game modeling

[Mr. C]

Is A:M good for game modeling/animation?

[Rodney]

A:M is certainly good for game creation but there are many aspects to the process.

 

Like most projects there is the research and development, design, preproduction, production and post production phases.

 

There is some discussion still mostly in the research and development stage you can find in the TWO Game section. Look for information in the old games and development forums too.

 

There are tools available to help transfer models and props and animation to gaming engines.

 

Folks like Greg Schumsky and Dennis Burroso have recent experience porting A:M to game engines and the most recent SIGGRAPH DVD spotlights some of Dennis's efforts. His 'Froggy Boxing' is simple yet fun example of what can be done.

 

For cut scenes you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than A:M.

As A:M is first and foremost a character-centric animation program its well suited to the task.

 

I don't know your experience with game creation so its hard to speculate any more.

Understand you'll want to add some additional utilities and programs to create any game. Those may range from free to *yikes* expensive.

[Muff]

If your leaning towards modern FPS games and the like, I personally dont know of any certified importers/exporters which will convert AM models into the commonly used formats (polygon) that todays games run off of (e.g. LWO/MAX/3DS). There are 3rd party exporters for AM, but its not an ideal conversion option? So, Im not inclined to say that there is compatability with what game makers use (programs) to create current games, related to exporting/importing? This is touching on the modelling side. BUT, as far as cut scenes/animations/cinematics; AM can definately compete with any Big Name program for this purpose.

[Paul Forwood]

There are a several plugins available that will convert A:M models into formats suitable for game engines.

 

AMXdtsPlus will export to DTS and DSQ format which is the format used by the Torque game engine.

 

AMXtex will export X files which can be used by a number of game engines.

 

There are other export options but I don't know if anyone has had success in taking these files into a game: ( OBJ, LWO, 3DS, ACT, PLY )

-------------------------------------------------

 

Here is a screen captured video of an A:M model in the Torque Show Tool. The quality of the captured video is very choppy but rest assured it is as smooth as silk in the Torque Show Tool.

 

 

 

We/I need to get back into looking at Torque and kick the TWO game back into life.

[Mr. C]

Thank you for the helpful replies

[dborruso]

I created the game froggy boxing. I achieved this with a:m, amXtex plugin, and 3d gamestudio. It works very well with game studio. I have also had success with fps creator. Unfortunately it is very hard to use your own animation in fps creator and have to use the milkshape skeleton available on the fps creator forum, but it works well. If you want to use all the features of a:m and make a wide variety of games gamestudio is the way to go. Of course there is also torque.

[Paul Forwood]

Here is another screen captured video of an A:M model that has been exported as a DTS file and loaded into Torque Show Tool:

 

 

 

Once again, compressing this has taken it's toll on the quality.

 

-------------------------------------

You should look for further posts about game development in the Game Development Forum.

 

I've forgotten half of what I learned about A:M to Torque but you can learn as I relearn it inin this thread.

 

The AMXtex and AMXdtsPlus export plugins are available from Obsidian Games

 

Get the info on Torque at Garage Games.

-------------------------------

 

Wow, there are alot of posts that I have missed in that games forums now! I'll have to try to catch up some time.

[Rodney]

Paul,

If an image is worth a thousand words your animations are worth visiting the bank.

 

Nice!

[Paul Forwood]

Oh...Thanks, Roders!