4.15.4 GenMesh Animation

The shape of a Genmesh can be animated using an animation controller (classes iGenMeshAnimationControl and iGenMeshAnimationControlFactory).

An animation controller is given the ability to modify the state and shape of the mesh, i.e. mainly the main render buffers of the mesh such as the vertices, the triangles, the normals, the bitangents, along with other parameters such as the bounding box.

An animation controller is associated to a Genmesh using the methods iGeneralFactoryState::SetAnimationControlFactory() or iGeneralMeshState::SetAnimationControl(). If a Genmesh has an animation controller, then this controller will have its various methods iGenMeshAnimationControl::UpdateXXX() called every frame, whenever the mesh is visible, and allowing the controller to modify the Genmesh.

There are several different animation controllers already available in Crystal Space. These are:

• Scripted transformations

  Plugin: crystalspace.mesh.anim.genmesh

  This plugin allows to define sets of geometric transformations to be applied on the whole mesh, such as rotation, trnaslation, scaling. The transformations to be applied are defined in XML scripts.

• Soft body simulation

  Plugin: crystalspace.dynamics.softanim

  This plugin allows to animate automatically a Genmesh depending on the motion and deformation made by a soft body that is physically simulated.

• Skeletal animation

  Plugin: crystalspace.mesh.anim.skeleton2

  This plugin allows to animate the Genmesh based on the motion of a skeleton. This plugin has however became obsolete by the Animesh.

• PD lights

  Plugin: crystalspace.mesh.anim.pdlight

  todo!

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