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On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:01:16 GMT
Yann Vernier <yann@donkey.dyndns.org> wrote:
> Got it. The issues are with Blender's data model, and for once of the
> type showed more clearly in the Oops view than the Outliner. You have
> the same ipo associated with every piece in your minifig.
Well, shows how outdated I am.. the Oops view has been integrated into
the Outliner. Switch between them with the View menu.
> this ipo. You probably caused this by inserting the first key while
> all objects were selected, causing them to have a common ipo.
This sentence was a mistake. I forgot to remove it while rewriting the
post to add the last paragraph. The action described would add
individual ipos anyway, not cause this confusion, so the sentence is
doubly wrong. Sorry.
--
PGP fingerprint = 9242 DC15 2502 FEAB E15F 84C6 D538 EC09 5380 5746
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In lugnet.cad, Yann Vernier wrote:
> I believe I have an idea what's causing this common ipo to be present.
> The STEP support in my script works by inserting Layer ipo keys; since
> all your objects are in the same (indeed only) step, they were all
> given a common ipo. This feature should probably be more clearly
> indicated and not activate in the case of no STEP commands.
You're right. I commented out the STEP parts of your script, and the rotation
works as expected. Since I don't use STEPs, I will just leave that part
commented out in my copy.
Thanks for helping me with this problem, and thanks for writing the script.
Brian Durney
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In lugnet.cad, Carsten Müller wrote:
> I have used NLAnimation for my mifis by attaching an armature (8 bones
> [Head,Body,Lleg,RLeg,LArm,RArm,Lhand,Rhand) to a joined mifi-mesh. The vertices
> of the mesh where grouped (Head,Body,..) use the same names for the vertex
> groups and the bones (this enables automatic matching from bones to
> vertex-groups). I have put a sample blender file on
> http://homepage.mac.com/carstenm
> (a single mifi walking circles while moving its head and one arm) not very
> fancy.
I downloaded this file but it makes my version (2.37a) of Blender crash. Did
you use a newer version to make this file?
Thanks,
Brian Durney
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In lugnet.cad, Brian Durney wrote:
> In lugnet.cad, Carsten Müller wrote:
>
> > I have used NLAnimation for my mifis by attaching an armature (8 bones
> > [Head,Body,Lleg,RLeg,LArm,RArm,Lhand,Rhand) to a joined mifi-mesh. The vertices
> > of the mesh where grouped (Head,Body,..) use the same names for the vertex
> > groups and the bones (this enables automatic matching from bones to
> > vertex-groups). I have put a sample blender file on
> > http://homepage.mac.com/carstenm
> > (a single mifi walking circles while moving its head and one arm) not very
> > fancy.
>
> I downloaded this file but it makes my version (2.37a) of Blender crash. Did
> you use a newer version to make this file?
> Thanks,
> Brian Durney
I'm currently working with 2.40.
Carsten Müller
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