Files with extension *.kanim represent "Kambi VRML engine's animations". These are XML files that describe animation as a sequence of files, all with the same structure. The animation is created by interpolating among the files in specified order and with specified speed.
Blender exporter for this format is available.
Before you say that this is a lousy way of storing animations, and storing everything inside one file is obviously more flexible for complicated animations: I know. And VRML >= 2 even has nodes (called interpolators) to express this animation inside a file: I know that too. But there is no existing open-source professional 3D authoring tool that can generate such VRML 2 files. (By which I mean: Blender can't export animations to VRML 2 files yet, and Blender is *the best*.) AFAIK, of course.
For more: see description of animation handling in Kambi VRML engine.
So for now, this is a practical and working way of creating animations: just export from Blender a couple of times, making a couple of VRMLs, and then create *.kanim file to glue them all together and load it into my engine.
File format is simple:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<animation // Root node is always "animation".
// All it's attributes are optional
// (default values are shown below).
// Some of it's attributes should be treated like a
// "hint for the renderer". General programs like
// view3dscene and demo_animation may honour them,
// but more specialized programs (like "The Castle"
// game) may ignore them, since "they know better".
scenes_per_time="30" // Suggested number of scenes per time to be generated.
// This is a hint for the renderer --- by default it's
// 30, but it may be ignored, and you don't have to really
// understand what it means... If you want, see
// TVRMLGLAnimation class documentation.
optimization="separate-shape-states-no-transform"
// Suggested optimization method.
// This is again only a hint for the renderer, and may
// be ignored, see `view3dscene --help' to see the
// list of avail values.
// Ignore this if you don't know what it means.
equality_epsilon="0.001"
// Epsilon to use when comparing animation frames
// and deciding which parts didn't move at all between
// two adjacent frames. You can set this even to literal
// "0.0", but this may cause a lot of memory to be wasted
// when loading large animation. It's better to set
// this to some very small value --- so small that you're
// sure that user will not notice such small move
// anyway.
loop="false" // Should the animation loop ? This is a hint for
// the renderer, and may be ignored. Allowed values
// are "false" and "true", not case-sensitive.
backwards="false" // Should the animation go backwards after going
// forward ? Allowed values
// are "false" and "true", not case-sensitive.
>
// A number of <frame> nodes should follow. At least one is required.
// Note that exactly one <frame> node will actually define a still scene,
// you need at least 2 frames if you want a real animation.
<frame
file_name="file_1.wrl" // This is a required attribute, and specifies
// the filename from which to load this
// animation frame. Any 3D file format is allowed here:
// most of all, VRML, but also
// other formats understood by my engine.
time="0.0" // This is a required attribute specyfying a
// time of this frame. For now, all frames
// must be specified in the strictly increasing order
// of their "time".
// This is understood to be in seconds.
/>
// For example, assume that the second <frame> node follows.
// So this defines an animation that interpolates between
// file_1.wrl and file_2.wrl in exactly 1 second.
<frame file_name="file_2.wrl" time="1.0" />
</animation>
| Copyright Michalis Kamburelis. This page is considered part of documentation of my programs, and you are free to modify and further distribute it on terms of GNU General Public License. |
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