This chapter describes procedures and precautions for creating animations using NintendoWare in Softimage.
Overall Animation
Character Animation
Visibility Animation
Color Animation
Texture Pattern Animation
Scene Animation
When using the Softimage exporter, animation curve data for output is created automatically from baked data from frame values.
If attributes are being animated, values for the start frame specified with the Export option are output to the CMDL file. Note, however, that bind pose values will be output for the translate, rotate and scale nodes, which are affected by skinning.
Note: Be aware that the values of the current frame in Softimage are not the values being output.
This type of animation controls the Visibility attribute of a node to make it displayed or hidden.
Visibility animation data is output to the intermediate file as an CMDLA file.
To configure a visibility animation, set the animation curve to View Visibility.
When the Export option Compress Node has been set to Cull Useless Node or Cull Uninfluential Node, make sure nodes which have visibility animations configured are not compressed, since visibility animation is set on a node basis. (You can set the compression disable flag using the NW4C_ForBanner Set No Compress Node Plug-in). When using visibility animation, do not set the Compress Node Export option to Unite Compressible Node or Unite All Node. |
Color animations are set by animating the Color
, Transparency (R value)
, Specular Color
and Incandescence Color
of material nodes.
When Enable is used to configure ON/OFF animations, in the OFF state these colors are output as black.
This configures animation for Transparency
.
If Enable is turned OFF, the object is treated as opaque. If Enable is on and UseAlpha is also turned on, an animation configured for the Alpha values is output to the intermediate file as the diffuse
alpha value.
If UseAlpha is OFF, an animation configured for the Red Color values is output to an intermediate file. (Green and Blue values are ignored.)
If the Export option for material compression is enabled, even materials for which color animation is not set sometimes get animated as a result of material collecting. If this happens, use the NW4R_ForBanner Set Material Attribute plug-in to change settings so that materials for which color animation is set are not compressed. |
This type of animation swaps textures.
Texture pattern animation data can be output to the intermediate file as a material animation (.cmata file).
Texture pattern animation settings use either sequential textures or SCR files supported as standard by Softimage.
.scr
.
Sequential textures are textures that have been given sequential numbers, such as p.1.tga
, p.2.tga
, and p.3.tga
.
Whether you use SCR files or sequential textures, edits made using the Warp feature of Softimage (a feature for editing the correspondence between frames and textures using a graph) are not applied.
This type of animation varies the SRT of a texture by manipulating a texture matrix.
Texture SRT animation data can be output to the intermediate file as an CMATA file.
Texture SRT animations are configured according to the procedure below.
Apply textures in Softimage,and open the Texture Projection property editor. Move to the frame you want to configure, and set animation keys for ScalingU, ScalingV, RotationW, Translation U, and Translation V.
Scene animations are configured by animating the camera and light attributes.
Supported camera types are: Perspective, Telephoto, Wide Angle, and Orthographic.
A camera will not be output if its Visibility property View Visibility is OFF.
The aspect ratio is set by selecting Primitive > Pict. Ratio under Camera Properties, or Projection Plane > Film Aperture (Fixed Aspect Ratio OFF).
Angle of view is set by selecting Primitive > Field Of View > Angle under Camera Properties or Projection Plane > Film Aperture (Fix Aspect Ratio ON). Since vertical Field of View (Fovy) is output to the intermediate file, if Primitive > Field Of View is set to Horizontal, convert it to Vertical Field of View before exporting. The relationship between Horizontal Angle of View and Vertical Angle of View is determined by the Aspect Ratio.
The relationship between the Vertical Field of View (Fovy) and the Horizontal Field of View (Fovx) is given by the following formula:
Fovy = 2 * atan( tan( Fovx * 0.5 ) / aspect )
The following is a list of attributes that can be configured with animation:
Supported light types are: Infinite, Point, and Spot.
Render > Edit > Ambience converts light into ambient light. However, there can only be one ambient light.
A light is not output if the Visibility property View Visibility is not animated and is OFF.
Visibility
property
A spotlight is not output if either its own Visibility
or the Visibility
of Spot_Root
is OFF.
If the light property Light Contribution > Specular is ON, then the color
value is output as specular color.
If it is OFF, then black is output to the specular color.
If the light property Light Contribution > Diffuse is ON, then the color
value is output as diffuse color.
If it is OFF, then black is output to the diffuse color.
The intermediate file can have two settings for specular color, but the same value is output for both from Softimage.
The following is a list of attributes that can be configured with animation:
Interest
node (Global Coordinates).CONFIDENTIAL