Question about future FBX object use

[TheBadger]

Hi.

In a previous thread on FBX I was participating in, Jo said that its likely that future FBX object support will include the ability to bring in rigged objects. But that you would not be able to affect the rig in TG.

My question comes from having just learned rigging and basic animation. Im' curious why, if the object can come into TG rigged, why we would not be able to animate it or otherwise affect the rigged objects controls.

I am guessing that the animation system that TG already has, and the one in Maya for animating objects (for example), is a completely different system. Or is it not so different?... In terms of how animation systems work (never mind UIs), just in terms of how the principal works?

Additionally, Matt said that he wanted to include a built in wind system eventually (from a different thread).

So Im wondering, If we can animate wind at some future time, and we can animate everything that we can now, is there any hope that (at least eventually), we will be able to animate rigged objects in TG directly? Are there any plans for this, or any potential for plans?
And if there are plans, how far out are we guesstimating?


I have to say that despite the difficulties I have had with using Terragen, one thing that has been relatively straight forward and likewise simple, is rendering. And I like rendering in TG a lot.
I know that there are other options for rendering animated objects, options built from the ground up for that purpose. But is it strange that I would want to animate in TG?

Just consider Walli's most recent image post. That image looks like a frame from an (extremely high quality) animated movie. I was looking at it and could not help but think "oh if only we could animate in TG". I mean think about it. TGs renderer is great, its easy (for the most part). And it gives good results right out of the box.
After learning Maya, who would not want to render animation in TG?!

I know there are a lot of import things planetside is working on in TG. Object displacement stuff is very important. But is the stuff in this post on the radar at all, or should I give up all hope and just deal with the sad reality (that I cant animate objects in TG, not really anyway). Yet.

Wishful thinking?

[TheBadger]

I guess what I mean is, are the intentions for Terragen by planetside finite? Are you just going to make the best terrain software there is, and then stop? Or what?
Because I say why stop? What is in the future for TG. Or at the very least, what do you dream about for Terragen once you have solved all of the goals you have now?

Hope this is not all to strange a post. But Its true, I would love to animate in Terragen. I understand mostly how the soft works, and I prefer rendering in TG. Why shouldn't I want to use it for more than I can now?

[Hannes]

I agree with you. Even if TG is mainly a landscape generator, it would be a pity, if there wouldn't be eventually at least a nice particle system to create some natural phenomena. I don't think, Matt created the animation module for only just moving a camera from A to B or to animate the clouds.
Importing object sequences is a good start, but even a simple flock of birds for example takes a lot of hard drive space. So some advanced animation features would be really sweet!

[gregtee]

Are object sequences supported or will be supported? 

-Greg

[TheBadger]

Are object sequences supported or will be supported? 

-Greg

It is supported.

Look for Hannes' "flock of birds" animation for an example.

[Oshyan]

A particle system is one thing, it has some fairly broad applicability for simulating natural phenomena (not to say we're implementing one, just that I agree it would be useful). But providing a general object animation and rigging system, I'm less clear on the value of that *in* TG. Wind tools aren't intended to be explicit editing functions but rather semi-automated ways to simulate wind on objects. So it's not as if you'll be clicking and dragging handles around.

Animating procedural systems is fairly different from animating static geometry, bones/IK/rigging/etc, etc. Camera path editing is about as close as TG gets. While I wouldn't entirely rule out very basic object animation functions in the future, there is a lot of other stuff that's going to take priority. Unless we devote significant time and energy to it, there's no way we could ever have object animation capability that comes close to what you can do in other apps. So the best use of our efforts is to focus on being able to import and take best advantage of high quality animation from other apps, and spend the rest of our time focusing on our core strengths as an app, the things that differentiate TG. It just doesn't make sense to spend time trying to make TG a better general-purpose modeling and/or animating tool given the wide range of other, already superior options out there.

Greg, simple object sequences (OBJ, consecutively numbered) are already supported. That's how Hannes did this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_T6zhiI2aM
We'll probably add support for other formats which can handle object animation at some point, perhaps FBX object import or Alembic.

- Oshyan

[gregtee]

Alembic would be awesome.

[TheBadger]

Alembic would be awesome.

Found this : http://www.alembic.io/updates.html
Is this what you guys are talking about?

So is this Alembic thing the next advance? What I mean is, is this some step ahead of FBX? And to be clear, Oshyan, are you saying it is a possible either or thing? Or maybe TG will employ both? Or not really decided yet?

@Oshyan,
Thanks for your reply. Of course everything you said makes sense. I new I was being a little wishful.

The only defense of what I said (in light of your response) is that I was really talking about rendering. It would be great to animate in Terragen, because then that animation would be rendered at the same time in the same way. Again I point to walli's last image post (sorry to use you as an example walli)
If that figure was animated and rendered in TG, and it looked as good as the still image, well, DAMN!!
Render times aside for a moment, I think even Maya W/Mental Ray would be hard pressed to be so pretty, so easily.

You have talked about developing the Object sequence aspect, and that may very well be enough for the most part. I look forward to hearing more about it in the future.

So I understand everything you said. But if Matt wins the lottery and decides to put it all into TG... Please put my request on the wish list! .

About FBX/Alembic
Im sorry to keep pushing this last thing. But will you guys be sure to include multi tile support for UVs? Because this is a powerful tool that adds relative little complexity or weight to an object (in and of its self). But can lend super high levels of detail. Anyway, Im still not clear as to why Its not part of the OBJ process now that you know OBJ supports it?

Again, sorry to keep pushing. I know Planetside is busy doing good work.
Thanks for the info.

[jo]

Hi Michael,

The reason FBX import would allow you to bring in rigged objects but not effect the rig is that the animation in the FBX object can be evaluated in a fairly straightforward manner, that is to say we can find out the correct positions for things. However allowing editing of the animation and potentially allowing it to be saved again via FBX would be a whole other kettle of fish. Even doing this for basic animation is not 100% straightforward. For example you can export animation for cameras and lights etc. via FBX in TG but we recommend you bake the animation to make sure it matches exactly what you had in TG. Another application might not calculate the animation in exactly the same way which could cause slight differences in motion. When you import FBX files into TG the animation is always baked, because the TG animation wouldn't necessarily match the FBX animation otherwise.

Technically it comes down to differences in interpolation algorithms. Even if two programs were using the same general algorithm for animation interpolation, Catmull-Rom for example, unless they did the maths exactly the same there could be slight differences in the results.

Alembic is basically a way of compactly storing object sequences. It bakes animated geometry into static geometry and then kind of compresses it. In many ways it's intended to get around the problems of trying to move rigged models between packages, as well as the more basic problem of getting even simple animation motion to match exactly.

Regards,

Jo

[TheBadger]

Thanks for the knowledge Jo! I am sure the more I understand, the less Ill make impractical requests

Alembic is basically a way of compactly storing object sequences

Now this does sound nice!

So this would not be a replacement for future FBX object support in TG, but something your considering in addition to future Objects support?
Sounds great to me. thanks for the heads up on it , Oshyan and Jo!

Just don't forget to about the UV tiles stuff.