Debating how I want to do this

[Narei]

I've lucked out in finding someone willing to do some 3D modeling for me that I believe can be pretty high quality (haven't seen her work personally, but a friend of my girlfriend getting ready to go work at Pixar ). Here's what I'd like in the long run: One or more 3D character dancing animations to play as an overlay, that could be faded in and out at will, possibly using the tweaks in the remoter to control a fade that keeps the animation playing "in background" so when it fades back in, it's not starting over and showing all the same animations. I've also thought about making it a stand alone scene, which may be easier. Something like SpOOnmAn's Raytunnel, which is what gave me the idea.

With that said, I've been trying to figure how best to do this since I'm by no means a programer and wouldn't be able to build a full scene from scratch. At best I'd have to modify an exiting scene or see if someone on here would be kind hearted (or at least cheap on a commission basis) to make one with the animations. From what I've seen, it looks like md2 is the only animation types R4 can currently play. When I looked at the test scene , I'm guessing md2 is pretty limited on how high a quality model it will work with and texturing will look pretty basic by todays standards?

Since I'm likely able to get something much higher res than that, would I just be better off having an high res movie or flash made of a pre-rendered animation, complete with backgrounds to just put in as a simple movie scene? Of course that would allow for the best quality, but I'm willing so sacrifice some things like free flowing hair for a bit more freedom of use in R4. While a straight up movie would be the best render quality, there's also the concern of how it would look with a given type of music (but would be used for mainstream electronic dance), which is why I'd look into several animated sets, or use the tweaks to control playback speed if possible.

Like I said, I'd much rather be able to use this as an overlay, or possibly call up the model within the scene script as a high res pre-rendered "movie" so at least the background will react properly to the sound. From what I've seen so far, though, I don't think R4 can use anything like a mask to render only the character like masks are used to only display a certain part of a static image.

So...any thoughts or suggestions?

Narei: Great at having ideas, poor at carrying them out himself.

[djTL]

The 2nd page of the thread you referenced has an overlay by Radiation, based off of Gordon's example. Any md2 model and texture can be substituted:

http://www.rabidhamster.org/phpBB2/view ... 2&start=15

I've used this overlay to display a "dancing" Dalek model and some others, though I've had a little trouble getting the textures to render.

As far as making it fade in and out with sliders, I'm sure some of the more capable and knowledgeable members of our forum can help you.

[andff]

high!

i'm afraid, it will be too difficult to create controlled high-poly dancing anthropoid siluet with R4.. milkshape3d for md2 models is quite uncomfortable (imho) and model exporting from 3dsmax accompanied by shaman dances with tambourine.. i tried to do it myself.. now i have the scene with an experimental dancing body. it is controlled by sound, but it is far far away from high-poly, it just segmented puppet. be patient, i'll post this scene and the model later, i'm really tired now.. programmer's nightmare - fall asleep at keyboard with a thumb on backspace..

[Narei]

djTL, I completely missed that overlay script. I even read through the second page too... well, skimmed anyway while trying to figure out the md2 thing.

andff, I'll talk with the lady and see if she may have any tricks or ideas up her sleeve. She may be able to work out something low(er?) poly to work with some decent texturing, But from the sounds of it, I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up and just see about a stand alone movie rendered to simply play back as a scene in R4.

Hmmm, now another idea has popped in my head, not too related to R4. But some sort of hardware/software that will take any animated vid like an animation on a solid black background and pick out the black similar to an alpha texture/masking to make something of a post process overlay. Could be used along side R4, or any other vid source, like being built into a video switcher.