Anim8or Community

There are two simple reasons why I haven't released the source code (yet).

First, ASL Editor is - apart of my hobby - also a semester project for my programming lessons. If my teacher found the entire source code available on the internet, he might find it hard to believe that I am the author of this program. Therefore I cannot release the source code until September.

The second reason is because the whole code is kind of half-finished and messy... I'm working on several new features now and I'm also going to rewrite some old ones from scratch. If anybody - including my teacher - tried to read the code now, he would probably hate me (I hate myself too sometimes...).

So, to answer your question, I am planning to release the entire source code, although not before September/October 2009.

Yes, there is a solution. Double-click the subdivision shape, set "working" divisions to 0 and then you can convert the shape to mesh without increasing the poly count.

Rigging and skinning is very nicely exmplained in the manual: http://www.anim8or.com/manual/5_figure_editor.html#skinning

I think I've seen a good tutorial somewhere, but I can't find it now...

Unfortunately it's not possible to animate textures using scripts directly. The SetTexCoord() function is used in mesh-creation scripts and it cannot be used in a controller script.

I don't know what's the best way to create an animated texture, I would probably use a script to duplicate an object many times and change the texture coordinates and then I would use controller scripts to change the visibility of the objects to make it look like an animated texture...

This topic has been moved to General Anim8or Forum.

http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php?topic=2237.0

(one side point. i apologize in advance since this doesn't really have to do with anim8or but i was wondering since i'm learning C# and i was trying to figure out how to program your intellisense feature. so if you caould give some direction i would ge much obliged.)

thanks in advance

Sure, here's a (very) short summary of what I've done:

I created a new windows form that would represent the Auto-Complete list (and the only control inside this window is the list itself).

Then I had to track the "OnKeyPress" and "OnKeyDown" events of the text box to show/hide the auto-complete window and I also had to check for mouse events in the auto-complete box itself... There was a lot of other things I had to do, for example to search the code for variable declarations to maintain a list of all variables, to close the auto-complete window when the textbox loses focus, to fill the list with appropriate content... The piece of code is about 600 lines long.

If you want a more detailed explanation, send me a pm or an e-mail, I don't mind sharing a part of my secrets

ps. Right now I'm working on a "Syntax checker" - this function will try to parse your script and check it for errors so you don't have to save the file, start Anim8or and load the script to find out that there's a semicolon missing...

I don't think it's a bug... I tried out your script and I think it does exactly what it should do.

Here is a little comparison of the values Anim8or generates and real values it should use (assuming the frame rate is 30 fps):

• frame 0: value 180; should be 180
• frame 1: value 180; should be 179,999878...
• frame 2: value 180; should be 179,999512...
• frame 3: value 180; should be 179,998903...
• frame 4: value 180; should be 179,998050...
• frame 5: value 180; should be 179,996953...
• frame 6: value 179,99; should be 179,995613...
• ...

As you surely know, there is a little rounding error that cannot be avoided because computers simply cannot handle exact floating point values. Anim8or seems to round the values in the window so there are always only 5 digits, but I think that's only because the input window is so small and the actual value Anim8or works with is much more precise.
Well, 2 decimal places are usually more then enough anyway...

I recently spent some time trying to find out how quaternions work and although I don't understand the whole theory, I found several important and easy-to-understand facts (somebody correct me if I'm wrong):

• A quaternion contains information about the rotation axis (represented by the first 3 vector components in Anim8or) and the angle of rotation (the last number).
• Every possible orientation of an object can be achieved by doing one rotation around a specific axis - that's why the information stored in a quaternion (an axis and an angle) is enough to describe every possible position.
• Because a quaternion can be used to describe every possible position, it can also be used to represent any kind of rotation - you can animate the angle of rotation, the axis or both.
• One important thing is: if you want a quaternion to work correctly, it's values must be normalized: (x * x) + (y * y) + (z * z) + (w * w) = 1

You can get a quaternion from axis and angle using the following formula:

qx = ax * sin(angle/2)
qy = ay * sin(angle/2)
qz = az * sin(angle/2)
qw = cos(angle/2)

- "qx", "qy", "qz" and "qw" are components of the quaternion
- (ax, ay, az) is a normalized axis vector
- "angle" is (surprisingly) angle.

If the axis vector is normalized, it's not that difficult to find out that the whole quaternion will be normalized as well.

Let's look at the script ENSONIQ5 posted to see how the theory works:
float $speed;
$speed=-.5;
$orientation = (sin($speed*time),0,0,cos($speed*time));
- in this case "$speed*time" is the angle of rotation and the axis is (1, 0, 0) (note that it is a normalized vector). Therefore this script will make your object rotate around the "x" axis. Simple, isn't it? 

Is, perhaps, my problem that quaternion only expresses rotation, and not an orientation position--if I enter any value for any quaternion, it does not create a static orientation, but a rotation-inducing variable? If that's the case, how would I create a static position (such as the -1 degree in my script above)?

Like I said before, it is possible to represent any arbitrary rotation and orientation using a quaternion... However the fact that it is possible does not mean it is always easy. If I understand it right, you first need to tilt your object a little bit and then let it rotate around one if it's "original" axes. If you wanted to describe this kind of rotation using a single quaternion, I think you would have to animate both the angle and the axis and that might be really difficult.

The easiest solution is to add one more "dummy" element to your scene:

• Click "Build>Add Target" to add new invisible element and make this element parent of your animated object
• Whenever you want to move your planet (or whatever it is), move the target instead
• Tilt the target a little bit (I guess -1 degree around the X axis in your case)
• Now you can make your planet rotate using a simple quaternion formula like the one Ensoniq5 posted

I hope this helped a little bit Good luck!