Oh, I didn't read that one! Mmm...

I have to travel for a few weeks, during this time I'll get to try out the animations (this is all learning from scratch). When I come back I'll see how this all goes and what options I have. I am not heavily invested in Blender, just that it's the only 3D modelling tool I've used, and I've been through several tutorials with it. Free is best right now... I'm really in proof of concept kinda stage

ty Raft!

Truly excellent news... I'm getting excited about this now

Thanks again, and also for the tip on using Ogre... I installed it on my Ubuntu/Linux system and couldn't find it to run (ie. looking for a gui), but after what you said, now that makes more sense!

Yes, I did read all of the posts in this thread before (actually >1 time). I'm aware I may run into the order of bones problem, but it seems easy enough to sort... and my skeleton is really going to be simple and (hopefully) not updated often, it will be the animations that might get changed.

cheers
stillw

Hi raft,

Can you give a newb some advice pls? My question is really to check with you that I understand what I need to do correctly, so I'm not headed down a blind alley.

Summarising: I am making a 3D animated app for the first time. I realised that I need to give it an armature and use that to move it and so started learning Blender. Then I came across your (frankly) amazing work, and I really think it's the way for me to go. So, I believe I have to now either export Blender models to Ogre or just start anew with Ogre and learn how to do the animation there. Then I'll need to learn JPCT and Bones... so a bit of work for me to do... that's ok, part of the fun, eh!?

Here's what I'm mostly doubtful about: My app will involve a figure moving in time (movements are pre-determined steps) to a beat, and the user will have the ability to vary that beat. I'm imagining that the best way is for me to build my animations in Ogre and load them through Bones and then play them back (I hope) at a speed that corresponds to the beat, (slower/faster). Is it possible to vary the speed of a pre-loaded animation? If not I may have to do it all programatically...

In the future the user may even be able create new steps for the movements, this which could be either by stitching together parts of steps from pre-built animations, or purely programmed, or even by building into my app some kind of interface to Ogre animation... Perhaps you have some ideas about that, but if you feel that this affects how I should be working out the immediate issues I have, please let me know!

Thanks so much for your time, and any help you can lend
stillw