| Submitted by , posted on 19 August 2001 |

Image Description, by The above picture shows a few models animated with Cal3D, a free skeletal-based character animation library I am developing in my spare-time. It will be used in the 3d clients for WorldForge, but its design is very general and flexible, so many other projects can benefit from it too.
Here is a list of the most interesting features:

> - Transformation of vertices and normals according to one or more weighted bones (no hardcoded limit).
> - Powerful animation system that allows seamless blending and mixing between different animation tracks.
> - Flexible material handling with unlimited materials and map-channels.
> - VIPM for level-of-detail that takes material borders into account.
> - Platform- and graphic API-independency. Written in "vanilla" C++ and STL.
> - Unified exporter framework to support different 3d modellers, currently working with 3d Studio MAX / Character Studio.
> - Released under a free license, source-code and all specifications are open.

A short description of the stuff you can see in the screenshot:

> - An animaton cycle of a segmented skeleton with rigid bone-assignments on the bottom.
> - A one-skin paladin with about 18 different materials and up to 5 influences per vertex on the top-left.
> - Tux doing some sort of hip-hop in the middle.
> - A high-poly model (~50'000 faces) that was used to test the LOD algorithms in the library on the top-right.

An animation system is hard to present with a screenshot, so I suggest you take a closer look at The Cally Demo which shows many features in an interactive way. It can be found on the project website with everything else, such as more screenshots, source-code, file-formats, message-board etc.
That was my humble part, now I am eagerly awating your critical feedback ;)
Regards
Bruno Heidelberger

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