Bone Program for TrueVision characters.

[Vetrijar]

Is there an easy bone program out there to do the skeleton for a character? and character animator would be cool too.  

I have TrueSpace 5 and can't get the bones to export with the character for the game, and I also have MilkShape 3d 1.6.0 and can't find any good sources that help me create the bones correctly for animation.

List any kind if you know of any.

[Device]

Well as for myself I use 3DCanvas.  I have found it to be a great cross between the simplicity of Milkshape and the feature set of 3DMax.  There are alot of great official tutorials for using it that can be found right on there website.  3DCanvas is capable of exporting in nearly every model format you would need for game development, and best of all it costs very little when compared to lightwave, 3DMax, or Mya.

Here is a link if you want to know more.
http://www.amabilis.com/

[DavidAWinter]

In order to get skinned meshes to export properly with bones in TrueSpace 5 you need to use the TrueX exporter plugin. It's free and you can download it from the TrueSpace resources page on the Caligari website. TrueSpace 6 has native X skinned mesh support.

[Bloody-Angel]

Although i use Max and Milkshape.  Device has been subtly pushing me over to canvas.  I have yet to give it a serious sit down session and try and figure it out with out loosing my temper.  

However this is true of just about any 3dmodeling program, Until you learn how to use it.  With there newest update, they've been putting out some fairly eye-popping graphics.  And its slowly tempting me to check out how easy it is now.  

Now i put just about my full backing behind Max and Milkshape, simply because i know how to use them and use them well.  I will continue to use them probably clear up till after beta of dibasu.  Main reasaon is that don't really have enough time to jump horse's in midstream.

Max and Milk are very easy to use.  But if canvas gets the job done that these two do.  Then i will be switching over to it soon enough.

-BA

[Slider]

I also tried Character Studio. It's not bad either.

[Quarantine]

I'll throw in a vote for 3DCanvas. It really is just as simple as milkshape(albeit with more features to learn, so it takes a little longer to learn) but interface wise it is pretty easy. I havent really done to much texturing in it, so I cant say how easy it is to unwrap or anything.

[DavidAWinter]

3DCanvas is a cool program. And for the price is a good value. If you don't have the money to spend on TrueSpace then 3DCanvas is a good alternative. Obviously not nearly the number of features as TrueSpace but for the money that is ok. Personally I've never liked Milkshape. Once you use something like TrueSpace you'll realize just how limiting Milkshape really is.

[Vetrijar]

Thanks! I'll check those out.  
I have a program that lets you create characters without drawing them and the bones was the only part I was having trouble with now.  That character program is at www.fxrealms.com by the way..

[Vetrijar]

The only one I can't find is TrueX exporter plugin for TrueSpace 5.  I looked on the caligari.com site and it's not listed anywhere in the free plugins.  Do you have a direct link to that file or can you email that one to me?  researchsurfer@comcast.net

[DavidAWinter]

the TrueX plugin can be found here..

http://pages.prodigy.net/rwcordell/index.htm