In a thread I started a little while back I explained my current method of animation: A skeleton file which has only bone information is loaded, then the pieces of the model are loaded in and parented to the bones of the skeleton (which is the animated mesh, the other pieces are loaded as normal unanimated meshes). This is great since it stops the very slow B3D vertex manipulation from happening, BUT...it results in very high surface counts so fast it kills performance anyway.
But, someone told me that it is possible to animate a .b3d file without vertex manipulation by attaching the individual pieces of the mesh to bones, without rigging them or something to that effect. This would result in a single mesh file being loaded (easier), with only 1 surface (if using a single texture for all the pieces), which animates basically the way I described above (tomb raider style).
I tried to explain this to my artist, but he's clueless about how to go about it. So, my first question, is it true this can be done as I was told earlier, and second, how would I go about explaining the process to my artist?
But, someone told me that it is possible to animate a .b3d file without vertex manipulation by attaching the individual pieces of the mesh to bones, without rigging them or something to that effect. This would result in a single mesh file being loaded (easier), with only 1 surface (if using a single texture for all the pieces), which animates basically the way I described above (tomb raider style).
I tried to explain this to my artist, but he's clueless about how to go about it. So, my first question, is it true this can be done as I was told earlier, and second, how would I go about explaining the process to my artist?