Animation Compositing

[StakFallT]

I did a search on Animation Compositing and came up with nothing, so then I did combine animation and came up with about 16, but none of the subjects looked like what my question is about. I did see one that kind of tippy-toe'ed around it though.. My question is, how can I accomplish Animation Compositing (Layer'ing two animations together to create a third one on the fly; for example: jumping and walking = walking through air).

More specifically, how can I accomplish this code-wise? I guess I would probably be looking at some sort of direct-x file that has all of the basic animations "sectionized" but does TV handle it, and how well? I -definitely- feel given my project (a couple of years of on and off dev. time) being an mmo that by not having the very core animation system of my game using such a technique, that I'd be painting myself into a corner. And with such a massive (no phun intended) project, it could be disastrous if I don't write my game-code flexible enough (to handle a.c.) and wind up having to change very foundational stuff to my game.

Also, I've done alot of searching for this technique and seen ALOT of "animation, compositing" but hardly any "animation compositing"  which is quite a big difference, the first page deals mostly with making an animation and exporting it to like a video and overlaying post-render effects or just animation and video-colors as two separate topics, the second (what I hardly seen any of) deals with the combination of multiple simple animations to make a third one on the fly. So any kind of sites that actually talk about this would be seriously awesome. I don't know where else to look, except maybe books at Borders or something.. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

-- StakFallT

[kaboonst]

Hey all, I am at the point in my project where I need animation compositing, but can't seem to find anything about it except this post, so I have replied.

I am fearing that there is no mechanism for animation compositing in TV3D, so maybe I will have to do something like add transform data to each bone seperately, and create my own timeline thing. but then I will have to take into consideration the animation blending effects, which would lead me to think it would be alot easier to do all the animation stuff myself... please tell me there is an animation compositing mechanism in TV3D.

I have spent alot of time today looking for anything related to this stuff, and my deadline is looming...

[Aki]

Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called “blue screen,” “green screen,” “chroma key,” and other names. Today, most though not all compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation.

Oh my god.

They're evolving.