[x3d-public] Blender HAnim export, use cases

[John Carlson]

I do feel that if Blender supported more HAnim nodes OOTB, things would be
easier.  Sigh!

Contortions around DEF to determine node HAnim types don’t seem like a fun
or fast thing to do.  Creating sets of HAnim names, while doable, does not
lead towards maintainable systems or interoperability between other
formats.  If someone has a set class which tests “ends with” instead if an
entire string, that would be helpful.

Maybe MPFB2 solves these issues, or we should modify it to better support
HAnim.

Yes, I’ve tried post processing, see
https://github.com/coderextreme/HAnimDecoratorAssembly

I think i failed on getting the skin right,  IIRC

John

On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 7:00 PM John Carlson <yottzumm at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do think it will be difficult to find the HAnimHumanoid in the EMPTY
> hierarchy without armature on export.  HAnimJoints, etc. are probably
> easier, if we have a pattern for the DEF prefix, or replace the prefix with
> “hanim_” on import, or just wing some kind of pattern; more complex
> solutions, like comparing Joint DEF prefixes might be possible.  Having the
> user type in the HAnim DEF prefix may sound easy, but what about multiple
> humanoids in the scene?
>
> You’ve heard the arguments for and against armatures, but what do people
> using Blender want?  Armatures or no armatures?  Full bone structure, or no
> bone structure?  Bone structure without empties, or bone structure with
> empties (if possible)? I definitely need your samples, or I will create my
> own, which may not follow your use case. Pointers to actual online models
> you use are welcome.
>
> I fully realize something like MPFB2 probably uses armature, and we
> definitely live in that world.   Has anyone tested LOA4 armatures with
> MPFB2?
>
> What are your use cases?
>
> John
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 5:39 PM John Carlson <yottzumm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Okay, I think I can send glTF examples of Jin 20.
>>
>> It will take quite a bit more possible work to produce HAnim
>> joints,segments and sites, but this work needs to be done, translating
>> EMPTYs to something besides transforms.
>>
>> I will have to temporarily remove possible prefixes in HAnim DEFs so I
>> can look up what to convert EMPTYs to.  In otherwords, I think I can
>> convert the EMPTYs to transforms already.  I will have to create sets of
>> HAnim joints, segments and sites to test against.
>>
>> This seems like a path forward.
>>
>> Two immediate products should be gltf output and non-hanim output.
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 11, 2024 at 12:38 PM Joe D Williams <joedwil at earthlink.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I think the most important is to figure out how to get blender to export
>>> the stuff we need, hierarchy, shapes, and animations. These are all gltf
>>> asset types that blender should support. We would like a direct export of
>>> x3d syntax, but the gltf will be testable since a couple of browsers say
>>> they can import.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There should be a way to import the last transform hierarchy example you
>>> showed.
>>>
>>> That is a fine example that should show some patterns in the blender
>>> data.
>>>
>>> Study the gltf assets along with other json to see what we can use.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So, I would like to see import/export of last jin-like no geometry loa4
>>> example skeleton I sent, but a main item to advance x3d hanim and blender
>>> would be to get the ASCII exports of gltf and related working. For the
>>> .blend or from the internal stores the basic stuff for hierarchy, geometry,
>>> and animation are in there just needing to be extracted. The gltf and
>>> related are supposed to help us get these data types.
>>>
>>> Otherwise, the main item would be to either import or type in a testable
>>> loa4 hierarchy skeleton, then figure out how to export it back to x3d.
>>> It would be ok to settle for gltf instead of pure x3d syntax.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What other work in x3d-to/from-blender is available?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,John.
>>>
>>> Joe
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: John Carlson <yottzumm at gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Jun 10, 2024 1:13 PM
>>> To: Carol McDonald <cemd2 at comcast.net>, GPU Group <gpugroup at gmail.com>,
>>> Joe D Williams <joedwil at earthlink.net>
>>> Cc: Katy Schildmeyer KS APPAREL DESIGN <katy at ksappareldesign.com>, X3D
>>> Graphics public mailing list <x3d-public at web3d.org>
>>> Subject: Re: Can you get this X3D animation imported into Blender?
>>>
>>>
>>> First off, I asked for priorities to work on.  Blender was one of the
>>> top priorities.  So I’m working on it.  If you are not interested, I will
>>> stop sending to you messages.  Only a couple of people responded.
>>>
>>> If you have something higher priority than Blender, that you are
>>> invested in, please bring it up.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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