Pygmalion Release Alpha 0.2 Info Download Pygmalion Release Alpha 0.2 Filename: pygmaliona02.zip Author: Chris "Gwynhala" Burke Size: 222.5 KB Created: 2/13/2001 Updated: 6/5/2002 Downloads: 406 Also known as: Reader Rating 0 N/A (Not rated) Rate this file: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding Pygmalion Release Alpha 0.2 Details This is a great 3D animation program for video gamers, but it's still in the Alpha phase and does include some bugs. This version of Pygmalion adds the ability to export meshes from Rune in WaveFront .OBJ format, and also limited creation of .SCM files needed to import models and textures into Rune. There is no animation export, or animation/skeleton creation capability, in this version of Pygmalion. ======================================================================== Pygmalion Animator, Version Alpha 0.2 Release Notes Chris "Gwynhala" Burke 13 February, 2001 ======================================================================== Pygmalion is a 3D animation program for video gamers. I'm still working on it, and this is a very eraly version of the program, so it probably has a lot of bugs, non-working menu items, etc. Use at your own risk. The main thing Pygmalion is designed to do, is allow animations from one video game player model to be applied to a new mesh, to create new player models for that or another video game. Pygmalion also has limited ability to create new animations, but it's no substitute for the high-end modeling packages used by video game companies and professional artists. You can also view animations with Pygmalion. This is handy if you're making a mod for a game, and want to know the name of an animation so you can script it into your game. This version of Pygmalion adds the ability to export meshes from Rune as in WaveFront .OBJ format, and also limited creation of .SCM files needed to import models and textures into Rune. There is no animation export, or animation / skeleton creation capability, in this version of Pygmalion. All of this will be fixed over time, and many new features are coming. For the latest news on Pygmalion for Rune, check: http://www.runenews.com/rigfolk Pygmalion is based on my very popular GwynFlex animation tool for Heretic II, which you can learn more about at: http://www.hereticii.com/models.shtml Look in the tools section for downloads and tutorials. Installation ------------ Just unzip the archive to any convenient folder. How To Export Models To Rune ---------------------------- - Get the tutorial at: http://www.runenews.com/files.asp?dir=/rigfolk&file=modeltutorial1.zip How To Use Skins ---------------- - Once your model is imported, use Model->View Materials to see the names of all of the materials it uses. - Use File->Open Textures, or Textures->Load, to load up all of the materials you need. - Use Textures->Rename to change the names of your textures to match the names of the materials your model uses. - Check Model->Solid and Model->Textured - If the screen is too dark to see your model with textures, try checking View->House Lights and / or View->Blue Screen - The texture will stay across animation changes. How To View Rune Animations --------------------------- - Run Pygmalion - Select File->Open Mesh - Navigate to your Rune\Meshes folder - Change the files-of-type to "Rune Files (.UMS)" - Click on one of the .UMS files (e.g. creatures.ums), click Open - If a model selection menu appears, select which model you want and click OK - If a mesh selection menu appears, select which mesh you want and click OK (sorry, the names aren't very descriptive; UMS format doesn't store mesh names). - When the frame selection menu appears - DON'T SELECT ANYTHING! Just click OK. You'll get a real ugly looking bunch of 3D images on your screen, but don't worry - those are just the body parts of the model. - Select File->Open Animation - Navigate to your Rune\Meshes folder - Change the files-of-type to "Rune Files (.UMS)" - Click on one of the .UMS files (e.g. creatures.ums), click Open NOTE: You should use the same file you loaded the mesh from. - If a model selection menu appears, select the same model you loaded before click OK - An animation sequence menu appears. Select the name of the animation you want to view, and click OK. The screen will still look ugly. - Select Animation->Loop - Select Animation->Play->Forward, or click the corresponding toolbar icon, to start the animation playing continuously. - Adjust the camera so that you have a good view of the model. For example, if the model is sideways, and too large, press the down arrow to move the camera farther away and keypad 6 to rotate the camera 90 degrees. - To select another animation, you can use File->Open Animation, or you can use Animation->QuickPick... to load another animation more quickly from the same .UMS file. How To Move The Model and Camera -------------------------------- - Use the Edit->Control Device dialog to pick the kind of controler you want. A "flying" controler changes the view as if you were flying an aiplane around the scene (frame of reference is current direction). A "position" controler moves and turns its target relative to an absolute coordinate system. - You can use the keyboard, a joystick, or the mouse for control - You can control either the camera or the model (object) - The SHIFT and CTRL keys modify the behavior of the mouse and keyboard controllers. Holding SHIFT causes a different kind of motion (for example, rotation instead of position control). - By default Pygmalion uses a flying camera control. This control is similar to how a video game works, except you can't change the key bindings. Here are the key bindings for the default flying camera controller (works best with keyboard): Keyboard Mouse Function -------- ---------- ------------------------------------------ up away from me move camera forward down toward me move camera backward KeyPad/ --- move camera left KeyPad* --- move camera right right right turn camera to look right left left turn camera to look left PageDn Sh-left turn camera upward Delete Sh-right turn camera downward PageUp Ctrl-away move camera upward Insert Ctrl-toward move camera downward KeyPad+ Sh-toward turn camera clockwise KeyPad- Sh-away turn camera counterclockwise Shift --- slower movement (better "control") Ctrl --- regain control of runaway camera Keypad9 --- turn camera clockwise 45 degrees Keypad6 --- turn camera clockwise 90 degrees Keypad2 --- turn camera cw/ccw 180 degrees Keypad4 --- turn camera counterclockwise 90 degrees Keypad7 --- turn camera counterclockwise 45 degrees - You can also select a position object control. This control is similar to how you would drag items around on a computer screen, but it works in 3D. Here are the key bindings for the position object controller: Keyboard Mouse Function -------- ---------- ------------------------------------------ up away from me move object up down toward me move object down right right move object to right left left move object to left KeyPad- Sh-away move object away KeyPad+ Sh-toward move object closer PageUp Sh-left rotate object counterclockwise PageDn Sh-right rotate object clockwise Insert Ctl-away rotate front of object upward Delete Ctl-toward rotate front of object downward Home Ctl-left rotate front of object to left End Ctl-right rotate front of object to right - When using an object control with the mouse, remember to left-click on the object! - In addition to the controlers, you can use the Camera menu to quickly move the camera to various positions. Note for Mod Makers ------------------- - If you use Pygmalion to learn the name of an animation for your mod, please remember that Pygmalion adds an "_" to the end of the sequence name so that it can name the animation frames. For example, the sequence "AttackA" would show up in Pygmalion as "AttackA_", with frame names like "AttackA_001", "AttackA_002", etc. The Rune engine won't understand the trailing "_", so you should use the name without that final character. Known Bugs ---------- - Current limits: 8192 verteces, 8192 triangles per mesh. 64 vertex (bone) groups, 64 triangle (skin) groups per mesh. 32 textures per mesh. - Funky vertex normals on generated objects - objects become VERY bright when rotated into certain positions. - Several menu items and listed file formats are just stubs - trying to use them does nothing. - Occasional crashes when loading new body parts while an animation is running. To work around, stop the animation before loading new parts. - Texture export can only export 24-bit textures, and only to .TGA format. Revision History ---------------- Version Alpha 0.2 ----------------- - Fixed texture export function. - Added ability to rename a material (Model->Rename Material) - Modified animation STOP function to restore body parts mesh instead of continuing to display most recent animation frame. - Loading a texture with the same name (e.g. file path) as a previously loaded texture, will overwrite the previous texture instead of adding another texture with the same name. This is useful when checking out iterative changes to skins you're developing, since you can just keep reloading the skin after each modification. - Added code to generate artificial triangle group if a mesh has none. - Added File->Export->Trivial Mesh for limited .SCM and .OBJ file export. The dialog box will list many export file types, but only .SCM and .OBJ are supported. The exported .SCM model has one sequence named "BaseFrame", one joint, and one animation frame placing the joint at (0,0,0). - Added prompt for mesh name when loading unnamed models. Version Alpha 0.1d ------------------ - Quick release to fix incorrect handling of .MD2 file textures. - Added code to generate artificial skin names for triangle groups having no material assigned during import. - Added "How To Use Skins" tutorial. Version Alpha 0.1c ------------------ - Lots of internal reorganization. - Re-wrote .OBJ, .3DS, .UMS, .SCM, .FM, and .MD2 loaders to use new data structures and utility routines. - Fixed bug in tree browser that led to off-by-one frame error when loading from files where not every sequence follows the naming convention. - Changed File->Open to File->Open Body Parts to clarify that this menu just loads in body parts (which might not be arranged in any recognizable order until an animation is loaded) - Added ability to play vertex-animated sequences from .OBJ, .FM, .MD2, and .3DS files. - Added material and multiple-object support to .OBJ loader - Fixed off-by-1 error that prevented display of last sequence of a model - Added move camera up (Page Up) and down (Insert) to flying controler - Increased speed of forward and back movement in flying controler - Eliminated some memory leaks during mesh allocation / deallocation - Added perky music to Help->About selection - Added Texture, Texture Library and Model Materials menu functions with support for .BMP, .PCX, .TGA, .SCM, .UTX, and .UMS formats. - Added lame texture viewing capability (background image is set to texture) - Added option for solid or wireframe model view - Added move left (KP/) and move right (KP*) functions to flying controler - Modified single-step to always move to previous or next frame, rather than advancing frame based on fractional frames per tick. - Fixed dropped / duplicated frames bug when changing direction of animation playback - Load / save all controller settings in registry - Added ability to view models with texture - Added View->House Lights and View->Blue Screen options for lighting and background. - Added File->Open Textures to load all of the textures associated with a .UTX, .UMS or .SCM model - Added Model->Textured to display animations with model textures applied Version Alpha 0.1b ------------------ - Added animation playback for Rune - Recognize multiple frame snapshots in .3DS files - Heirarchical frame name / sequence name browser - Fixed toolbar icons, and made some of them work - Added "CD style" additional toolbar icons for animation control - Roughed-in support for user-defined skeletons and several new file formats. (non-functional code in this release) - Changed default controller to flying camera - Changed flying controller to provide a more "game like" control set Version Alpha 0.1a ------------------ - Coded from GwynFlex base - Limited model viewing features only Credits ------- Pygmalion is Copyright 2001 by Christopher Burke. Thanks to Paul McArthur, Chris Rhinehart, and Tim Gerritsen at Human Head Studios for their help with the Rune model format. And to Trisha, for understanding why I don't always go to bed at night...