Pax , I do have XSI Foundation, too. But in my case, I only animated before at work with Max and character Studio. (well, and with Blender, Anim8or and character Fx.)
Fcurves may not be of much use with *.b3d format: it doesn't support spline interpolation, just linear (your feared robots ;) )
So, indeed, this interpolation, I know, much more subtle, can play against u, and some people even deactivate it to set linear as they know that's where the engine is gonna carry it...
Another way is to "bake" (I think in XSI language is .."plot", and gives the option in the xsi exporter, I have it too, and also tested with ultimate Unwrap to work well.) that smoothness and subtle interpolation as keyframes...it never gets as is, due to u'd need a load of keyframes and that'd kill totally performance and memory limits...which aren't very generous in shareware target machines....
I continue to be a total noob in XSI, as I only use the very basical bones animation, pin object...2d chains with that and a few more things...not more...
Character Fx can activate spline interpolation, but the very little control u have over the interpolation is quite hidden, and not enough. It has no real IK. Is all fk. It has no way to make joint pinning or the like (Blender has)
But it has a big market being simple to learn, and loaded of game exporters integrated in it.(md2, x, b3d...all work well)
In Blender you can do most of the advanced stuff, but allways in a way mroe long a complex, less accurate and less perfect way than animating with xsi, less powerfully, and less also than doing in Max or Gmax, even.
I'd like to have time to work on learning well this tool, but seems I continue with projects and life stuff, and have my documentation and videos almost intact...bad thing is as I learnt what I need to bang animations, seems lost interest for the moment to go deeper, hehe. I'll do at some point.
Yup, better have a monitor reaching 1280...most TFT 17" reach that very well, if of some quality...
I use it with 800x600, but due to the use of certain layout, and as I only use th very raw character animation core stuff, and as I use to with any tool, I did set up my key bindings for the tools I'd use...
In max, Character STudio curves are *a pain* to handle, while standard max bezier handles for that and other tools,make much more sense... Yup, the ease in , and out, and the huge world of control you have just handling properly the curve is important, but b3d engine is not the only (i said wrong, probably the format carry it, indeed, I'm sure of that: is the b3d engine what can't play it) engine with only option of doing just linear interpolation.
Quake3 used to make some kind of smooth non linear interpolation (quake 2 was linear, so, md2 too) for md3...
Sorry if I don't reply...I hope to remember to check it back, but lately I'm not much into Blitz worlds...
Fcurves may not be of much use with *.b3d format: it doesn't support spline interpolation, just linear (your feared robots ;) )
So, indeed, this interpolation, I know, much more subtle, can play against u, and some people even deactivate it to set linear as they know that's where the engine is gonna carry it...
Another way is to "bake" (I think in XSI language is .."plot", and gives the option in the xsi exporter, I have it too, and also tested with ultimate Unwrap to work well.) that smoothness and subtle interpolation as keyframes...it never gets as is, due to u'd need a load of keyframes and that'd kill totally performance and memory limits...which aren't very generous in shareware target machines....
I continue to be a total noob in XSI, as I only use the very basical bones animation, pin object...2d chains with that and a few more things...not more...
Character Fx can activate spline interpolation, but the very little control u have over the interpolation is quite hidden, and not enough. It has no real IK. Is all fk. It has no way to make joint pinning or the like (Blender has)
But it has a big market being simple to learn, and loaded of game exporters integrated in it.(md2, x, b3d...all work well)
In Blender you can do most of the advanced stuff, but allways in a way mroe long a complex, less accurate and less perfect way than animating with xsi, less powerfully, and less also than doing in Max or Gmax, even.
I'd like to have time to work on learning well this tool, but seems I continue with projects and life stuff, and have my documentation and videos almost intact...bad thing is as I learnt what I need to bang animations, seems lost interest for the moment to go deeper, hehe. I'll do at some point.
Yup, better have a monitor reaching 1280...most TFT 17" reach that very well, if of some quality...
I use it with 800x600, but due to the use of certain layout, and as I only use th very raw character animation core stuff, and as I use to with any tool, I did set up my key bindings for the tools I'd use...
In max, Character STudio curves are *a pain* to handle, while standard max bezier handles for that and other tools,make much more sense... Yup, the ease in , and out, and the huge world of control you have just handling properly the curve is important, but b3d engine is not the only (i said wrong, probably the format carry it, indeed, I'm sure of that: is the b3d engine what can't play it) engine with only option of doing just linear interpolation.
Quake3 used to make some kind of smooth non linear interpolation (quake 2 was linear, so, md2 too) for md3...
Sorry if I don't reply...I hope to remember to check it back, but lately I'm not much into Blitz worlds...