Boids

From Blue Mars Developer Guidebook

This page is protected and certified by Avatar Reality Inc. Only Editable by Avatar Reality Staff Members.

Rigging and Character Setup for Boids

Overview

Boids need very cheap animation and don't require morphing or physics interaction for the most part.

   * To get a cheap animation you can simply create a biped or create your own bones (suggested if your Boid isn't a bipedal creature).
   * Make sure to keep your animations simple and always create LOD's for your Boids. They can easily get out of control.
   * To add an LOD to your character simply rig a lower poly version of your character to the skeleton you create for animation (you can use physique or skin), name the model
     the same as your high poly character and add "_LOD#" (i.e. Dancer_LOD1, or Dancer_LOD2 for LOD2). Export your LOD version as a separate chr file to the same directory as
     your main file character. In the end you'll have both a "character.chr" and "character_LOD1.chr" in your directory.
   * Now export your animations. Make sure that when you are animating your character that you ensure the LOD's work properly with the animation. 

Variety

The Boid entity doesn't allow you to inherently change the material.

   * For your boid to use a different material you need to change the material for the .cdf file in the character editor. 
     When you place the boid change the model to the new .cdf 

Programming You need to create a new lua script in the boids directory. Crowd.lua might be a good one.

Back to Blue_Mars_Asset_Creation