Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Animation Woes/Rant

A new version of Blender has been released 2.57. Improvements include not having an interface that looks like it was designed by an epileptic chicken, and having a plug-in interface that can actually run plug-ins, and not just say "Script Error" or "I can't find Python despite every other program using it just fine". Major downside: Old plugins don't run, and (of course) the useful ones haven't been ported over. In other words: different shit, same smell.

Which brings me back to DeleD. This free editor may not be as powerful as Blender, but it is far easier to use, and, you know what, it gets the job done. Its major flaw is that you can't get the animations you make out into the world. The only way to save the animations is in its own DXS format. The only exporter that exports animation was to Milkshape...and even then animation export was broken. I say "was", as I invested yesterday downloading the source, tracking down a copy of Delphi7, building an XP virtual machine, and fixing the exporter....then I realised it was 3AM. LOL

I can now export to Milkshape, which will allow me to export to animated .X or .FBX. Which is a stupid workflow. Why should I use an excellent, alive and free 3D tool (DeleD) then export to a so-so, not so alive, and not free 3D tool (Milkshape) just to export to a free game framework (XNA). I think a new entry on my to do list will be to get the DeleD .X exporter exporting animations. Then I can pants off Milkshape.

Anyway, I'm off to look into getting this animation into the game.

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