Tutorial - Animated Objects (cga)
Overview
This section covers how to setup simple animated geometry. *.cga's can be used in a wide variety of situations, from single one-shot animations to complex setups such as vehicles with multiple animations.
Rules for CGA's & Exporting Animations
- Transform controllers must be converted to tension-continuity-bias (TCB), for both position and rotation tracks.
- *.cga animations (*.anm) do not support compression!
- If the object only requires 1 animation, then this will be stored within the *.cga file as the Default animation.
- The Default animation will be the entire timeline.
- Multiple animations for the same object must be saved & exported out as *.anm files. These have to follow a strict naming convention.
- Must be prefixed with the *.cga's name.
Correct: hmmwv_door_left_front_enter.anm
Incorrect: door_left_front_enter.anm
- Must be prefixed with the *.cga's name.
- The first underscore within the filename denotes the start of the animation name in the engine.
- When inside the Character Tool and when previewing the *.cga's animations only the animation name is shown and not the entire filename.
Pic1: Note the filename difference between the actual filename in the .pak file vs. what is seen in the Character Tool
Tutorials
Depending on the DCC tool used - the links below show you how to setup *.cga's.
Distinction between a Maya CGA export and Max CGA export
Maya: | 3ds Max: |
|---|---|
| A *.cga file exported from Maya always needs at least ONE *.anm file to have animation, so make use of the "Anim Manager" to set at least a time range of a "default" animation. | A "default" named animation is always inside the *.cga file exported from Max. You needn't export an *.anm file separately. |
| Maya scene hierarchy for *.cga is more complex than in Max. This involves adding "*_helper" group node(s) and a standard material export. First this is because the "*_helper" node acts as the ROOT and any root node may not have any animations. | Straightforward scene hierarchy. |
| Naming of your Maya groups, the "cryExportNode"(s) especially, is important for your *.cga and animation file names. Since Maya depends on names (the string value), you must consider this when building the export hierarchy. | Naming of your *.cga object and its animation (and at long last, your *.cga & *.anm files) is critical when it involves multiple *.cga animations. |
| Only the "*_group" nodes in your Maya scene hierarchy can hold animation data (animCurves). Any other animated transform node will be ignored in the *.cga export. | Convert your "Animation Controllers" to TCB-type Controllers before export. This may include baking the animation frame-by-frame and collapsing any layered controllers (List Controllers!). |
| Exporting multiple animations is straightforward using "Anim Manager". | Current *.cga export for Max is a bit awkward with the CRYENGINE Export utility when it comes to generating multiple *.anm files. |