XNA comes with a great foundation for importing FBX files. There's also a fantastic sample from the Creators Website that runs through the process of an Animated FBX. However, there's a problem when exporting an animated Model from Maya. When Maya exports an FBX file, it will export the animation all in one track. This causes a problem of animating the model in your XNA games.

So, after crawling through Google and the forums, the best solution I could find, was to create a document with the individual keys and it's animation, so that the Skinned Model Processor could load the animation clips itself.

So, for example, Key 1 - 20 could be the Walk Cycle, and Key 21 - 40 could be the Jump Cycle, etc. etc.

So, the text file would look something like this :

"walk" 1 20

"jump" 21 40

"leftpunch" 41 45

"rightpunch" 46 50

To accomplish this we need to add code to the SkinnedModelProcessor.cs file in the SkinnedModel Sample from the XNA Creators Website.

Dictionary<string, AnimationClip> SplitAnimations(AnimationClip rootAnimation, string animationDefs)

{

    Dictionary<string, AnimationClip> splitAnimations = new Dictionary<string, AnimationClip>();

    StreamReader fileReader = new StreamReader(animationDefs);

    while (!fileReader.EndOfStream)

    {

        string line = fileReader.ReadLine();

        string[] parts = line.Split(' ');

        string animName = parts[0].Trim('"');


        int startFrame = int.Parse(parts[1]);

        int endFrame = int.Parse(parts[2]);

        splitAnimations[animName] = ExtractAnimation(rootAnimation, startFrame, endFrame);

    }

    fileReader.Close();

    return splitAnimations;

}

AnimationClip ExtractAnimation(AnimationClip rootAnimation, int startFrame, int endFrame)

{

    TimeSpan startTime = ConvertFrameNumberToTimeSpan(startFrame);

    TimeSpan endTime = ConvertFrameNumberToTimeSpan(endFrame);

    List<Keyframe> keyframes = new List<Keyframe>();

    foreach (Keyframe keyframe in rootAnimation.Keyframes)

    {

        if (keyframe.Time >= startTime && keyframe.Time <= endTime)

        {

            Keyframe newKeyframe = new Keyframe(keyframe.Bone, keyframe.Time - startTime, keyframe.Transform);

            keyframes.Add(newKeyframe);

        }

    }

    return new AnimationClip(endTime - startTime, keyframes);

}

Next, in the Process function we need to change the following line :

// Convert animation data to our runtime format.

Dictionary<string, AnimationClip> animationClips;

animationClips = ProcessAnimations(skeleton.Animations, bones);

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To :

// Convert animation data to our runtime format.

Dictionary<string, AnimationClip> animationClips;

animationClips = SplitAnimations(ProcessAnimations(skeleton.Animations, bones)[0].animClip, "definitions.txt");

Now that you have that, you need to include your definitions.txt file in your Content folder. Now you can start your animation clips by calling the animation clip name as follows :

AnimationClip clip = skinningData.AnimationClips["walk"];

animationPlayer.StartClip(clip);

Sources :

http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/1415.aspx?PageIndex=2

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/skinnedmodel

I've slowly been going over some tutorials for Maya the last semester at Michigan Tech. Now that I'm on Thanksgiving break I've had time to sit down and flesh out a model with the information I've learned. I decided to try modeling a female head.

This is so much easier said than done. Not only is it difficult to make a model look like a human head, but to also make it look feminine is incredibly difficult. So here is what I came up with, (My 2nd try) :

It didn't turn out too bad for my first attempts at modeling a head. I ended up trying out the strategy of starting with a single polygon plane and extruding the edges out. I started with the eye and worked my way outwards. I may end up working on it some more when I get back up to Michigan Tech. I may even try to create a full body and try my hand at animating it.

Not sure where I got the reference Image, most likely Deviant Art

[YouTube]