[x3d-public] both X3DOM and X_ITE.

[Andreas Plesch]

A quick follow up:

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/Basic/HumanoidAnimation/NancyDivingProtoInstancesIndex.html

seems to be a good example for proto-based HAnim.

It works in x_ite and perhaps is expandable.

The scripts do not seem to part of the proto's ? If not, perhaps it is
possible to simplify and take those out ?

-Andreas

On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 6:09 PM, Andreas Plesch <andreasplesch at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 4:24 PM, Joseph D Williams
> <joedwil at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> From: Andreas Plesch
>>
>>
>>> There just does not seem a lot of demand or requests by users or
>>> customers. Of course, this may be a chicken and egg problem.
>>
>> And, that if you hae soething that works, like contact and instant, maybe
>> you don’t need to complain.
>>
> Or on the web look for other,widely available technologies.
>>
>>> Contributions to x3dom or x_ite are always welcome, in any case.
>>
>> Great a contribution to either is a contribution to X3D.
>>
> Well said.
>>
>>> For x3dom, my interest would be probably the glTF angle. glTF has
>>> character animation. Here is an example:
>>>
>>> https://www.donmccurdy.com/2017/11/06/creating-animated-gltf-characters-with-mixamo-and-blender/>
>>
>> Great, I will look. The basic x3d hanim skeleton, bindings, animations, and
>> geometries can be stored in gltf. I hope I can look back in the hanim
>> archives to see a comparison I did. No doubt gltf can transport the good
>> stuff with the only problem that gltf uses unit quats instead of axis-angle.
>>
> x3dom uses quats internally anyways, I think rotation field values are
> immediately converted at parsing.
>>
>>> The best explanation, apart from studying glTF loaders, is apparently
>>> in this figure, sorry about that:
>>>
>>> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KhronosGroup/glTF/master/specification/2.0/figures/gltfOverview-2.0.0a.png
>>
>> OK, I will look for more recent info, but I don’t think anything in this has
>> changed. Structure and data – names may be different but the data and its
>> application is the same. Now I know there may be some new tech but for the
>> basics stuf, not much has changed in the last 20 years since hanim was
>> specified.
>
> The glTF spec. itself, I think, refers to the figure to explain meaning.
>
>>> translation of a simple glTF character to an HAnim humanoid would be a
>>> good first step.
>>
>> A better first step would be to transcode an HAnim humanoid into gltf and
>> back again. From what I saw it would work. After all, it is all the same
>> structure and same data. I was going to work on the Boxman and the JoeKick
>> models in the x3d hanim example archives.
>
> Well, these are two steps. The simplest rigged skining glTF example seems to be:
>
> https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Sample-Models/tree/master/2.0/RiggedSimple
>
>>
>>> A functional, minimal subset of HAnim of nodes and/or a Proto-based
>>> implementation of the nodes would also help implementers.
>>
>> Of course we have the proto-based nodes for HAnim where the geometries are
>> children of Segments (bones) and we animate the skeleton. A prototype for
>> seamless skin animation is Boxman in x3d hanim archives - it needs a fancy
>> script to move skin. Since there are no other features of x3d that
>> approximate the way skin is animated, there are no scriptless prototypes.
>
> Ok: Here is the link:
> http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/Basic/HumanoidAnimation/HAnimPrototypesIndex.html
>
> But I do not see scripts ?
>
> Will there be an proto update for the new version of HAnim ?
>
>>> A main challenge will be probably the requirement to have vertex
>>> geometry manipulation in a shader on the GPU. This is done only for
>>> displacement textures of a CommonSurfaceShader node currently in
>>> x3dom.
>
>> Yes, we need to control individual ‘skin’ vertices according to a simple
>> weighting algorithm depending upon rotation of one or more joints. That has
>> been a problem, yet it is so basic, that and morph shape, that we should
>> have both features outside the Humanoid container.
>
> Yes, morphing seems generally useful. I think glTF may use weighted
> matrices but not sure.
>
>> If anyone wants to learn character animation, anything you learn about x3d
>> hanim will not be a waste of time. X3d hanim still documents an industry
>> standard approach where inputs were taken from all major toolmakers because
>> strangely, even back in the late 1990’s there was great input from users to
>> the biggies that they had to allow data to be exported and transported
>> between applications. Only the names were changed to prevent favoritism and
>> preserve innocence – ooh, and to bring the secretive data structures and
>> bindings out into the open.
>
> Ok. I will say that the HAnim prototypes which do not need scripts
> should be possible, even straightforward to port to x3dom and probably
> x_ite native nodes. John's protoexpander probably already could deal
> with those. So the main challenge probably really is the GPU based
> vertex displacing.
>
> Is there any use in having the Grouping/Transform type HAnim nodes only ?
>
> Best, -Andreas
>
>>
>> On Mon, May 28, 2018 at 10:42 AM, Joseph D Williams
>>
>> <joedwil at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> both X3DOM and X_ITE …
>>
>>> The discussions about both X3DOM and X_ITE are, to me, missing a very
>>> important feature. Neither of these tools can do HAnim skeleton controlled
>>> deformable skin. This is a very important feature, lending itself to many
>>> important applications in addition to HAnim. There have been several
>>> discussions about the hanim joint(s) to deformable skin bindings and as
>>> far
>>> as I have seen, there is no doubt that the way x3d specifies the basic,
>>> most
>>> simple, and most transportable technique to achieve the result. So, as the
>>> HAnim standard takes the next step, why not move a bit toward implementing
>>> this important capability in your browsers. BSContact does it, I think
>>> Instant does it mostly but x3dom and x_ite don’t.
>>> Thanks and Best,
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Joe
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Andreas Plesch
>>
>> Waltham, MA 02453
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Andreas Plesch
> Waltham, MA 02453



-- 
Andreas Plesch
Waltham, MA 02453